Stereotyping and Overgeneralizing People and Institutions

[ohio jones]

Where I find I part ways with some people on this forum is the idea that I should commune with absolutely anybody regardless of their practice and belief. I don't agree with that.

Not that I agree either, but it's a question of what the focus of the communion service is or should be. "Do this in remembrance of your brothers' practice and belief" ?

A common rendering of 1 Corinthians 7 is that it precludes communing with someone engaging in gross immorality.

Of course. But someone reading MN would likely get the idea that Who Am I Communing With is the main point of communion. It should be possible to exclude gross immorality without losing sight of Who we are to remember.

[Bootstrap]

I don't know very many people that well, and I doubt you do. I am fairly certain almost none of knows this for most of the people whose lives have been discussed here on MN, often with the conviction that people can somehow know these things confidently based on what they feel.

The context of the discussion was about whether or not we can judge if we would go to communion with someone.

And yes, we should know our brethren in our own church well enough to know if things like adultery. False doctrine, harming children etc are going on.

We should also say, with boldness, that people who do the above things are not real Christians.

One thing I think we can learn from Jeriah Mast is that even the local church and the ministry he worked for did not know what was going on. I think we are often less good at knowing other people's hearts than we think we are.

Both his local church and the charity were shocked and surprised, even though they thought they knew him well.

Regardless, discerning within the congregation is a different question than Stereotyping and Overgeneralizing People and Institutions. It's very individual, and doing it well takes time and prayer and discernment.

[Ernie]

One thing I think we can learn from Jeriah Mast is that even the local church and the ministry he worked for did not know what was going on. I think we are often less good at knowing other people's hearts than we think we are.

Both his local church and the charity were shocked and surprised, even though they thought they knew him well.

This happens often. Trusted persons shock the community by their adultery, their perversions, their abuse, etc. Over the last ten years, I am less shocked when it happens that when I was younger, but it still hits me broadside when it happens.

I think this should tell us something about our generally held ideas about "knowing".
People will sometimes say about another person, "I know that he would never do that." But they might not really have the sort of conversations with such people that would actually enable them to "know" with any level of confidence. In order to have any basis for confidence, we really need to know how people are processing life, its temptations, a person's weaknesses, etc.

If I remember correctly, Jeriah avoided some opportunities for accountability that could have helped him repent. When this happens, I think it should raise red flags in people's minds.

[JohnH]

I don't know very many people that well, and I doubt you do. I am fairly certain almost none of knows this for most of the people whose lives have been discussed here on MN, often with the conviction that people can somehow know these things confidently based on what they feel.

The context of the discussion was about whether or not we can judge if we would go to communion with someone.

And yes, we should know our brethren in our own church well enough to know if things like adultery. False doctrine, harming children etc are going on.

We should also say, with boldness, that people who do the above things are not real Christians.

One thing I think we can learn from Jeriah Mast is that even the local church and the ministry he worked for did not know what was going on. I think we are often less good at knowing other people's hearts than we think we are.

Both his local church and the charity were shocked and surprised, even though they thought they knew him well.

Regardless, discerning within the congregation is a different question than Stereotyping and Overgeneralizing People and Institutions. It's very individual, and doing it well takes time and prayer and discernment.

Multiple people including the ministry knew he had molested multiple boys in Ohio.

[Bootstrap]

One thing I think we can learn from Jeriah Mast is that even the local church and the ministry he worked for did not know what was going on. I think we are often less good at knowing other people's hearts than we think we are.

Both his local church and the charity were shocked and surprised, even though they thought they knew him well.

This happens often. Trusted persons shock the community by their adultery, their perversions, their abuse, etc. Over the last ten years, I am less shocked when it happens that when I was younger, but it still hits me broadside when it happens.

I think this should tell us something about our generally held ideas about "knowing".
People will sometimes say about another person, "I know that he would never do that." But they might not really have the sort of conversations with such people that would actually enable them to "know" with any level of confidence. In order to have any basis for confidence, we really need to know how people are processing life, its temptations, a person's weaknesses, etc.

If I remember correctly, Jeriah avoided some opportunities for accountability that could have helped him repent. When this happens, I think it should raise red flags in people's minds.

And so often, people speak as though they knew what other people are thinking, even insisting that they know better than the people themselves, sometimes going so far as to say they are being deceptive if they don't admit that OUR account of what they are thinking is accurate. We see that frequently on MN, telling people EXACTLY how They think.

People who are familiar with Jeriah Mast's story do this too.

I heard an Israeli podcast where the podcaster said he KNOWS that Israel does not torture prisoners, because "our people would never do that". And I think a lot of us thought the same about Americans before Abu Ghraib.

Multiple people including the ministry knew he had molested multiple boys in Ohio.

And yet, they factored it in, expected repentance ... they would not have sanctioned ongoing abuse, but as Mennonites, we can also be convinced that We would never do such a thing. On social media, we see people project one set of inner dialogs on Us, we project a different set of inner dialogs on Them, and people get angry if I don't think they can speak for either.

[JohnH]

Boot,

Actually, I think Jeriah Mast’s defenders were simply evil, unrepentant people in spiritual darkness.

We can call a spade a spade.

[Ernie]

Boot,
Actually, I think Jeriah Mast’s defenders were simply evil, unrepentant people in spiritual darkness.
We can call a spade a spade.

I do not think they were spades. I think they were naive.

[joshuabgood]

Boot,
Actually, I think Jeriah Mast’s defenders were simply evil, unrepentant people in spiritual darkness.
We can call a spade a spade.

I do not think they were spades. I think they were naive.

I think this is part of the equation.

Another part, in my discernment a larger portion, though is what JohnH put his finger on, that being, his proximity to people in power, his relationshipo to influencers in the movement (son), along with his presentation as a "conservative," all I think likely fed into ethnocentric tendencies in our community that brought opportunity, protection, and forbearance that many from the "wrong side of the tracks" would never have had access to, would never have been protected, and would have been cast aside for much smaller infractions (ie listening to the wrong music, wearing the wrong clothes, committing consensual fornication, etc...)

There can be an underlying arrogance in our midst that facilitates tragedy's like that one.

[barnhart]

Boot,
Actually, I think Jeriah Mast’s defenders were simply evil, unrepentant people in spiritual darkness.
We can call a spade a spade.

I do not think they were spades. I think they were naive.

I think this is part of the equation.

Another part, in my discernment a larger portion, though is what JohnH put his finger on, that being, his proximity to people in power, his relationshipo to influencers in the movement (son), along with his presentation as a "conservative," all I think likely fed into ethnocentric tendencies in our community that brought opportunity, protection, and forbearance that many from the "wrong side of the tracks" would never have had access to, would never have been protected, and would have been cast aside for much smaller infractions (ie listening to the wrong music, wearing the wrong clothes, committing consensual fornication, etc...)

There can be an underlying arrogance in our midst that facilitates tragedy's like that one.

I agree with this but that makes them guilty of culture or tribal arrogance which seems different than saying they are evil.

[Neto]

As concerning discernment of sin in the lives of others, and having once become aware of it, the Scripture gives the there-to-fore innocent a serious warning - "Beware lest you fall (into the same sin)." We do well to keep that in mind any time we are applying Scripture to a brother or sister.