Articles by Asher Witmer

Christian ethics and theology with an Anabaptist perspective
joshuabgood
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Re: Articles by Asher Witmer

Post by joshuabgood »

Ernie, can sin be a culture? Or is sin a separate category?

As an example, if by culture one means whether we wear a sari or a cape dress...then in my opinion, though clearly not everyone's, the good news is extracted from that question. If on the other hand, culture includes things like the rite of the Sati, easy divorce, etc...then I think the good news will inform those traits in a culture.

In the broadest definitions of culture, like the one you gave, then for sure the good news should impact it. If by culture one means the sorts of things like the fact that the Japanese name the blocks and we name the streets, I don't think the good news needs to adjust this sort of thing.

The other big question still is "What the good news is?"
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Josh
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Re: Articles by Asher Witmer

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Ernie wrote:
Mrs.Nisly wrote:So my question is, if Asher's first things gospel core doesn't seem to be relevant to his second things circle, what is his gospel?

I think a lot of people (including Asher) think that the Gospel can be extracted from a human culture. The fact is that in most cases, God uses a human culture to spread the Gospel and in cases where he doesn't, a human culture forms. (e.g. God may speak to an individual through an angel, but if that individual starts a church, it will be set in a human culture.

Good cultures take a long time to develop but they can be trashed in one generation.

I think there is value in human culture and the more God honoring a human culture becomes, the more effective it can be at transmitting or hosting the Gospel.
I agree with this, but how do you avoid being ethnocentric?

And do you avoid confusing your culture for be gospel? For example, in the recent hair-up-or-down thread, women having their hair up basically seems to be part of the gospel for you, and you feel a good culture will have women having their hair up.

The problem is I can't find anything in scripture about this at all. I am more than content to be a cultural Mennonite. At the same time I can never be a fully ethnic Mennonite and fully part of the culture.

Do you believe the gospel is more suited and easier to accept for ethnic Mennonites than for people from other cultures?

Where is this principle in scripture?
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Re: Articles by Asher Witmer

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Josh wrote: The problem is I can't find anything in scripture about this at all. I am more than content to be a cultural Mennonite. At the same time I can never be a fully ethnic Mennonite and fully part of the culture.

Do you believe the gospel is more suited and easier to accept for ethnic Mennonites than for people from other cultures?
The Gospel is equally suited for all peoples. I think it should be easier for ethnic Mennonites to accept than for someone without the Anabaptist heritage. The life experiences of those gone before us should impact us in a beneficial way. A blog by Ira Wagler mentioned the life of David Luthy, a man who had a degree from Notre Dame and yet became a respected and well known Amish leader. So he saw the Amish, investigated, liked what he saw and joined but his children, raised as Old Order all left the Aylmer, Ontario community of their father for New Order Amish or even "the world."
Where is this principle in scripture?
This principle is not found in Scripture but I believe we have evidence in the beginning of Acts that the Jewish people responded more so than the non-Jewish.
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Re: Articles by Asher Witmer

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Hats Off wrote:
Josh wrote: The problem is I can't find anything in scripture about this at all. I am more than content to be a cultural Mennonite. At the same time I can never be a fully ethnic Mennonite and fully part of the culture.

Do you believe the gospel is more suited and easier to accept for ethnic Mennonites than for people from other cultures?
The Gospel is equally suited for all peoples. I think it should be easier for ethnic Mennonites to accept than for someone without the Anabaptist heritage. The life experiences of those gone before us should impact us in a beneficial way. A blog by Ira Wagler mentioned the life of David Luthy, a man who had a degree from Notre Dame and yet became a respected and well known Amish leader. So he saw the Amish, investigated, liked what he saw and joined but his children, raised as Old Order all left the Aylmer, Ontario community of their father for New Order Amish or even "the world."
Where is this principle in scripture?
This principle is not found in Scripture but I believe we have evidence in the beginning of Acts that the Jewish people responded more so than the non-Jewish.
It probably should be easier for ethnic Anabaptists to accept the Gospel, however just as some of the Jews in Jesus' time and in Acts, they are sometimes the very ones who don't, or refuse to, see their need.
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Josh
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Re: Articles by Asher Witmer

