US Attacks Iran 2026

[JohnH]

Far more that you could imagine. I am not on that working group, I am on another, but am aware of their activities at both the district and conference level. Ever hear of CASP? We have sent young men to that program. We have had mock “draft board” interviews at at least one of our functions. A discussion on “how to prepare “ will soon be in the conference newsletter.

I am well aware of CASP. I will speak frankly:

In your denomination, there is not a test of membership against owning a pistol or a military-styled rifle such as an AR-15. Selective Service has made abundantly clear that they will consider owning military-styled firearms as evidence someone is not a legitimate CO. We have long had tests of membership against such things, but that shows the urgency to actually enforce this sort of thing.

Since I doubt your conference has any doctors or nurses, considering the attitude towards higher education (unless they are converts) they might not be aware of this little gem in the federal register:

You should stop making assumptions like that. We do have a negative attitude towards higher education since most young Christians who go to higher education fall into immorality and abandon the true faith; that is simply an argument not to send 18 year olds into a lions' den. That does not mean that nobody is a doctor or nurse. (It is not worth losing one's faith in order to become a doctor or nurse, either, and I would view with great suspicion the barely-conservative Anabaptists who make it a point of pride to be highly educated. After losing a dear friend who went to college and trained to be a nurse, my general attitude is "never again".)

I am not particularly concerned with things in the federal register 37 years ago.

[Dan Z]

Actually my prediction was a draft is unlikely but if Anabaptists are locked up for reasons of conviction, it will be at the hands of people who openly claim the name of Jesus.

And that's a pretty silly prediction. The overall trend in America is not towards more Christianity, but less. Secular government has been established for a long time.

The US seems to be following the playbook of Vladimir Putin fairly closely, demonize dissent, attack media, threaten media licence for dissent, meddle in others elections, discount elections as fraudulent, bomb or invade other nations to save them from bad people. Start war without clarity about how to end it, threaten neighboring nations, over estimate the power of military incursions to force other's behavior, etc... Maybe the US will also follow his example and increase the military signing bonuses to the point recruits will accept the elevated risk of death for the benefit to their families.

The U.S. isn't following in Putin's path at all. You really need to stop reading from what are effectively propaganda sources and try to read from a variety of viewpoints.

JohnH - for the integrity of MennoNet, it would be helpful if you would post more substance and less insult. For example, in the above response to Barnhart's rather thoughtful perspective, you insulted his first thought as "pretty silly" and you dismissed his nine-point explanation on how the US is following Putin's path as simply narrow "propaganda"...while offering nothing but curt opinion in response.

A lot of us come here, with limited time available, to think through current events and issues, including listening to the perspectives outside of our own viewpoint. You do your the board and your brand of conservatism no good by simply spewing insults and unsupported claims. You've got some good things to say - we would all be better off if you would take the time to put some substantive meat on the bones of your posts...and trim the fat of insult while you're at it. Thanks.

[mike]

Actually my prediction was a draft is unlikely but if Anabaptists are locked up for reasons of conviction, it will be at the hands of people who openly claim the name of Jesus.

And that's a pretty silly prediction. The overall trend in America is not towards more Christianity, but less. Secular government has been established for a long time.

The US seems to be following the playbook of Vladimir Putin fairly closely, demonize dissent, attack media, threaten media licence for dissent, meddle in others elections, discount elections as fraudulent, bomb or invade other nations to save them from bad people. Start war without clarity about how to end it, threaten neighboring nations, over estimate the power of military incursions to force other's behavior, etc... Maybe the US will also follow his example and increase the military signing bonuses to the point recruits will accept the elevated risk of death for the benefit to their families.

The U.S. isn't following in Putin's path at all. You really need to stop reading from what are effectively propaganda sources and try to read from a variety of viewpoints.

JohnH - for the integrity of MennoNet, it would be helpful if you would post more substance and less insult. For example, in the above response to Barnhart's rather thoughtful perspective, you insulted his first thought as "pretty silly" and you dismissed his nine-point explanation on how the US is following Putin's path as simply narrow "propaganda"...while offering nothing but curt opinion in response.

A lot of us come here, with limited time available, to think through current events and issues, including listening to the perspectives outside of our own viewpoint. You do your the board and your brand of conservatism no good by simply spewing insults and unsupported claims. You've got some good things to say - we would all be better off if you would take the time to put some substantive meat on the bones of your posts...and trim the fat of insult while you're at it. Thanks.

