Bunny Trails

[Judas Maccabeus]

That’s not really fair given his experience was tolerated sexual problems from the top level. He only married after the fact.

He was hanging around one of our sister churches that has since left the conference. While I would call them somewhat transitional, morality was not a problem there.

I don’t know if that is the same church but I heard if from more than just him

It is most assuredly not. I know the pastors and overseeing bishop personally. This one is in Pennsylvania. I think the one he is talking about is in Ohio.

[Thomas_muntzer]

Is this an indication of transitioning to not being plain at all?

I doubt it, since it has been this way a very long time. Most other more conservative groups are more comfortable with a little bit of watching a video clip on someone else's phone, but not comfortable at all with intending to sit down and watch a feature-length film, or just watch a few hours of broadcast TV in one's home.

I don't quite get the purpose of this "bunny trails" thread—since your comment actually belongs to a different post—but it is a very interesting discussion where there are several valid points of view.

Personally, I consider it far more detrimental to have a smartphone and watch 30 minutes of Reels or Shorts than for the whole family to sit on the couch with popcorn and watch a movie together.

[JohnH]

I don't quite get the purpose of this "bunny trails" thread—since your comment actually belongs to a different post—but it is a very interesting discussion where there are several valid points of view.

Personally, I consider it far more detrimental to have a smartphone and watch 30 minutes of Reels or Shorts than for the whole family to sit on the couch with popcorn and watch a movie together.

Generally speaking, the plain world would be far more concerned about a family choosing to explicitly watch worldly entertainment together vs someone who "falls into" doing a bit of it in private on their own time.

[JohnH]

No. He is just miffed because we won’t let him join. He is ineligible for membership in virtually all Moderate Conservative Mennonite churches.

It is no small coincidence that the church he is a member of is about the only conservative church he could join.

That’s not really fair given his experience was tolerated sexual problems from the top level. He only married after the fact.

He was hanging around one of our sister churches that has since left the conference. While I would call them somewhat transitional, morality was not a problem there.

J M, the minister there, Clayton Shenk, also invited me to be part of that church circa 2017 if I needed a church home including membership there, so perhaps a member of the ministry in the same organisation as that minister was (who indeed founded your denomination), you should reconsider speaking outright falsehoods about me and my relationship to that hurch.

In the end, I did not join Tidings of Peace Mennonite Church despite the fact I felt comfortable there and wanted to, but it felt like the Lord wanted me to stay in Ohio and go in a different direction there. In retrospect, I am glad I followed that path as I would not have enjoyed being around TOP when it left your denomination. I joined my present congregation in 2018, where fortunately they did accept a divorced, not-remarried person (me at the time). Are you saying a divorced, not-remarried person would be "ineligible for membership in virtually all Moderate Conservative Mennonite churches"?

I left Hartville Conservative Mennonite Church in 2016 due to unresolved issues (which have since been resolved, but it was many years later) with a member living in open sin and adultery. I felt I could not join in good conscience, and I withdrew my application for membership a week before I would have been baptised. My other two friends were baptised on that day, both of whom also eventually withdrew their membership and left there.

I would like to add that something I always appreciated about Min. Shenk was his pastoral attitude and kindness towards me, even after I joined the Holdeman church. It spoke well of both him, his congregation, and Keystone as a whole. I would invite you to join in his legacy towards people like me.

[ohio jones]

I don't quite get the purpose of this "bunny trails" thread

It's a place for moderators to move posts that are off topic where they originated (in this case the thread on the Anabaptist Perspectives media organization).

[JohnH]

I see the US is now bombing oil tanker ships in the straight of Hormuz. A year ago I would have confidently said this would never happen. I really don't recognize the Trump America anymore, it's a foreign country to me.

That’s how I felt when Liberal presidents advocate for abortion and lit at the White House in rainbow colors and told the gay activist “This is their country now. So I understand how you feel.” Trump was the only president that marched in the pro-life march.
God certainly called enough wars but He never promoted sexual sins like Democrat presidents and Kate term abortions.

Donald Trump has cheated on his three wives multiple times (no-fault divorce is a sexual sin).

Divorce is not a sexual sin; however, committing adultery whilst you're still married certainly is.

[nett]

He was hanging around one of our sister churches that has since left the conference. While I would call them somewhat transitional, morality was not a problem there.

I don’t know if that is the same church but I heard if from more than just him

It is most assuredly not. I know the pastors and overseeing bishop personally. This one is in Pennsylvania. I think the one he is talking about is in Ohio.

I think you would do well to stop posting about this.

[JohnH]

The church belongs to Jesus, but some worldly institutions and systems, such as The Episcopal Church, the Unitarian-Universalists, and the much of the transitional conservative Anabaptist church systems, are indeed broken beyond hope except for hope in Jesus who can rescue people despite them being caught in such systems.

Overall, transitional Anabaptism isn't leading people into more Christian lives, saving the lost, spreading the gospel to our neighbours, or raising up the next generation of faithful disciples. It functions a lot more like an ethnic social club. I have nothing against ethnic social clubs, but I don't confuse them with Christ's church, even though one often finds faithful Christians at my local gardening club, the Ruritan association, and so forth.

That sounds suspiciously like the folks who say the Old Orders aren't saved.

Well, I've never made a claim that members of transitional Anabaptist churches aren't saved. I do think that their prevailing culture has certain aspects of it that are not conducive to Christian living in the long term.

Fundamentally, it makes almost no sense as a culture to be defined by "we were once more traditional than we are now, and in the future, we will be less so".

[JohnH]

I wonder about higher education and how that might fit into this conversation. The hosts and guests of AP are much more likely to have college degrees as compared to the average plain Anabaptist. My perception is higher education shapes the content of AP: what topics are chosen, how the conversations happen, etc. There's deep suspicion among plain Anabaptists about higher education, so it doesn't surprise me that some plain Anabaptists would be suspicious of AP.

I'm a former conservative Mennonite with a college degree. Make of that what you will.

My own denomination's experiences with higher education parallel yours, although I've often thought that perhaps people who are struggling spiritually were attracted to higher education, as opposed to people who were doing just fine seeking higher education and then the university somehow influencing them to abandon Christian practice and belief.

Coming from a family where education was very important to us - my dad's a college professor; both my parents have Masters', my cousin's an M.D., my other cousin has a Master's, my brother has two bachelor's, his wife has a Ph.D, my other brother's wife has a Master's, etc. it has been quite a change for those of us in my family who have embraced conservative Anabaptism to rethink higher education and basically put it behind us. One thing surprising is that none of us want it for our children. If you would have asked any of us 11 years ago, that would have been absolutely unthinkable.

[Judas Maccabeus]

I wonder about higher education and how that might fit into this conversation. The hosts and guests of AP are much more likely to have college degrees as compared to the average plain Anabaptist. My perception is higher education shapes the content of AP: what topics are chosen, how the conversations happen, etc. There's deep suspicion among plain Anabaptists about higher education, so it doesn't surprise me that some plain Anabaptists would be suspicious of AP.

I'm a former conservative Mennonite with a college degree. Make of that what you will.

By that logic, the Old Order River Brethren should be the most liberal church of all.