I was part of a Beachy Amish-Mennonite church in AR for 10 years. I didn't call myself Beachy but would tell people that I am a part of Beachy church and that I work for the Beachy's Bible School and the Beachy's Publication Board.RZehr wrote:I understand what you're saying, but it still seems odd to me not to own (at least on some level) the Presbyterian name. Is anyone there a Presbyterian? If the members of a Presbyterian church aren't Presbyterian, then is it a ghost denomination?Bootstrap wrote:I really don't think of myself as Presbyterian at all, and never call myself one. When people visited from the Bruderhof, my pastor introduced me to them as a Mennonite. When different understandings come up, I often explain that I'm used to thinking of things from a Mennonite perspective.RZehr wrote:It would be tough for me to go be a member of a Presbyterian church and call myself a Mennonite. But I do understand that some people would. But do you also deny being a Presbyterian? Or do you think of yourself as both?
West of us two hours were a couple other Beachy churches. One of them had only one family that grew up Beachy. The pastor of this church referred to their church as the "Gentile Beachy Church". Whenever members of this church learned that their church was a Beachy church, they would wonder what that meant. The pastor would explain that being part of the Beachy network facilitated opportunities for inter-church pulpit exchange, opportunities for VS, opportunities for Bible Schools, etc. This satisfied the NAB members and they didn't think more about it. It sounds to me that this mirrors what Boot is talking about.
I think that to be Beachy a person needs to think like a Beachy regardless of whether he calls himself that or not. Probably something similar with Presbyterians.