Old Mennonite Student Interviews?

[RZehr]

There was a time that I saw this video, and I'm trying to locate it again. I have not had success with Google. As I remember it, it seemed to be a video from the 1960's-1980's, that was made on a college campus. I think it was a Mennonite college, but if it wasn't, it was showing and interviewing Mennonite students. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Any help locating would be appreciated.

[cmbl]

Could be "Mennonites: the Peaceful Revolution"
A short clip from that documentary, including college student interviews, is on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNDtEFmoBxQ

[RZehr]

WOW! That was quick! That is exactly the right one I was looking for. Thanks!

[HondurasKeiser]

Every time I watch this it makes me sad...and I see myself in it.

[temporal1]

Every time I watch this it makes me sad...and I see myself in it.

These students must be my age. i feel numb watching. so innocent. so vulnerable. so expectant.

It would be fascinating if the different students could view this now, then speak to how they see things today.
Not together, as they were in this video. Individually. Casually. Candidly.

i would be specially interested in the young woman with head covering, stating her interest in family.
she was not the “star” speaker. i’m surprised her view was included (CBS presentation). i doubt CBS would make that “mistake” now.

at the time, for me, not with Anabaptist experience, “the messages” were definitely that females must compete with males, or be rank failures. wanting marriage+family was “not enough.” wanting factory work or blue collar work was not enough.

i loved school+learning!
but i had this deep desire from early childhood that i wanted to be wife+mother.
i’m not sure exactly when i finally decided i was just going to admit it to myself and any who might care.
it took time. i kept searching for, “what do i want??” (knowing it couldn’t be wife+mother.)

when young ones are told they can’t want something, they waste time trying to deny it in search of what will be acceptable.

1967 was Vietnam. birth control pills. MS magazine. LSD/recreational drugs. hippies, flower children, love children.
sit-ins. protests. “hep” public school teachers serving as pied pipers for social engineering experiments. experiments for everything. Eastern, and made-up religions+cults. rejecting (not loving) parents and everything familiar.**

**this is where the flower children lost me.
they claimed to “love everyone.” they did not. they HATED everyone+everything they came from.
i sensed hypocrisy then. it continues. the facade destroys.

i count my blessings i was removed from most of the pitfalls, mostly because, not coming from a “comfortable” home, i had to WORK so hard to keep afloat, i did not have time, money, or energy to devote to self-indulgences. my busy peers came from comfortable homes they could afford to rebel against, knowing full-well, when the party was over, they could+would just go home (and take more from their loving families). pretty much what continues today.

i also believe the Holy Spirit was protecting and guiding me, before i knew what the Holy Spirit was.
how else could i have walked through that awful time without stumbling more than i did?

many were lost to drug addictions, involvement in cults. their families tortured, seeing, not knowing what to do.
there was tremendous pain under the guise of “free love,” and the rest of it.

My #1 question today is:
How do so many foreign students come to U.S. schools, survive, thrive, without ever turning their backs on the families and religions that supported them, that enabled them to get into those “respected institutions”?

i’ve witnessed this phenom ALL my life.

Whatever remains of U.S. families might want to take a page out of these books, raise expectations of college experiences for their families. College should not be the place where families and faith are dealt
The Final Death Blow. Foreign students prove it’s entirely possible.

(Today, rebellion is not just the college experience. Grooming begins Pre-K, then through college. No waiting for college to enlist for PC political goals.) i guess teachers are just too bored at the idea of sticking with the much-needed ed basics.

The video is interesting.
i’ve often wondered, while i was going through that period, what were Anabaptists going through?
The video reflects they were not unscathed.

[RZehr]

Every time I watch this it makes me sad...and I see myself in it.

Why?

[Ken]

I went to school at that very same Mennonite college a very short 13 years after those interviews were filmed. Astonishing how much changed in those short 13 years. For example, I don't remember a single male student ever wearing slacks and ties like that. Not in 1982. Maybe there was a dress code in 1969 or something? Although we did have conservative women attending who wore coverings and such so a percentage of women students still dressed conservative in 1982. And conservative men too, although they just dressed like ordinary college students and didn't stand out.

As for the attitudes and sentiments expressed in the interview? Those wouldn't have been common conversations in 1982. I don't ever recall any peers expressing consternation or fear about how their attitudes and such would be received at their home churches. That simply wasn't a conversation that happened in 1982. And I had friends from some pretty conservative home churches.

In retrospect, I think the 1970s were a time of profound change. If we go back 13 years from today that puts us in 2008. It doesn't feel like nearly as much has changed in the past 13 years compared to the 1970s.

[Ernie]

The same conversation happens in every generation --- just in different schools/settings.

