Josh wrote:Ken wrote:Josh wrote:Yep. America is founded on the myth that the Revolutionary War was somehow good; people who believe that either have to exist in a kind of schizoprenia that yesterday's activities weren't a good thing (but somehow rebelling against the government in the first place was a good thing), or else basically give it their support, believing violent revolutions to somehow bring about peace and justice to the earth.
Yes. But I also suspect some of Mennonite history (as cited above) is written with some of the same rose colored glasses I'm not convinced that historic Mennonites were always so noble as our histories teach. Some were, sure. I'm talking about the average folks, not those who got their names into the history books. Listing to my elder relatives and sitting through religious history classes in college I suspect that Mennonites have some of the same blinders about their past too,
I think most Mennonites (and others) would agree that lots of Mennonites have had less-than-stellar character and made big mistakes; but the point stands that Mennonite and Amish identity, essentially, revolves around nonresistance, and always has. People on the edges who do things like attend BLM or Trump rallies do exist, or enlist to fight in World War I or II, but do not really define the core of Mennonite identity.
Sure, but real life is not always so clear cut. And talking about this sort of thing as an issue of "character" is not accurate either.
Take for example a great uncle of mine who grew up in the WW2 era in PA in a Mennonite church and home. He would have graduated HS around 1941. He was not interested in farming and wanted to move on beyond his small Menno community, maybe go to college, see the world, etc. The war happens and his other non-Menno Christian friends who are Methodist, Presbyterian, etc. are all signing up. They have many long discussions about faith and duty and "just wars" of the sort one would expect young men at that time to have. He feels pulled in opposite directions but ultimately feels that duty compels him to sign up and that doing so isn't in conflict with his own Christian faith, even though it is opposed by his parents and church. He wound up serving in some logistics role in the European theater and then eventually returned to a successful career in shipping and logistics for some grocery or distributor out of Philly. Did he have "less than stellar character" because of the choices he made at age 18 when the whole world was in flames and institutions were pulling young men in different directions? Most certainly not. Or at least it is most certainly NOT for us to say.
My point is that when I was the same age in the early 1980s and draft registration was again, an issue. This slice of family history was carefully hidden away from me by my mother and older relatives and church. It was not talked about. Family photos of him in uniform were buried. I had no idea that I had family who had gone through the same issues as I had. I had no chance to go talk to him and ask: "Do you think you made the right decision in retrospect?" How did you reconcile these competing forces in your life? What is your advice for the next generation? We had lots of very interesting conversations with each other when I finally found out this piece of family history when I was in my 30s. It would have been nicer to know about it when I was 18 and facing the same choices myself.
Would I have made any different life choices having this history available to me? Almost certainly not. 1982 was a different time from 1942 and I had no interest in the military. But it would have been nice to know about it and not have it hidden away like some shameful family secret that no one is allowed to talk about. A church that relies on misinformation and histories that are carefully scrubbed free of competing narratives betrays weakness rather than strength in my opinion. And there is too much of that in the Mennonite church where the instinct is always to hide uncomfortable realities than confront them. Whether it is youth who struggle with nonresistance, or churches that cover up child and sex abuse.
American history, of course does exactly the same thing. For example I watched my kids take "Texas History" in middle school in Texas and in the entire state curriculum unit on Texas History there was not one single mention of the fact that slavery was the largest precipitating reason for the Texas Revolution. Mexico abolished slavery in Texas in 1830 (a year after abolishing it in the rest of Mexico). Slaveholding American planters in Texas immediately begin resistance and outright insurrection breaks out by 1835. But not one mention of the issue of slavery in the history of the Texas revolution and that the Texas revolutionaries like Stephen F. Austin were fighting for slavery.
This is kind of a far tangent from the subject at hand and I apologize for the diversion. Perhaps this is a subject for a different thread. But I wanted to push back on the notion that Mennonites who stray from the dominant historical narrative were necessarily "less-than-stellar character". History is much more complicated than that.
