Tag Archives: menno simons

Why I Do Not Cease Teaching and Writing

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I have been teaching the Bible and writing about Christian theology in various ways, in a variety of settings, for over twenty years now. This has mostly been a rewarding task. I love learning new things or discovering new ways of seeing things, and I love seeing the same light bulb turn on for others. But this has also, at times, proven to be disheartening, even tremendously discouraging.

So why is it that I keep teaching and preaching? Why do I keep blogging and writing? Well, beyond the basic fascination I have with the Bible and theology, deeper than the enjoyment I get from interacting with others about these things, there is simply this: our world—including we who are Christians—desperately needs the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I am convinced of this: the gospel is our only hope. Jesus offers us the only way to true life.

“Wait a minute, Michael. That sounds so exclusive, so fundamentalist even. I thought you were one of those progressives.”

Well, I don’t know what box I fit into, to be honest. I say a hearty “Amen!” to all the gospel texts—John 3:16, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” “There is no other name given under heaven by which we can be saved,” “The gospel is the power of God for salvation,” and more. Yet I’m convinced that many modern understandings of the gospel are in fact misunderstandings of the gospel.

While I would be delighted to have more and more people claiming to be followers of Jesus, I’m far more concerned about having more and more people actually following Jesus. While I would be thrilled to have crowds of people claiming the name of Jesus, I’m far more interested in seeing human beings—regardless of their religion—living out the way of Jesus. This is, in fact, the point of the Great Commission: not to make converts to a religion, but to make disciples of Jesus.

And when I hear key Bible words like “salvation” and “life,” I don’t hear these as “salvation from hell to heaven” or “living forever with God after death.” Yes, we have the promise of being “with the Lord” beyond death. But the biblical language of “salvation” is about rescue and restoration: rescuing us from all the ways we harm ourselves, others, and our world (our “sin,” in other words) and restoring us and all humanity and all creation to the way God originally intended things to be. This is why these words, “salvation” and “life,” are so often connected to other key words in the Bible: God’s “kingdom,” “new creation,” “justice,” “peace,” “liberation,” “reconciliation,” and more.

So here’s what I mean when I say “the gospel is our only hope” and that “Jesus offers us the only way to true life”: if we truly want to experience permanent justice, lasting peace, and flourishing life as human individuals, as a human race, and as a planet—salvation, in other words—the only way forward is to follow the way of love and peace as embodied in Jesus.

Jesus’ “gospel of the kingdom” teaching can be summarized with the word “love”: we are to love God with every dimension of our being, and we are to love other persons as we love ourselves. These two loves are inseparable: our love for God is shown by our love for others. Jesus taught that loving others means giving ourselves for their good, even when this means sacrifice or suffering for us. He taught that those whom we are to love include not only persons who are like us, but also those who are different from us, even those who are opposed to us, who may even wish us harm.

Jesus’ gospel teaching on love included the way of peace. This way of peace is the difficult path of nonviolent resistance to sin and evil powers: resisting harmful attitudes, words, and actions both within ourselves individually and among us collectively, in order to effect positive change; but doing so in creative, nonviolent ways that seek restoration and reconciliation and not retribution, ways that may involve the voluntary suffering of oneself in order to bring about a greater good for all.

Jesus’ way of love and peace requires a devoted faith in God: freely committing ourselves to the God who is love, whatever may come. It also requires a resilient hope in God: persistently trusting in God to bring about good even, potentially, through our own suffering and death.

All this Jesus not only taught, he lived it out: forgiving sinners, welcoming outcasts, showing compassion, healing freely, standing up to oppressive powers-that-be, even enduring suffering and death because of sin and evil, ultimately experiencing true justice and peace and flourishing life through death, having been resurrected by God. Jesus taught the gospel, and he lived out the gospel—and so he modeled the gospel and planted the seed of the gospel in the world.

If we truly want to experience permanent justice, lasting peace, and flourishing life as human individuals, as a human race, and as a planet—true salvation—the only way forward is to follow this way of love and peace as embodied in Jesus: loving God through loving others, nonviolently resisting sin and evil both in ourselves and in the world, trusting in God to bring about good among us and in the world through this way of Jesus.

This is what I mean when I say that the gospel is our only hope. This is what I mean when I say that Jesus offers us the only way to true life.

And this is why I do not cease teaching and writing. This is what motivates me to keep on keeping on, even when I get discouraged, even in the face of opposition. Our world is filled with too much bigotry, cruelty, injustice, and oppression, for me to stop speaking the gospel. There are too many different being excluded, too many vulnerable being exploited, too many sick who are dying and poor who are trampled on for me to stop teaching the way of Jesus. There is too much guilt and shame and ignorance and fear for me to stop proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ.

menno-simonsAll you Mennonite history buffs will know that I’ve pilfered the title of this blog post from Menno Simons himself. He wrote a tract with this title, and some of the themes of my blog post are echoes of the original Menno Simons tract (other themes from his tract I’m happy to leave aside). Let me conclude with a couple of my favourite quotes from the very Menno in Mennonite:

True evangelical faith is of such a nature that it cannot lay dormant; but manifests itself in all righteousness and works of love; it dies unto flesh and blood; destroys all forbidden lusts and desires; cordially seeks, serves and fears God; clothes the naked; feeds the hungry; consoles the afflicted; shelters the miserable; aids and consoles all the oppressed; returns good for evil; serves those that injure it; prays for those that persecute it; teaches, admonishes and reproves with the Word of the Lord; seeks that which is lost; binds up that which is wounded; heals that which is diseased and saves that which is sound. The persecution, suffering and anxiety which befalls it for the sake of the truth of the Lord, is to it a glorious joy and consolation.