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If we honestly believe that it's more likely that someone born Mennonite will go to heaven than someone not born Mennonite, we have a major, major problem.
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Mrs.Nisly
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Re: Articles by Asher Witmer

Post by Mrs.Nisly »

Josh wrote:If we honestly believe that it's more likely that someone born Mennonite will go to heaven than someone not born Mennonite, we have a major, major problem.
Josh, I don't hear this conversation going to "it's more likely someone who is born Mennonite will go to heaven than someone not born Mennonite."
What I hear is it should be easier for someone of Mennonite heritage to accept, or I would add, believe the Gospel than someone who has not been born with this heritage. If that is not true, than I think there is a big problem.

Why even try to raise children in a godly home? Why even worry about a Christian education? If those things don't create a fertile ground for the gospel to take root, than why are we putting the energy into it?

On the other hand, I think anywhere Christians are living in communities which are living out the reality that the kingdom of God, the New Creation, that is breaking into the Old Creation;the Gospel becomes more believable to folks not born into a Mennonite heritage. The soil is cultivated and when the seed is sown, there is a bountiful harvest.
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Mrs.Nisly
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Re: Articles by Asher Witmer

Post by Mrs.Nisly »

joshuabgood wrote:Ernie, can sin be a culture? Or is sin a separate category?

As an example, if by culture one means whether we wear a sari or a cape dress...then in my opinion, though clearly not everyone's, the good news is extracted from that question. If on the other hand, culture includes things like the rite of the Sati, easy divorce, etc...then I think the good news will inform those traits in a culture.

In the broadest definitions of culture, like the one you gave, then for sure the good news should impact it. If by culture one means the sorts of things like the fact that the Japanese name the blocks and we name the streets, I don't think the good news needs to adjust this sort of thing.

The other big question still is "What the good news is?"
Yes. This is the big question.

I believe it is the good news Jesus preached, which is the good news of the kingdom. The good news that there is a new reality now and we can live in that new reality. we can be transported out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. We can begin living this reality before we die in called out kingdom communities where the resurrection power of Jesus transforms us into holy separated people of God.

But of course this new reality doesn't end with death. It continues on as life eternal because death has been conquered by the triumph of Jesus on the cross. The future has been brought into the present. The resurrection came when Jesus arose from the grave. Our life after, after death starts right now in the present!
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Mrs.Nisly
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Re: Articles by Asher Witmer

Post by Mrs.Nisly »

Josh wrote:
Ernie wrote:
Mrs.Nisly wrote:So my question is, if Asher's first things gospel core doesn't seem to be relevant to his second things circle, what is his gospel?

I think a lot of people (including Asher) think that the Gospel can be extracted from a human culture. The fact is that in most cases, God uses a human culture to spread the Gospel and in cases where he doesn't, a human culture forms. (e.g. God may speak to an individual through an angel, but if that individual starts a church, it will be set in a human culture.

Good cultures take a long time to develop but they can be trashed in one generation.

I think there is value in human culture and the more God honoring a human culture becomes, the more effective it can be at transmitting or hosting the Gospel.
I agree with this, but how do you avoid being ethnocentric?

And do you avoid confusing your culture for be gospel? For example, in the recent hair-up-or-down thread, women having their hair up basically seems to be part of the gospel for you, and you feel a good culture will have women having their hair up.

The problem is I can't find anything in scripture about this at all. I am more than content to be a cultural Mennonite. At the same time I can never be a fully ethnic Mennonite and fully part of the culture.

Do you believe the gospel is more suited and easier to accept for ethnic Mennonites than for people from other cultures?

Where is this principle in scripture?
I'm not Ernie, but here is how I see this, and it has been clarified to me even farther with the Anabaptism as Worldview teaching by Steven Brubaker that I shared on another thread.
An Anabaptist Worldview is a way to see things as they are or as they should be. Maybe there are other particular Christian Worldviews like Reformed, Baptist or what ever, they have their merits, I'm sure, and maybe even some that can inform our worldview. But for the sake of this discussion lets stick to the Anabaptist Worldview.

