The Anabaptist Perspective on... Shoes!

[steve-in-kville]

When a church says the reason we aren’t supposed to use different coverings (that they admit are perfectly biblical) because it’s important to have a covering that signals unity and identifies us as belonging with a specific group, then it’s a bit hypocritical to allow people to get more opaque coverings, yet not allow a hanging veil for people who are suffering from debilitating health conditions due to the required covering style.

Care to expound on that? never heard of anyone being allergic to a headcovering... but then, the day is young

Let’s say that if you can’t cut your hair, and you happen to have excessive amounts of it, then it can be difficult to pile it all on top of your head. Even more difficult to shape it into the type of conglomeration that will fit underneath a cap style covering. Suffice to say that the required style gave someone frequent headaches. If you’ve ever had frequent headaches you’ll know how debilitating they are.

That makes a little more sense. I wasn't trying to be snarky or anything.

Going back to the late 80's through mid-90's, it was all the rage in the mid-stream COB circles for the women to wear their hair down with a round mesh headcovering. Some of those ladies still rock that style to this day.

[Josh]

And so they will require black cars until the end of time, long after the practice has lost any real connection to biblical principle that it may once have had. Just like the Amish can not brook the thought of changing from the use of German in their worship because of the destabilization it would surely bring.

Yet those who claim they want to be more “spiritual” have zero answers for why their groups trend ever more worldly, and rely on recruiting people from more conservative groups to refill their ranks.

I’ve been in moderate conservative circles for 9 years come July, and the majority young people I’ve known have left the conservative world altogether. No more head coverings, they carry guns now, some join the military, they dress very worldly and immodestly. Some got pregnant out of wedlock. That’s not something I’m interested in being part of. This is the evil fruit of claiming we don’t need any boundaries at all and disguising being more worldly as “trying to be more biblical”.

It seems to me that one can choose to move in a more biblical direction, conformed to Christ, and continue to keep various traditions. Of course those traditions can be revisited. But in my experience the loudest voices calling for them to be revisited are fooling themselves about their “spiritual life”. Fornication, drunkenness, and vaping aren’t fruits of the spirit.

[ken_sylvania]

Actually, Anabaptist churches with organdy coverings don’t really seem to get too upset if someone wants to make their covering out of solid material. They just aren’t busy mandating such.

Some of them do have a range of "acceptable" organdy materials - too sheer is not acceptable and too close to solid material is also not acceptable.

[Josh]

Actually, Anabaptist churches with organdy coverings don’t really seem to get too upset if someone wants to make their covering out of solid material. They just aren’t busy mandating such.

Some of them do have a range of "acceptable" organdy materials - too sheer is not acceptable and too close to solid material is also not acceptable.

I'd have to say I've never quite gotten on board with the ultra-conservative Mennonite mindset, mandating things to such a particular degree. In my own church, we have solid coverings. Our church didn't used to practice the covering during the week but started doing that around the 1950s or so (there's an example for mike of a Christian group trying to become more biblical in practice).

Our practice is caps, but there is liberty for someone who feels the need to practice a hanging veil. Out of 26,000 members I have so far met one woman who chooses to do so. At church on Sunday our women wear actual head coverings, not some type of thing covering a bun, which are hanging down anyway. Most women prefer the convenience of a cap style covering during the week.

So far we are not afflicted with a great plague of headaches amongst our women, either, but I do hear that some women trim their hair so their bun isn't too big to fit under their covering.

[mike]

And so they will require black cars until the end of time, long after the practice has lost any real connection to biblical principle that it may once have had. Just like the Amish can not brook the thought of changing from the use of German in their worship because of the destabilization it would surely bring.

Yet those who claim they want to be more “spiritual” have zero answers for why their groups trend ever more worldly, and rely on recruiting people from more conservative groups to refill their ranks.

I’ve been in moderate conservative circles for 9 years come July, and the majority young people I’ve known have left the conservative world altogether. No more head coverings, they carry guns now, some join the military, they dress very worldly and immodestly. Some got pregnant out of wedlock. That’s not something I’m interested in being part of. This is the evil fruit of claiming we don’t need any boundaries at all and disguising being more worldly as “trying to be more biblical”.

It seems to me that one can choose to move in a more biblical direction, conformed to Christ, and continue to keep various traditions. Of course those traditions can be revisited. But in my experience the loudest voices calling for them to be revisited are fooling themselves about their “spiritual life”. Fornication, drunkenness, and vaping aren’t fruits of the spirit.

I don't hear a call to be more spiritual from anybody; people generally seem happy with where they and the church are spiritually, except they seem to push the edges of their own rules. 2/3 of our congregation's makeup is members from other similar or more conservative Mennonite churches.

Our conference is currently undergoing a periodic "discipline review" where they collect review requests for rules of discipline and vote on them, first by the leadership body and then if passed, by the membership at large. Review requests were solicited from the membership of all the churches in the conference. I have no way of knowing whether those requesting the reviews are people who are fooling themselves about their spiritual life, or are involved with fornication, drunkenness, or vaping, but I suspect they are just from regular folks who would like to review rules that are outdated or no longer in keeping with what they actually think or believe. I didn't submit any.