And then Simons’ concluding words:

Beloved sisters and brothers, do not deviate from the doctrine and life of Christ.

Amen, brother Menno. Amen.

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On Being “Mennonite”

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Okay, so being “Mennonite” is not as straightforward as it might seem.

For some, the word “Mennonite” brings to mind plain dress and beards, head coverings and communal living. For others, it means having a “Mennonite” name like Friesen or Wiebe or Dyck. For some it involves speaking low German and eating Borscht with Zwieback as you play the “Mennonite game” of finding all the relatives you have in common.

But Menno Simons himself, the very “Menno” in “Mennonite,” didn’t fit most of these cultural descriptions of “Mennonite.” And neither do most of the Mennonites in the world today, as the video above nicely demonstrates.

So what does it mean to be “Mennonite”?

Like all questions of identity, it’s a complicated one, and different people will answer differently. I am a Mennonite by choice, not by birth, and I’ve reflected on this quite a bit for myself in coming to that decision. If I had to boil “being Mennonite” down to three things, here’s what they would be.

First and foremost, being Mennonite means being committed to Jesus. I know, I know: all Christians are committed to Jesus in some sense, either as God worthy of worship, or as Saviour bringing deliverance from sin, or as Healer of our infirmities and diseases, or otherwise. Mennonites agree with these understandings of Jesus. But Mennonites are distinguished by their commitment to Jesus in a particular sense: we strive to take seriously Jesus as Lord, especially in following Jesus’ teachings and way of life as presented in the Gospels.

This particular commitment to Jesus has several implications. One is that we try to read Scripture with Jesus at the centre. Jesus provides the clearest window on God and God’s will, so we read Scripture to know and follow Jesus, which in turn (we hope) makes us better readers of Scripture. Another is that we refuse to give ultimate allegiance to anything or anyone else, whether nations or political systems or economic structures. We are not anarchists, and we do seek to live within the laws of whatever land we find ourselves in, but Jesus is Lord, not Caesar, not any of these “powers of this age.”

A second commitment flows out of this ultimate commitment to Jesus: being Mennonite means being committed to community. Jesus gathered disciples around himself to be with him and learn from him and follow him, so we as disciples of Jesus continue to gather around him for these same reasons. We see the church as God’s family, as brothers and sisters in Christ, caring for each other. We see the church as Christ’s body, united in our diversity to serve each other and continue Jesus’ kingdom work in the world.

Again, I hear you: all Christians are committed to community in some sense. But Mennonites have taken this commitment as seriously as any other Christian tradition and more seriously than most. Sometimes this serious commitment to community has not been healthy, as some Mennonites have insulated and isolated their communities from the world to such an extent they have been unable to obey Jesus’ call to be salt and light in the world. But some of the most caring, most challenging, most encouraging, most welcoming, and most egalitarian communities I have been involved in or have seen have been Mennonite.

A third commitment stands out for Mennonites, again flowing out of our ultimate commitment to Jesus: being Mennonite means being committed to peace. The Mennonite churches are among the historic “peace churches,” those Christian traditions that have particularly emphasized nonviolence and peacemaking.

This means taking Jesus’ teaching seriously, that we are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, that we are not to resist evil with evil, but with acts of mercy. This means following in Jesus’ path of love and nonviolence: overcoming evil in the world not by violence or aggression, but with self-giving, even suffering, love. This means dedicating ourselves to Jesus’ kingdom vision, seeking first God’s kingdom and God’s justice, yearning and praying and so striving for this kingdom to come on earth: a vision of swords turned into plows, of justice and mercy met together; a vision of good news for the poor, the prisoners, the blind, the oppressed; a vision of the least being feasted, the last being first, and the lost being found.

Someone might well think what I’ve described is more generally what it means to be “Anabaptist,” not particularly “Mennonite.” Undoubtedly that’s true: these are really Anabaptist commitments. And I’ve known Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Baptists, United Church and other folk who hold these commitments in much the same way I do.

To this I would say, “Praise God!”—though in four-part harmony, slowly, a cappella. (Yes, another Mennonite stereotype, which, like Borscht and Zwieback, I happen to like. So sue me—I’ll give you my cloak.)

But I would also say that, while one can be Anabaptist and Anglican, or a kind of Anabaptist-Catholic, or otherwise bring Anabaptist commitments into conversation with other Christian traditions, it is in being Mennonite that I am most comfortable, and most challenged, in my commitment to peace, my commitment to community, and ultimately my commitment to Jesus.

We Mennonites don’t do this perfectly by any means. Sometimes we mess it up badly. But mostly we do it pretty well.

Cross-posted from http://www.mordenmennonitechurch.wordpress.com. © Michael W. Pahl.