Worth considering, JohnH. I wish you would apply your rather stringent view of truth-in-advertising to some of your other posts where other people's views are sometimes a pretty wild caricature.

[JohnH]

JohnH - for the integrity of MennoNet, it would be helpful if you would post more substance and less insult. For example, in the above response to Barnhart's rather thoughtful perspective, you insulted his first thought as "pretty silly" and you dismissed his nine-point explanation on how the US is following Putin's path as simply narrow "propaganda"...while offering nothing but curt opinion in response.

A lot of us come here, with limited time available, to think through current events and issues, including listening to the perspectives outside of our own viewpoint. You do your the board and your brand of conservatism no good by simply spewing insults and unsupported claims. You've got some good things to say - we would all be better off if you would take the time to put some substantive meat on the bones of your posts...and trim the fat of insult while you're at it. Thanks.

Dan Z, with respect, I have often put quite a bit of effort into substantive posts that are either ignored, or else picked apart with pithy responses. (You are welcome to peruse my post history to find them.)

I believe your objection is not to the substance of my post, but to the political alignment. Please sincerely ask yourself if your real objection is to the style of what I said, or if it is to the political alignment you sense. I know you and I are not politically aligned, but I think it should be possible for us to still talk to each other despite that.

I feel that barnhart made an assertion with no basis at all that somehow if Anabaptists are going to be persecuted, it will be by Christian people. (The only Anabaptists I have met who were persecuted were persecuted by Communists, so my own lived experience is that left-wing atheism is far more of a threat for actual persecution than some hypothetical bogeyman of Christians who are, apparently, going to somehow persecute Anabaptists in America for... I'm not sure for what, exactly.)

I have also written extensively before that I don't think Trump and Putin are the same kind of thing, or even close to it; however, a lot of people view both Trump and Putin as some kind of incarnation of evil, and then end up seeing a phantom mirage where the two sort of blend into one character. Trump's America is not anything close to Putin's Russia. Not remotely close. It does a real disservice to the actual difficulties people face in Russia to act like we have anything even close to compare it with in America; in Russia, we wouldn't be posting on an open forum like this with our real names criticising the current administration at all, whereas I feel quite a few people use MennoNet as essentially a bullhorn to gripe about Trump.

The funny thing about all of this is that I'm not even particularly Trump aligned or that excited about his Presidencies or enacted policies. I just don't harbour a deep level of hatred towards the man, and I don't think that some hypothetical America without Trump in power would be some kind of nirvana, and at a certain point, I have a level of respect for reality and facts and don't like to see propaganda talking points repeated unironically on this forum. The reality is that most of the criticism levelled at me (and at others) is simply because we won't join in in a Two Minutes" Hate where we declare our allegiance to "Orange Man Bad".

Ultimately, my allegiance is to Jesus Christ and my citizenship in heaven, and my allegiance is not to political movements that define themselves by their opposition to Trump, and I would advise Christians who are caught in the latter to consider that perhaps they should rethink who they serve.

[Judas Maccabeus]

Far more that you could imagine. I am not on that working group, I am on another, but am aware of their activities at both the district and conference level. Ever hear of CASP? We have sent young men to that program. We have had mock “draft board” interviews at at least one of our functions. A discussion on “how to prepare “ will soon be in the conference newsletter.

I am well aware of CASP. I will speak frankly:

In your denomination, there is not a test of membership against owning a pistol or a military-styled rifle such as an AR-15. Selective Service has made abundantly clear that they will consider owning military-styled firearms as evidence someone is not a legitimate CO. We have long had tests of membership against such things, but that shows the urgency to actually enforce this sort of thing.

Since I doubt your conference has any doctors or nurses, considering the attitude towards higher education (unless they are converts) they might not be aware of this little gem in the federal register:

You should stop making assumptions like that. We do have a negative attitude towards higher education since most young Christians who go to higher education fall into immorality and abandon the true faith; that is simply an argument not to send 18 year olds into a lions' den. That does not mean that nobody is a doctor or nurse. (It is not worth losing one's faith in order to become a doctor or nurse, either, and I would view with great suspicion the barely-conservative Anabaptists who make it a point of pride to be highly educated. After losing a dear friend who went to college and trained to be a nurse, my general attitude is "never again".)