One of our local ministers who is a friend of mine has the task of compiling these and presenting them at the ministers' meetings. From what I'm hearing there is not enough support on any of the review requests to even run them through the voting process. So have no fear, Josh, we're not in danger of going down the tubes quite yet.

I would be very glad to hear calls to become more spiritual, biblical, or conformed to Christ, but aside from the occasional things you see and hear that show people would like changes at the margins of our practices, people seem generally well satisfied with things as they are.

[Josh]

mike, unfortunately I would agree with you that this is a problem I see in the intermediate and moderate conservative world, which seems to be defined by being transitional. For reference, the fornication, drinking, and vaping is a problem that seems to be popping up in the liberal end of the Charity world around where I live, along with the moderate-conservative world.

To the credit of intermediates, they don't seem to be having THOSE kinds of problems. The problem is that a transitional group of people will eventually transition to a setting where they are indeed a problem.

My complaint at hand is that the Charity group that now has these drunkenness, fornication, and vaping problems originally emerged from a conservative Beachy church that they complained was too rules-focused and not spiritual enough, and instead they were going to be these very spiritual people who didn't need all these rules. 20 years later, exactly where are they?

[mike]

mike, unfortunately I would agree with you that this is a problem I see in the intermediate and moderate conservative world, which seems to be defined by being transitional. For reference, the fornication, drinking, and vaping is a problem that seems to be popping up in the liberal end of the Charity world around where I live, along with the moderate-conservative world.

To the credit of intermediates, they don't seem to be having THOSE kinds of problems. The problem is that a transitional group of people will eventually transition to a setting where they are indeed a problem.

My complaint at hand is that the Charity group that now has these drunkenness, fornication, and vaping problems originally emerged from a conservative Beachy church that they complained was too rules-focused and not spiritual enough, and instead they were going to be these very spiritual people who didn't need all these rules. 20 years later, exactly where are they?

I have long ago decided that that road wasn't for me. It has been about 20 years since I was a member of a Charity-affiliated church so I can't say whether what you describe is typical or not. All I know is that many of those churches now appear to be moderately conservative evangelical churches with only a semblance of Anabaptist doctrine or practices. But what I do know is that there are also many independent and other congregations that you might be unfairly lumping in with them who are just as conservative in their practice as they were 20 years ago and the next generation appears to be carrying the vision as well.

[Josh]

As far as I know, all the Charity groups are “independent”. Here is the lineage of what emerged near me:

- A Beachy church existed. People left it and formed a Charity church. From all accounts it was a good, spiritual place.

- It had a split 10 years or so ago. Two preachers formed another church with basically the same standards but with a stronger emphasis on spirituality. I spent time around people in this group and really appreciated some of the pastors there who spent time with me.

- That church splits into two: one side joins BMA, the other side wants to allow new converts to not wear coverings, allow wedding bands (basically leave everything up to personal conviction). The less strict group cared a lot about evangelism.

- The original Charity church keeps growing more “worldly”. It attracts people from moderate conservative churches looking for a change so numbers remain strong.

- Within the last year or two, the original Charity church had yet another split, with drunkenness amongst young people being the dividing issue. They form a new independent church with basically the same philosophy.

- The original Beachy church keeps steamrolling along, although they recently accepted smartphone use, some Internet, photography, and “tape recorders” (ie recorded music).

This isn’t meant as a slam against Charity since the exact same dynamic keeps playing out in Beachy, Mennonite, and other circles.

But the original conservative die-hard traditionalists point to this mess and say “We really don’t want to alter our dress standards. We’ve already accepted and changed a lot. Those other groups abandoned traditional coverings and clothing, but it didn’t lead them to be more spiritual.”

[Sudsy]

I see the word 'spiritual' being used often and I really wonder what Jesus would say about what being 'spiritual' means to Him. Jesus spoke out about how the Pharisees practised their beliefs and as I read what He told them, He was more interested in their heart conditions over what they were doing and wearing.

My question is - do you think Jesus, if He walked among us today, would be focusing on what we wear or would He primarily have the same focus as when He first came, that being a change of heart that focuses on the need for inner change first and foremost ?

[mike]

I see the word 'spiritual' being used often and I really wonder what Jesus would say about what being 'spiritual' means to Him. Jesus spoke out about how the Pharisees practised their beliefs and as I read what He told them, He was more interested in their heart conditions over what they were doing and wearing.

My question is - do you think Jesus, if He walked among us today, would be focusing on what we wear or would He primarily have the same focus as when He first came, that being a change of heart that focuses on the need for inner change first and foremost ?

These are good questions. We don't really have to guess about the subject matter of what Jesus had to say to the church after he left this world, because he commissioned his disciples to go out and evangelize the world, and we have records of some of their lives and teachings. The disciples were full of the Holy Spirit and they talked about many of the same issues we do today, including believers' clothing. It wasn't even close to the primary topic they talked about, but in the course of following Jesus, it is one of the many issues that is affected by Christ living in us through the Holy Spirit, and so the issue did come up along with many other practical lifestyle issues.

As to what our focus should be, I agree that heart issues and inner change are first and foremost. The vast majority of conservative Anabaptists would feel that way as well. One place where "focus" shows up is sermon topics, and it would be interesting to have records of sermon topics in conservative Anabaptist churches. I think many of them would have a similar range of topical sermons as the average evangelical church.