Didn't read it word for word but looks interesting.
This is a ridiculous distortion of the conservative mennonite position. Classic straw man argument.
J.M.
Are you sure it is? Unfortunately, that's how I've seen things work in certain circles. In your particular church denomination, I've seen they handle these things much, much better.
In other circles, it seems some entire churches and groups of churches are planning to keep doing "business as usual". Until that stops, people like Trudy are going to keep pointing it out and talking about it.
Didn't read it word for word but looks interesting.
This is a ridiculous distortion of the conservative mennonite position. Classic straw man argument.
J.M.
Are you sure it is? Unfortunately, that's how I've seen things work in certain circles. In your particular church denomination, I've seen they handle these things much, much better.
In other circles, it seems some entire churches and groups of churches are planning to keep doing "business as usual". Until that stops, people like Trudy are going to keep pointing it out and talking about it.
Josh, I only know what I see. I can’t speak to the dark corners of the movement that I have not seen, not that I deny their existence. We can only work where we are.
Trudy wants us to continue to think about our approach to the problem and to question how we are dealing with it. I thought in our home area we were doing better than some until I recently found out that the local police force has 400 cases on their books that are "under investigation." They cover a relatively small area, but one that has many old order Mennonite and Amish, conservative Mennonites and Mexican Mennonites. I don't have any idea how current those 400 cases are and what all is included, but it sounds as though someone has a lot of work ahead!
When Trudy says these things “abound” and thanks for the “few” good men, this is my disconnect. It doesn’t resonate with me at all.
This is, regardless of the exact matter (abuse in this case), the normal language people use when they leave a church and want to share why they left. They get to the place where that bad is simply to much to put up with. I hope we all have that point in us. But many of us may not have been, or are not there.
In my experience, I’d say swap the “few” and “abound” around. But that is based on my experience.
I’m not sure if she is seeing the forest or the trees. Specifically on “few”/“abound” that is really the crux of the matter, isn’t it?
I think the areas wherein the numbers lie are part of the matter; it should concern us no matter if those who are abused are few or many.
Central to this whole thing are the beliefs within our institutions which drive the sweeping under the carpet, make us want to force forgiveness, enable leaders to make judgment calls on "true" repentance, etc. (This is my opinion, people can disagree with me.)
I don't expect sin to be completely absent in a church because a church is made up of humans. God calls us to repentance when sin happens.
We may be disagree about whether we have beliefs which make us vulnerable to hidden scandals. (I think we do.) I am interested in finding the beliefs which enable it.
