Where do you fit?

Christian ethics and theology with an Anabaptist perspective

What are you?

 
Total votes: 0

temporal1
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Re: Where do you fit?

Post by temporal1 »

lesterb wrote:I was just glancing over the poll results. The results turned out a little different than I expected. At this point the results are like follows...

Code: Select all

Plain Anabaptists           28%
Moderate Anabaptists        41%
Theological Anabaptists     14%
Sightseers                   3% 
Unclassifiable              14%
So at this point the board has a fairly strong Mennonite flavor, but more moderate than conservative. For some reason I was expecting the theological Anabaptist voice to be stronger. I guess we should have another poll that measures from passive to aggressive. 8-)
well, those numbers are reflected in post counts, with usernames, so .. no fudging on that. :P
unless your username is Robert! :shock:

i do wonder how many read-only folks participated?
i have always "had the notion" these are mostly more conservative (?) ..
probably influenced by those i've met in real life.

i would have guessed a lot of 6's.
live and learn. :D
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Ernie
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Re: Where do you fit?

Post by Ernie »

lesterb wrote:I was just glancing over the poll results. The results turned out a little different than I expected. At this point the results are like follows...

Code: Select all

Plain Anabaptists           28%
Moderate Anabaptists        41%
Theological Anabaptists     14%
Sightseers                   3% 
Unclassifiable              14%
So at this point the board has a fairly strong Mennonite flavor, but more moderate than conservative. For some reason I was expecting the theological Anabaptist voice to be stronger. I guess we should have another poll that measures from passive to aggressive. 8-)
Did you mean more moderate than Plain? I would have thought that the first two categories would have been considered conservative.
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lesterb
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Re: Where do you fit?

Post by lesterb »

Ernie wrote:
lesterb wrote:I was just glancing over the poll results. The results turned out a little different than I expected. At this point the results are like follows...

Code: Select all

Plain Anabaptists           28%
Moderate Anabaptists        41%
Theological Anabaptists     14%
Sightseers                   3% 
Unclassifiable              14%
So at this point the board has a fairly strong Mennonite flavor, but more moderate than conservative. For some reason I was expecting the theological Anabaptist voice to be stronger. I guess we should have another poll that measures from passive to aggressive. 8-)
Did you mean more moderate than Plain? I would have thought that the first two categories would have been considered conservative.
Yes, that's what I meant. :roll:
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joshuabgood
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Re: Where do you fit?

Post by joshuabgood »

The tricky part here is the poll is a question about individuals but we exist in communities.

Individually I like what Ernie described the best. Next, I am most like the liberal theology Mennonites like Robert and Boot.

Third though, I belong to, submit to (I think), and support a fundamentalist congregation/conference that is more "moderate" like you describe.

I ultimately went with the existential truth.
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Dan Z
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Re: Where do you fit?

Post by Dan Z »

Disregarding post count - and focusing on individual posters - I think that MN, as it exists now, is more skewed toward plain Anabaptists than MD was at its end.
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gcdonner
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Re: Where do you fit?

Post by gcdonner »

Ernie wrote: At our church we do not require Plain attire. We spend a lot of time in group prayer both in our Sunday meetings and otherwise.
We try to live within a couple miles of each other. We like to eat a couple meals together each week if possible.
Every Tuesday morning at 6:00 there is a community prayer and discipleship meeting that is open to any men from the community. Frequently this meeting has more men from Protestant churches than men from our church.
We have communion twice a month, a love feast each quarter, and a Church Family Council each year. In addition, the church men get together several times a month for prayer and accountability and the ladies meet twice a month for inspiration, accountability, and prayer.
The men at our church who meet the Biblical qualifications for elder or deacon and are committed and submitted to the church are given regular opportunities to preach if they wish. The elder and deacons do not meet separately from the non-ordained men. All the men who are committed and submitted to the brotherhood are invited to be part of any church related meetings.
Our Sunday church meetings start at 4:30 PM with a period of prayer, followed by a time of confession, praise, singing, and/or reports of our involvements in the community and beyond. After this we have a children's lesson. Then we sing about 5 congregational songs after which we have our I Corinthians 14 meeting in which any brother can share a scripture reading, a word of exhortation, a devotional, or a short teaching. We don't use Sunday school quarterlies. We would not forbid someone from speaking in tongues and would not want them to continue unless there was an interpreter. (So far we have not had to deal with this, but just mentioning it as part of church polity.) We sit together as families rather than have segregated seating. We probably wouldn't spend money building a church building and if we did, we probably wouldn't build a pulpit in it.
We attend German Baptist conferences, Mennonite Conferences, coordinate "Kingdom Christian" Conferences and Church Planters Forums.
We have two offices rather than three and appoint our elders and deacons instead of using the lot to determine who the next bishop, minister, or deacons should be. I don't think we would be opposed to using the lot but would probably only use it if if there were an equal number of votes or something like that.

Most if not all of these things would be different from Intermediate Conservative Mennonites.
It sounds pretty good to me and very similar to the way that the Crossroads Mission churches were in the beginning, except that we did buy a school building that was converted to a meeting house. I appreciated the brotherhood meetings in those days, until they were not taken seriously by the "leadership" anymore. The concept of "community" was an important desire for me early on in our journey of faith. I wish you the best and pray that your humility and sincerity will remain strong.
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temporal1
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Re: Where do you fit?