So Steven identified Brotherhood as an explicitly distinctively Anabaptist worldview. The definition of this worldview is that "the focus of God's work on earth is the body of Christ- His Church."

Now how does this idea contrast with Modern Protestant Evangelicalism? Is that a defining idea in it?

Or what about this one:
Submission, surrender, yieldedness, gleissenheit
Definition- Individuals find belonging, identity, and meaning by submitting to the local church.

How does that idea contrast with Modern Protestant Evangelicalism?

And there are others: Separation, Sacrificial Love, Living/orthopraxy

These ideas do not even address the practices that demonstrate how these worldview ideas are lived out. And the crazy thing is, in all the groups that identify as Anabaptist, the practices are not the same! But I believe if you ask any one who has accepted an Anabaptist worldview as their own idea of what is the way it should be, they would agree that these ideas define why they do what they do.

So is Asher questioning if these ideas hinder evangelism? as in does an Anabaptist Worldview hinder the Gospel? or is he asking if the way a particular Anabaptist group practices these ideas hinders the Gospel?

If he is asking if the way a particular Anabaptist group practices these ideas than I would say, good question! because the practices is where a group's culture comes out of, the agreed upon way to do something.

But if he is asking; does an Anabaptist Worldview as defined by these various ideas that I mentioned hinder the Gospel? Then that is where I ask, what Gospel are we talking about?
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Ernie
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Re: Articles by Asher Witmer

Post by Ernie »

Josh wrote:Do you believe the gospel is more suited and easier to accept for ethnic Mennonites than for people from other cultures?
Certain parts of the gospel, yes. Other parts of the gospel, no.
Josh wrote:Where is this principle in scripture?
Not sure what principle you are referring to at this point.
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Ernie
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Re: Articles by Asher Witmer

Post by Ernie »

Mrs.Nisly wrote:I'm not Ernie, but here is how I see this, and it has been clarified to me even farther with the Anabaptism as Worldview teaching by Steven Brubaker that I shared on another thread.
An Anabaptist Worldview is a way to see things as they are or as they should be. Maybe there are other particular Christian Worldviews like Reformed, Baptist or what ever, they have their merits, I'm sure, and maybe even some that can inform our worldview. But for the sake of this discussion lets stick to the Anabaptist Worldview.

So Steven identified Brotherhood as an explicitly distinctively Anabaptist worldview. The definition of this worldview is that "the focus of God's work on earth is the body of Christ- His Church."

Now how does this idea contrast with Modern Protestant Evangelicalism? Is that a defining idea in it?

Or what about this one:
Submission, surrender, yieldedness, gleissenheit
Definition- Individuals find belonging, identity, and meaning by submitting to the local church.

How does that idea contrast with Modern Protestant Evangelicalism?

And there are others: Separation, Sacrificial Love, Living/orthopraxy

These ideas do not even address the practices that demonstrate how these worldview ideas are lived out. And the crazy thing is, in all the groups that identify as Anabaptist, the practices are not the same! But I believe if you ask any one who has accepted an Anabaptist worldview as their own idea of what is the way it should be, they would agree that these ideas define why they do what they do.

So is Asher questioning if these ideas hinder evangelism? as in does an Anabaptist Worldview hinder the Gospel? or is he asking if the way a particular Anabaptist group practices these ideas hinders the Gospel?

If he is asking if the way a particular Anabaptist group practices these ideas than I would say, good question! because the practices is where a group's culture comes out of, the agreed upon way to do something.

But if he is asking; does an Anabaptist Worldview as defined by these various ideas that I mentioned hinder the Gospel? Then that is where I ask, what Gospel are we talking about?
I first hear Steve teach about these things about 15 years ago. So a lot of the things I have said over the last 10 years on MD and now on MN are rooted in this understanding.
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The old woodcutter spoke again. “It is impossible to talk with you. You always draw conclusions. Life is so vast, yet you judge all of life with one page or one word. You see only a fragment. Unless you know the whole story, how can you judge?"
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