Transitional old orders fill the vacancies left by transitional ultra-conservatives.
Transitional ultra-conservatives fill the vacancies left by transitional intermediate-conservatives.
Transitional intermediate conservatives fill the vacancies left by moderate-conservatives.
Transitional moderate-conservatives fill the vacancies left by progressive-conservatives.
Transitional progressive-conservatives fill the vacancies left by theological-conservatives.
Transitional theological-conservatives fill the vacancies left by transitional mainstream folks.
Transitional mainstream folks fill the vacancies left by transitional progressives.
Transitional progressives fill the vacancies left by those who can no longer care or contribute to making this world a better place.

Sometimes people will skip a few steps constituency wise, but in their mind and heart, they likely went through the same transitions.
Sometimes the transitions are sped up in certain constituencies as a result of certain pressures or influences. But regardless of the speed, they are always happening somewhere in the Anabaptist world.

Meanwhile, there are a few folks who are going the opposite direction. They are building values into their lives. They are sharing their values with others, and they are helping others build value into their lives and communities.

[temporal1]

The same conversation happens in every generation --- just in different schools/settings.

Transitional old orders fill the vacancies left by transitional ultra-conservatives.
Transitional ultra-conservatives fill the vacancies left by transitional intermediate-conservatives.
Transitional intermediate conservatives fill the vacancies left by moderate-conservatives.
Transitional moderate-conservatives fill the vacancies left by progressive-conservatives.
Transitional progressive-conservatives fill the vacancies left by theological-conservatives.
Transitional theological-conservatives fill the vacancies left by transitional mainstream folks.
Transitional mainstream folks fill the vacancies left by transitional progressives.
Transitional progressives fill the vacancies left by those who can no longer care or contribute to making this world a better place.

Sometimes people will skip a few steps constituency wise, but in their mind and heart, they likely went through the same transitions.
Sometimes the transitions are sped up in certain constituencies as a result of certain pressures or influences. But regardless of the speed, they are always happening somewhere in the Anabaptist world.

- - - - - - -

Meanwhile, there are a few folks who are going the opposite direction.
They are building values into their lives.
They are sharing their values with others, and they are helping others build value into their lives and communities.

i think i see this.
do you believe this is a U.S./western culture phenom, or world-wide?

if it’s a U.S. culture thing, that would say the patterns are NOT inevitable.
i think “we” tend to see lots of things as inevitable that are not. this leaves room for hope.

your last paragraph reflects there is hope.

the U.S. remains a YOUNG culture awkwardly finding its way.

[Ken]

The same conversation happens in every generation --- just in different schools/settings.

Transitional old orders fill the vacancies left by transitional ultra-conservatives.
Transitional ultra-conservatives fill the vacancies left by transitional intermediate-conservatives.
Transitional intermediate conservatives fill the vacancies left by moderate-conservatives.
Transitional moderate-conservatives fill the vacancies left by progressive-conservatives.
Transitional progressive-conservatives fill the vacancies left by theological-conservatives.
Transitional theological-conservatives fill the vacancies left by transitional mainstream folks.
Transitional mainstream folks fill the vacancies left by transitional progressives.
Transitional progressives fill the vacancies left by those who can no longer care or contribute to making this world a better place.

Sometimes people will skip a few steps constituency wise, but in their mind and heart, they likely went through the same transitions.
Sometimes the transitions are sped up in certain constituencies as a result of certain pressures or influences. But regardless of the speed, they are always happening somewhere in the Anabaptist world.

Meanwhile, there are a few folks who are going the opposite direction. They are building values into their lives. They are sharing their values with others, and they are helping others build value into their lives and communities.

I think that is a way more complex analysis of what really happens at a place like Goshen College. When I was there a decade after that video was taken the great majority of students were from mainstream MC and GC churches (this was decades before MCUSA was formed). Goshen was a MC institution so logically that would be the majority of students. There were a minority of students from other non-Mennonite backgrounds who came for whatever reason, many who were just from Northern Indiana or Southern MI and it was just a good convenient school to attend. And there were a smaller minority of students from more conservative Mennonite groups who wore coverings and such. A lot of them studying nursing (for which Goshen was known) or education. But there wasn't any sort of hierarchical stair-step thing of the sort that you describe.

These days it is actually quite different. I have several cousins and old alumni-friends who are now sending their children to Goshen. Although it still has Mennonite roots, and the majority of faculty are from Mennonite backgrounds (mostly MCUSA), I think the majority of students are now from non-Mennonite backgrounds completely. It has become more of a regional small liberal arts college that happens to be Christian-oriented, but for which the actual Mennonite-denominational linkage is of less interest to the students attending. Many probably would have just as well attended it if were Lutheran or Baptist or whatever. I think that is more due to the changing nature of Christian higher education than anything else. All the small denominational Christian colleges are seeing the same thing everywhere in the country.