What has to happen? Reforming our culture

[Aurien]

Not sure. What have you worked to reform in your church and community?

It is often easy to post things on a forum. It is much harder and impactful to actually follow through and do something. People do resist change.

Change comes with the pain to stay the same is worse than the pain to change.

Currently I have neither a church nor a community. Unless you mean a "secular" community that comprises my neighbors and such.

What reforms would it take for you to come back to this culture?

I would applaud reforms within the CA culture but they wouldn't induce me to come back. The point of reforms shouldn't be to get anyone to go back to CA culture. Reforms should be done because it is the right thing to do.
As for my ideas on reforms please see my list of things I posted earlier.

[steve-in-kville]

I would applaud reforms within the CA culture but they wouldn't induce me to come back. The point of reforms shouldn't be to get anyone to go back to CA culture. Reforms should be done because it is the right thing to do.

I can understand this quite personally.

We didn't leave because of the standards. We left because of double standards.

We didn't leave because we couldn't submit to authority. We left because of corrupt authority.

[Josh]

I would applaud reforms within the CA culture but they wouldn't induce me to come back. The point of reforms shouldn't be to get anyone to go back to CA culture. Reforms should be done because it is the right thing to do.

I can understand this quite personally.

We didn't leave because of the standards. We left because of double standards.

We didn't leave because we couldn't submit to authority. We left because of corrupt authority.

“What would it take to cause you to return to a corrupt leader and a place where hypocrisy is promoted”

I dunno, I guess if I became a hypocrite too?

[Bootstrap]

I'm not a plain Menno, and I don't see things from the inside.

From the outside, here's one thing that concerns me: in some of the communication, this seems to be phrased as though it were all about JMast and nobody had any way to know this was going on until quite recently. The focus is on how to recover from these injuries and move on. Please do seek how to recover and heal. Please do continue to minister to the needs of others. Please be careful not to move on without learning all of the lessons God has to teach.

When I heard about JMast, I realized that this was probably what some of the vague references I had heard for years was about. And I have heard vague references to other things that have happened, I do not know how much of this is true, but JMast is not the only CA who has been arrested in Haiti and Haiti is probably not the only place sexual abuse has occurred among CAs. Unless CAs are completely unlike other Christians and CA ministries are completely unlike other Christian ministries, there probably ARE other instances. If not, there probably will be. This kind of thing wasn't easy for the early church either if the New Testament is any guide. Joining my church or yours does not guarantee righteousness,

All Christians need to wrestle with these issues. All Christian groups need to think about teachings that let us work together in relationships of trust without covering things up, with real mutual accountability. CA theology has some huge advantages for this, but only with that real mutual accountability and a concern for leaders who will investigate any indication that people might be getting hurt by abusive behavior. And leaders need to be just as accountable as anyone else.

CAs may well have the right theology to bring about the right cultural changes. But perhaps the way you apply Gelassenheit in practice is worth looking at, and how that relates to discernment and hearing concerns about leaders of various kinds. I haven't lived your flavor of Gelassenheit from the inside, I'm just guessing here. You obviously need to discern this for yourselves.

[Aurien]

Plain People are good at producing all kinds of rumours and gossip.

My favorite of all time is one that circulates every ten years or so. Its the one where a young man from the "outside" is recruited by an amish bishop to impregnate amish women thereby infusing "fresh bloodlines" into the amish church. I'll spare the details!

Actually.....you might want to ask Trudy Metzger and others about those "rumors." There does appear to be reasons as to why they got started.

[Aurien]

[
It is often easy to post things on a forum. It is much harder and impactful to actually follow through and do something. People do resist change.

Change comes with the pain to stay the same is worse than the pain to change.

Something I heard recently,
"When someone is stubborn and set in his ways it could take dynamite to jar him loose, and I reckon God is even more effective than any explosive."

[Robert]

Something I heard recently,
"When someone is stubborn and set in his ways it could take dynamite to jar him loose, and I reckon God is even more effective than any explosive."

I do not see where God forces change on a person. I see God facilitating change and once a person is open to it through insight or circumstance, assisting in that change. I learned a long time ago that one can not force another to truly change. We can force a person to modify behavior for a time, but true change comes from within.

I also learned that even though I think I am really right and got the moral high ground, there is is always another side and when I take time to listen to it, I find others often are trying to do what is best, they just see things a little differently. I learned I got as much to learn from one I disagree with as to teach.

I learned from a wise man a while back that to move a boulder, smacking into it will just cause you some pain, but if you slowly exert pressure on it, you may eventually move it. Most people and people groups will resist massive change. Slow change is natural and much easier. Fast change is usually only temporary, but slow change is usually permanent. So do you want fast change only to be changed again fast, or slow change that becomes part of the culture thus much more permanent?

[Aurien]

Something I heard recently,
"When someone is stubborn and set in his ways it could take dynamite to jar him loose, and I reckon God is even more effective than any explosive."

I do not see where God forces change on a person. I see God facilitating change and once a person is open to it through insight or circumstance, assisting in that change. I learned a long time ago that one can not force another to truly change. We can force a person to modify behavior for a time, but true change comes from within.

I also learned that even though I think I am really right and got the moral high ground, there is is always another side and when I take time to listen to it, I find others often are trying to do what is best, they just see things a little differently. I learned I got as much to learn from one I disagree with as to teach.

I learned from a wise man a while back that to move a boulder, smacking into it will just cause you some pain, but if you slowly exert pressure on it, you may eventually move it. Most people and people groups will resist massive change. Slow change is natural and much easier. Fast change is usually only temporary, but slow change is usually permanent. So do you want fast change only to be changed again fast, or slow change that becomes part of the culture thus much more permanent?

The quote wasn't intended to say that God forces change on anybody. I just liked it.

Back to the OP, what do you think has to happen to reform the CA culture?

[Josh]

Plain People are good at producing all kinds of rumours and gossip.

My favorite of all time is one that circulates every ten years or so. Its the one where a young man from the "outside" is recruited by an amish bishop to impregnate amish women thereby infusing "fresh bloodlines" into the amish church. I'll spare the details!

Actually.....you might want to ask Trudy Metzger and others about those "rumors." There does appear to be reasons as to why they got started.

One common thing is everyone is quick to repeat rumours but hesitates to share real, verifiable details. A few of us, like Metzger, have stockpiles of this information. We have no plans to release it to hurt people, to be sensational, or to make Anabaptists look bad. I personally try to avoid repeating rumours like the above.

(As far as I know the actual truth behind that rumour was that some couples who couldn’t have children tried having a child with an “outside man”, which is far more believable. There are over 1 million plain Anabaptists. It’s quite likely something like this happens, especially when one considers the historical record in Genesis where this happened quite a few times.)

[Robert]

what do you think has to happen to reform the CA culture?

Openness, honesty, and compassion will go a long way. I am not CA. I was MCUSA, so I can not speak directly since I am not part of that community, although I am very sympathetic to it and would find myself very comfortable in CMC.