How could transitional Anabaptists stop being that way?

[joshuabgood]

I do fear it, since all my friends who went that way have lost out, and I haven’t heard a good refutation of this problem.

That helps me understand why you feel this way...

[Marylander]

In my church, a congregation of Hope Mennonite Fellowship, my analysis came up with the following points of origin of our membership:

32% Hope Mennonite Fellowship
32% Washington/Franklin Mennonite Conference
12% Other Mennonite
8% Pilgrim Mennonite Conference
8% Eastern PA Mennonite Conference
4% Weaverland Mennonite Conference
4% Independent Mennonite

The only group that could possibly be said to have a more liberal origin than HMF could be the 4% from independent although that is even debatable on some points. The origin of all other persons would be from either more conservative or in the case of PMC similarly conservative.

So, I'm guessing this is a textbook example of a transitional church, when as much as 2/3 of the membership is from churches more conservative than the charter membership.

You have a wonderful congregation. In the multitude of backgrounds, there is safety.

[mike]

In my church, a congregation of Hope Mennonite Fellowship, my analysis came up with the following points of origin of our membership:

32% Hope Mennonite Fellowship
32% Washington/Franklin Mennonite Conference
12% Other Mennonite
8% Pilgrim Mennonite Conference
8% Eastern PA Mennonite Conference
4% Weaverland Mennonite Conference
4% Independent Mennonite

The only group that could possibly be said to have a more liberal origin than HMF could be the 4% from independent although that is even debatable on some points. The origin of all other persons would be from either more conservative or in the case of PMC similarly conservative.

So, I'm guessing this is a textbook example of a transitional church, when as much as 2/3 of the membership is from churches more conservative than the charter membership.

You have a wonderful congregation. In the multitude of backgrounds, there is safety.

From one perspective it is a multitude of backgrounds. From another all these backgrounds are really quite similar. However I agree with you that such diversity as we do have is a good thing.

[NedFlanders]

In my church, a congregation of Hope Mennonite Fellowship, my analysis came up with the following points of origin of our membership:

32% Hope Mennonite Fellowship
32% Washington/Franklin Mennonite Conference
12% Other Mennonite
8% Pilgrim Mennonite Conference
8% Eastern PA Mennonite Conference
4% Weaverland Mennonite Conference
4% Independent Mennonite

The only group that could possibly be said to have a more liberal origin than HMF could be the 4% from independent although that is even debatable on some points. The origin of all other persons would be from either more conservative or in the case of PMC similarly conservative.

So, I'm guessing this is a textbook example of a transitional church, when as much as 2/3 of the membership is from churches more conservative than the charter membership.

You have a wonderful congregation. In the multitude of backgrounds, there is safety.

From one perspective it is a multitude of backgrounds. From another all these backgrounds are really quite similar. However I agree with you that such diversity as we do have is a good thing.

After over a decade of being a seeker unfortunately this is exactly the type of congregation I’d be very much looking at avoiding and recommending other seekers to avoid as well. That transitional thing is too big of a deal for seekers to ignore.

[Marylander]

You have a wonderful congregation. In the multitude of backgrounds, there is safety.

From one perspective it is a multitude of backgrounds. From another all these backgrounds are really quite similar. However I agree with you that such diversity as we do have is a good thing.

After over a decade of being a seeker unfortunately this is exactly the type of congregation I’d be very much looking at avoiding and recommending other seekers to avoid as well. That transitional thing is too big of a deal for seekers to ignore.

A decade of seeking????? Wow. You've checked into horse and buggy? Many are not transitional. W-F conference isn't transitional. And neither are the Lehrleut Hutterites. Seek no farther!

[Soloist]

From one perspective it is a multitude of backgrounds. From another all these backgrounds are really quite similar. However I agree with you that such diversity as we do have is a good thing.

After over a decade of being a seeker unfortunately this is exactly the type of congregation I’d be very much looking at avoiding and recommending other seekers to avoid as well. That transitional thing is too big of a deal for seekers to ignore.

A decade of seeking????? Wow. You've checked into horse and buggy? Many are not transitional. W-F conference isn't transitional. And neither are the Lehrleut Hutterites. Seek no farther!

Those groups don’t generally permit internet from what I heard.

[Ken]

What I see is a gradual transition to Protestantism by Anabaptists. It begins by embracing "born again" Christianity and "Faith alone" and then naturally flows to de-emphasizing works and orthopraxis, deemphasizing community discernment in practical applications and embracing individual grace, fed by "PSA alone" which inexorably leads to OSAS and a gospel that is essentially eschatological, fed by conservative political preachers and protestant radio hosts, which leads to thinking the 2nd amendment is important, and self defense leads to embracing violence in government institutions (military/police), which leads to oaths etc etc. In the end, transitioning folks almost always end up Protestant of some sort (with a very few going Catholic or EO or Anglican)

This isn’t just a concern for more conservative groups. More liberal Anabaptists express the same exact concerns. For example, not long ago I spoke to someone who teaches religion at an MCUSA college. He expressed that when he started teaching 25 or so years ago that students would come to his class from Mennonite congregations very secure in their beliefs about traditional Anabaptist teachings such as nonresistance, peacemaking, and pacifism. But somewhat uncertain about where the stood on wider culture war and evangelical issues such as, for example, abortion. But that today it is the opposite. They come into his class very secure on where they stand on wider evangelical Christian issues, while being more uncertain about uniquely Anabaptist teachings such as nonresistance.

[Josh]

I do fear it, since all my friends who went that way have lost out, and I haven’t heard a good refutation of this problem. The academy seems to be very dangerous to a Christian’s faith.

The academy also promotes a lot of ideas that are identical to flat eartherism, such as belief that men evolved from a primordial “soup” rather than being created by God in his image, and that a man can choose to become a woman. These ideologies are just as bad as flat eartherism.

Everyone I know who got into a flat earth learned of it via time spent on social media. Plain people should fear social media and Facebook and Telegram groups as much as they do higher education; they are both expressions of the rotten evil that is modernity.

I do wonder about these WhatsApp and cloudveil groups… I also wonder about Mennonet.

CloudVeil restricts access to groups; a request has to be placed and then the support team allows the group.

Our church would prefer people use CVM, but a lot of people continue to like WhatsApp. The one positive thing is that there aren’t a bunch of military, gore, “news” etc English language channels.

[Josh]

How could Mennonites stop being transitional? The Holdeman's, Horning, Charity, Pilgrim should stop setting up camp in Old Order communities or in the case of Pilgrim, an Old Mennonite community. When John and Frances Herr along with John Holdeman in Ohio left the Old Mennonite church, it sowed a lot of confusion among the Mennonites.

Holdemans aren’t transitional since they don’t easily accomodate people leaving. Your criticism of them “sourcing” from more plain groups is valid; however we don’t have the phenomenon of people continually leaving for a somewhat less plain group. (We could have a separate thread to discuss groups which intake from more plain churches but don’t have a corresponding outflow.)

[Josh]

And guess what, Eastern is functioning just like the Holdeman's and Herrites in the 1800's and is pulling people in from the Old Colony Mennonites in Bolivia. It rhymes with history.

It’s rather different since the Kansas group had no functioning church nor leadership when John Holdeman visited them, which was a unique once-in-a-universe happenstance. Nowadays the Easterns function more like “missionaries”. (Modern day recruitment of Old Colonists by Holdemans woods be similar but almost never happens. Our churches in Mexico are mostly non-Anabaptist background people, oddly enough. There are a handful of Old Colonist people who moved to Kansas and joined our church much later.)

The ministers and other leaders all stayed in Russia/Ukraine which meant the sheep had no shepherd who came to America.