Post by temporal1 »

Dan Z wrote:Disregarding post count - and focusing on individual posters - I think that MN, as it exists now, is more skewed toward plain Anabaptists than MD was at its end.
i was not posting on MD for the 3 months prior to the crash.
before that, my post count was down. i wanted it to be down.

i wonder if you have a thought about (my perception) that by far most members register on MD-MN seeking information about CM's/plain CM's/plain CA's?

my perceptions is, it's the plain clothing, headcoverings, even the horse+buggies, maybe black cars .. these VISIBLE choices are what most attracts, or identifies, others to Anabaptists -
(most who are truly new do not understand conference differences, or other differences) ..

my perception is, these visible things, combined with actions+life choices, are what draws initial interest, regardless of where the path goes from that point?

for me, it was part, but, i think, a small part (?)
the Mennonites i crossed paths with IRL did not "dress plainly;" i had seen Amish folks (in the background of my life) but never interacted with them .. i.e., i occasionally saw some women shopping locally, and men coming to work on construction sites (but these never interacted with me; honestly, never said hello or smiled in passing, even when close by.) i did not understand if there was any connection, at all, between the non-plain and plain.

my personal interest was because of the non-plain folks i interacted with, but,
i believe the visible choices serve an undeniable purpose, overall. even if subliminal.
(possibly it was subliminal for me.)

after i registered on MD, over years, i noticed a similarity in introductions, even tho folks' experiences, and articulation, widely vary. (it's interesting that quite a number arrive knowing about conservative Anabaptists, some have specific questions/requests.)

i.e., i believe, recognized or not, the visible plain choices serve a purpose for the entire Anabaptist umbrella (?)

i won't do a poll, because i believe much of this is subliminal, so, a poll would be useless.

another perception:
it seems, MN is growing at a faster rate than MD had been in the prior year or two?

so. if you have a moment? :)
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Most or all of this drama, humiliation, wasted taxpayer money could be spared -
with even modest attempt at presenting balanced facts from the start.


”We’re all just walking each other home.”
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lesterb
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Re: Where do you fit?

Post by lesterb »

Dan Z wrote:Disregarding post count - and focusing on individual posters - I think that MN, as it exists now, is more skewed toward plain Anabaptists than MD was at its end.
I would agree with you. I'm glad for that from one perspective. But I'm also glad that some of the others are still with us as well. MennoNet has a unique blend of posters. Each of us, even if we voted for the same category, has a unique perspective, to a degree. It is this blend of personalities that makes this board valuable, I think. It helps each of us to understand other people better.

It is a breath of fresh air to be part of a group like this. I'm not aware of a lot of groups like this on the internet. I feel that I can share a prayer request, and even share a personal struggle on here. There are not many internet groups where I would feel free to do that.

I know that this may make some of us somewhat vulnerable. But I'd like to show the world that even on the internet, Christians believe in being open and honest with each other.
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Wade
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Re: Where do you fit?

Post by Wade »

lesterb wrote:
Dan Z wrote:Disregarding post count - and focusing on individual posters - I think that MN, as it exists now, is more skewed toward plain Anabaptists than MD was at its end.
I would agree with you. I'm glad for that from one perspective. But I'm also glad that some of the others are still with us as well. MennoNet has a unique blend of posters. Each of us, even if we voted for the same category, has a unique perspective, to a degree. It is this blend of personalities that makes this board valuable, I think. It helps each of us to understand other people better.

It is a breath of fresh air to be part of a group like this. I'm not aware of a lot of groups like this on the internet. I feel that I can share a prayer request, and even share a personal struggle on here. There are not many internet groups where I would feel free to do that.

I know that this may make some of us somewhat vulnerable. But I'd like to show the world that even on the internet, Christians believe in being open and honest with each other.
Amen!
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Southerner
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Re: Where do you fit?

Post by Southerner »

I selected "I'm curious about Mennonites." as my answer.

I discovered several years ago that I hailed from a Mennonite family, but I don't know that they ever would have been classified as the most Conservative Mennonites being from the Brethren Churches in the Shenandoah Valley of western VA. My grandfather was the last to attend there as a boy and young adult, so it was a bit of a different time. When he moved down here, they attended a Methodist (now UMC) church for life, which is probably the closest to Mennonite in these parts.

He fought in WWII, but as I grew older I saw what the war had done to him. He finally opened up to me (he had told others bits and pieces) about his wartime experiences and I could see it tortured him. After he passed, I noticed a book by his chair that he had highlighted in and it was essentially a work of pacifism. I do not consider myself a pacifist, perhaps more of the "Just War" doctrine type, but such horrors should be absolute worst case scenario actions and I think our current culture is too violent. I've felt that this belief likely holds me back from true Anabaptism, but who knows where the Lord will lead?

Much of Anabaptist theology seems to me to be less technical - and I don't mean that in a derogatory way. It's seemingly not as obsessed with being so boundary-policing that mere technical terms cut off people from the camp. I once had a Catholic acquaintance refer to them as the Jesuits of Protestantism. Conspiracies aside, I think the analogy is somewhat fitting.

I'm reading Wenger and not finding much to disagree with. I don't know if that makes me just Anabaptist-sympathetic or perhaps more. There are no nearby congregations. With that said, I am open to the idea of more, but it is safe to say I probably won't ever enter the camp of the most conservative. I've always had just enough moderating tendencies to not be a heavy conservative, but by 99/100 definitions I would be a conservative. My mind has flirted with the systematic nature of Reformed theology, but I end up repulsed by some of the cutting conclusions about God. As I read the history of the church, some of the radicals (later called Anabaptists) interest me. I think in some ways the Anabaptist message and spirit is poised to make some inroads these days. A lot depends on where the outer lines of the camp are drawn.
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