Ted Grimsrud

My friend and EMU colleague, Dave Brubaker (a.k.a., “Mr. Make-it-Practical”), who teaches in our Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, has challenged me to push out more some of the allusions I made at the end of my “Will Mennonite Church USA Survive” post concerning the future of our denomination. This is an exact quote from Dave: “I think a number of us have ‘imagined’ a different structural arrangement…the key question is how we get there.” So, all in good fun, I thought it might be interesting to spin out a fantasy about “how we get there.”

I want to emphasize that this is a fantasy. Not that I am not serious. But this is totally a thought experiment, not a serious proposal. I’m just the “ivory tower” thinker, right?

Cooperation from people at the top

In my fantasy there are key roles played by people at the top in MC USA and, even more so, by people at the grassroots. Certainly, it matters little what the people at the top do if they don’t have support from the grassroots. On the other hand, those at the grassroots might have quite a bit they can accomplish even without the cooperation of those at the top (at least, this is the case in the world of my fantasy). But it would be nice to have that cooperation.

The main thing the people at the top might do is publicly explicitly to promise to refuse to cooperate with any efforts to kick anybody out of the denomination—be it a congregation or conference. They could insist that we are all part of the same family, and that what that family-ness means is that everyone in the family has the responsibility to be there and to have their voice be part of the group’s discernment. Now, I can’t imagine exactly how we can get to the place where this promise would be given. Certainly, partly it may simply be a matter of luck in having people appointed or elected to these positions who would believe in making such a promise. At the same time, perhaps if strong and clear communication were given to people at the top from a sufficient number of grassroots people, they could persuaded to make and hold to such a promise.

It seems that a promise not to kick people out is a prerequisite for genuine discernment processes. However, people who truly care about the well-being of MC USA will insist on expressing their convictions regardless of whether they are promised safety or not. So, promises from the people at the top are not absolutely essential.

Something else people at the top could do is be willing to devote the denomination’s staff time, monetary resources, and publicity channels to support the kind of regional and local conversations I will sketch below. Again, such support may not be absolutely essential—people who care about the well-being of MC USA will work at creating contexts for conversation regardless of support from the top, but such support could help a great deal. Continue reading “How Mennonite Church USA might survive: A fantasy” →