Star-bellied Mennonites

My favourite watercolour artist and neighbour, Brian Hicks

It seems tragic to me that we have now reached the point where the defining factor in a person's Mennonite identity is his/her opinion on whether or not the church should honour gay persons' desires to solemnize their commitment to each other in their church. In the USA, the large Lancaster Conference is working on plans to separate from MC USA; except for the gay marriage issue, this wouldn't be happening.

I'm reminded of Dr. Seuss' The Sneetches where a physical attribute is allowed to divide, where a certain feature—or lack of it—escalates to become blatant and unnecessary discrimination blocking out the central truth—which is discovered at the end: WE ARE ALL SNEETCHES. 

It's a children's book, not the Bible, but the core of Dr. Seuss' parable might be something we want to revisit: the unwarranted escalation of one apparently important difference has the power to obscure our essential similarities. What these essential similarities are in us Mennonite Sneetches—priesthood of all believers, commitment to non-violence, importance of community, gospel-informed living, service as an expression of faith—are being swept off the table by our current preoccupation.

The same-sex marriage issue has become a star on our bellies. Some have it and some don't and in order to live together, we must all either have the star, or we must all have the star removed. 

Or else belly stars must come to occupy the place they deserve among Sneetches on the beaches: an interesting difference but not of the significance required to deny our Sneetchesness.

 

There are historical and cultural precedents for the division among Mennonite Sneetches that replicate Dr. Seuss' belly stars. In my stream of Mennonite faith, the tension between cultural adaptation and conservative isolationism can be traced back (at least) to the Chortitza Colony in Ukrainian Russia. Then, as now, Mennonite leadership was struggling with the balancing of two mighty influences: Mennonites were gradually absorbing cultural norms imported in large part from contacts with Western Europe while a reactionary movement to shun this development was taking hold, particularly in the last half of the 19^th and first decades of the 20^th centuries. There were those who saw progressive cultural changes (fashion, food, music, enterprise) as normal and non-threatening to faith while another stream (influenced again by conservative views imported from Western Europe) raised alarm bells and ended up divorcing themselves from the “liberal” mainstream which they saw as corrupted.

That's not the whole story, of course. Questions of wealth and power alongside poverty, landedness and landlessness, divergence of political opinion, progressive educational institutions, etc. can't be discounted in the struggles between the star-bellied and the ones who had “no stars upon thars.” But historical lessons should be studied, at least, even if the end conclusion is—according to the entrepreneurial villain in Dr. Seuss—“you can't teach a Sneech.”

Like others, the church I attend is embarking on more discussions about potential moves forward in light of the conundrum the same-sex marriage debate has put us in. The record on “discussing this particular issue to a satisfactory conclusion” is abysmal. The stars seem to have been painted onto our bellies in indelible ink.

 

My fears are these: 1) that for many gays and lesbians in our fellowship (whose permission to accept themselves as they are has largely been granted by the changing general culture around us) will find the final chapter on their acceptance as Christians and Mennonite church members-in-good-standing to be a definite maybe, and 2) that once-powerful, supportive relationships will be sundered over a disagreement on one matter that can't possibly be described as core, or even essential to being the church in the world today.

 

But as in the Chortitz colony, there will never come a genii to grant us three wishes, but we will either struggle through our differences in the hope of a good end until progress overtakes us, or we will simply throw in the towel in sheer frustration.

 

Or maybe there really is a time to build and a time to tear down.