Conservative Anabaptist Young People

[QuietObserver]

The latest episode from Anabaptist Perspectives is a though-provoking conversation with Tim Stoltzfus. He is happy that these young people appreciate Biblicism from their Anabaptist heritage, but don't like the cultural baggage and extra-biblical standards. He thinks Neo-Anabaptism is going to emerge from young people, however this sounds like Fundamentalism 2.0. I'm not sure how this is different from what Midwest, BMA, and liberal Amish-Mennonites are already doing. Listen to the podcast, perhaps I'm misunderstanding. Here is a presentation Tim gave at REACH 2017 on this topic.

Note: If you don't have YouTube, you can find Anabaptist Perspectives on podcast apps or their website.
[video][/video]

[RZehr]

In this interview, they discuss a survey done among the young folks of many churches (I think Keystone, Beachy, BMA etc.) Based on the survey many good things about these young folks and the future are drawn. And yet they then go one to say that based on the survey 40% listen to secular music and 60% misuse the internet. Why would Plain Mennonites seriously take direction from a young person who is engaging in this?

I’m was a little shocked at the similarities of this interview and a historical interview from the 1950-60 from Goshen or Eastern Mennonite College. I’ve looked for the old interview to listen to it again, but cannot find it. The exact same issues from young people, the exact same optimism from the interviewee, praising the perception and spiritual astuteness of the young.
In both, the young were appreciative of their biblically based heritage and questioned to value of keeping old outdated traditions.

I don’t know what to do with it. It’s obvious that there is nothing new under the sun. I think how young people are listened to is important. They should be heard, they should count. But I wonder if they shouldn’t be told that they are amazing or that there is anything special or unique about their generation.

Much more was covered in the podcast, but the part that really stood out to me was how it echoed the historical interview.

[Ken]

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

Socrates, 469-399 B.C

[Ernie]

In this interview, they discuss a survey done among the young folks of many churches (I think Keystone, Beachy, BMA etc.) Based on the survey many good things about these young folks and the future are drawn. And yet they then go one to say that based on the survey 40% listen to secular music and 60% misuse the internet. Why would Plain Mennonites seriously take direction from a young person who is engaging in this?

I’m was a little shocked at the similarities of this interview and a historical interview from the 1950-60 from Goshen or Eastern Mennonite College. I’ve looked for the old interview to listen to it again, but cannot find it. The exact same issues from young people, the exact same optimism from the interviewee, praising the perception and spiritual astuteness of the young.
In both, the young were appreciative of their biblically based heritage and questioned to value of keeping old outdated traditions.

I don’t know what to do with it. It’s obvious that there is nothing new under the sun. I think how young people are listened to is important. They should be heard, they should count. But I wonder if they shouldn’t be told that they are amazing or that there is anything special or unique about their generation.

Much more was covered in the podcast, but the part that really stood out to me was how it echoed the historical interview.

I helped conduct such a survey at Calvary Bible School about 15 years ago and the results were similar. I did not praise the results.

Some of you might be familiar with Melvin Lehman's "The New Conservatives".
https://anabaptistperspectives.org/2018 ... ervatives/

https://www.fbep.org/sites/default/file ... atives.pdf

I've never been able to understand the conclusions that these men older than me come to. I'm definitely not an Old Order who thinks that any change is bad change. But neither am I confident that what appears to be "progress" is truly progress. To be clear, I appreciate other things that these men do well, but this one appears like a blind spot.
It feels like I am sitting in the back seat and can see the car beside us that they don't seem to be able to see in their rear view mirrors. Every generation of Plain Mennonites for the last 150 years has had a group who sees the world in a similar way as these men/youth, and yet each of these groups thinks their constituency won't take the same course as the generation before. Somehow these men don't see the trajectory they as a constituency are on. How that many of their grandchildren likely won't practice head-covering, many will be watching spiritually detrimental things on the screen, and some of them may not even be non-resistant.

When I taught at Calvary Bible School fifteen years ago, I would ask youth how many movies they watched in the past year that were a detriment to their spiritual life. The majority had watched more than one. I asked them, "How many movies do you need to watch until you realize that most are not going to help you spiritually?
I told them that if they are somewhere and a movie is played, they should have the audacity to walk out of the room as soon as they realized the movie was headed in the direction of being a spiritual detriment.

[QuietObserver]

I’m was a little shocked at the similarities of this interview and a historical interview from the 1950-60 from Goshen or Eastern Mennonite College. I’ve looked for the old interview to listen to it again, but cannot find it. The exact same issues from young people, the exact same optimism from the interviewee, praising the perception and spiritual astuteness of the young.

This may be the video you're referencing: http://youtube.com/watch?v=kNDtEFmoBxQ

[RZehr]

That is not the same one, but it might be part of the same series.

[cmbl]

I’m was a little shocked at the similarities of this interview and a historical interview from the 1950-60 from Goshen or Eastern Mennonite College. I’ve looked for the old interview to listen to it again, but cannot find it. The exact same issues from young people, the exact same optimism from the interviewee, praising the perception and spiritual astuteness of the young.

This may be the video you're referencing: http://youtube.com/watch?v=kNDtEFmoBxQ

That is not the same one, but it might be part of the same series.

If anyone can find the one RZehr is referencing, please share it.

[Josh]

Many of us conservative young people don’t feel this way, though. We’d like stability and see value in our traditions and we are dismayed when someone slides toward the world, even if we aren’t vocal about it.

[RZehr]

So today those students in the 1967 Goshen video should be around 70 year old people. People being what they are, my guess is some still think similarly and some wouldn’t. It would be interesting to see what their spiritual trajectory has been. Not that it would change anyones mind here.

[Ken]

So today those students in the 1967 Goshen video should be around 70 year old people. People being what they are, my guess is some still think similarly and some wouldn’t. It would be interesting to see what their spiritual trajectory has been. Not that it would change anyones mind here.

Judging from my own enormous extended family, some of whom went to Goshen and EMC during that time period, I'd say they all pretty much settled into their own trajectories of religious practice and political beliefs by about the mid 1970s and haven't much changed course since. My relatives who were young and conservative back then, mostly still are. And my relatives who were young and liberal back then, mostly still are.