I am not particularly concerned with things in the federal register 37 years ago.

Have you read our district covenants? Our newsletter? There is a warning about that very issue coming out soon, I know BECAUSE I WROTE IT. We tend not to be as heavy handed about church discipline as the Holdeman movement. In our form of church government, we tend not to use the term “test of membership “ as freely as you, rather patient encouragement and counsel works to restore rather than disfellowship.


And for someone who spends as much time as you seem to on social media, calling others “barely conservative “ is a bit rich. It is also a bit selective, since the Holdeman movement allows some things that we clearly do not.

[JohnH]

Have you read our district covenants? Our newsletter? There is a warning about that very issue coming out soon, I know BECAUSE I WROTE IT. We tend not to be as heavy handed about church discipline as the Holdeman movement. In our form of church government, we tend not to use the term “test of membership “ as freely as you, rather patient encouragement and counsel works to restore rather than disfellowship.

Most my experience has been around youth or young families my age in that setting, and I can attest that firearm ownership seemed to be an indiscriminate thing including AR-15s and the lot. (Perhaps that has changed?)

And for someone who spends as much time as you seem to on social media, calling others “barely conservative “ is a bit rich. It is also a bit selective, since the Holdeman movement allows some things that we clearly do not.

Keystone would be in the least-conservative branch of conservative Anabaptism. That isn't meant as an insult, but rather an observation. For example, people in Keystone would feel comfortable watching DVDs at home or playing video games or freely using Facebook.

By the way, J M... I'll keep hammering on this, but I've sent you an email and would like to discuss a few things with you offline that I feel would be more fruitful than discussing it here. If you don't wish to do so, please at least send me a response saying so.

[ohio jones]

I feel that barnhart made an assertion with no basis at all that somehow if Anabaptists are going to be persecuted, it will be by Christian people.

No basis at all? I think he was assuming familiarity with five centuries of Anabaptist history, and provided an example from that history. There are plenty of others, but it's pointless to provide them if you'll simply handwave them away.

[JohnH]

I feel that barnhart made an assertion with no basis at all that somehow if Anabaptists are going to be persecuted, it will be by Christian people.

No basis at all? I think he was assuming familiarity with five centuries of Anabaptist history, and provided an example from that history. There are plenty of others, but it's pointless to provide them if you'll simply handwave them away.

In America? Anabaptists weren’t in America five centuries ago.

Overall, I am skeptical of claims Anabaptists are going to face persecution from some hypothetical extremist Christian theocracy in America. America’s government is about as far from Christian or theocratic as it has ever been. It is far more likely that Anabaptists will align themselves with wealth / ease or else with political factions and be lulled to sleep to abandon their convictions, versus actual persecution.

Of course, there are some Anabaptists who use the power of the state to persecute other Anabaptists, but that isn’t done under the guise of a Christian government.

[Ernie]

I feel that barnhart made an assertion with no basis at all that somehow if Anabaptists are going to be persecuted, it will be by Christian people.

No basis at all? I think he was assuming familiarity with five centuries of Anabaptist history, and provided an example from that history. There are plenty of others, but it's pointless to provide them if you'll simply handwave them away.

In America? Anabaptists weren’t in America five centuries ago.

Overall, I am skeptical of claims Anabaptists are going to face persecution from some hypothetical extremist Christian theocracy in America. America’s government is about as far from Christian or theocratic as it has ever been. It is far more likely that Anabaptists will align themselves with wealth / ease or else with political factions and be lulled to sleep to abandon their convictions, versus actual persecution.

Of course, there are some Anabaptists who use the power of the state to persecute other Anabaptists, but that isn’t done under the guise of a Christian government.

I can understand the skepticism about something that hasn't happened yet. However, we do see lesser persecution of traditional Anabaptists, even on places like MN. So, it would not surprise me if more aggressive forms of the same worldviews would someday have more aggressive forms of persecution.

[JohnH]

I can understand the skepticism about something that hasn't happened yet. However, we do see lesser persecution of traditional Anabaptists, even on places like MN. So, it would not surprise me if more aggressive forms of the same worldviews would someday have more aggressive forms of persecution.

The latter thing I talked about (best discussed offline, if you want to know, although you might already know about it) is about less-conservative Anabaptists using the power of the state to persecute more-traditional/conservative Anabaptists.