We are all pacifists. We prefer to treat other people without force or
coercion. We shake our heads when people do violence to others, born or not yet born, to people not deserving anger. We remember that Jesus urged us to "turn the other cheek." We pray for peace. We create organizations like the League of Nations and the United Nations to root out the underlying causes of peacelessness.

The vast majority of pacifists are, however, less than wholly committed to non-combative behavior. We are pacifists "only up to a point" or "within reasonable limits." Yes, of course, I dislike violence but "don't you dare tread on me!" We are "relative" or "qualified" or "conditional" pacifists.

We have heard that some Christians, Buddhists and others try to be
unlimited pacifists at all times. Among Catholics the late Dorothy Day and her followers spring to mind. Among Protestants there are the "peace churches," most prominently Friends (Quakers) and especially the  Amish, Mennonites, River Brethren and others within the Anabaptist family.

Canadian and American Anabaptist churches slowly assimilate to secular North American ways. Under unrelenting worldly pressure are their distinctive clothing, their living as farmers and worshiping in German. The world tempts them to drive automobiles or to use telephones and electrify their homes. As the list of American foreign wars grew longer, more Mennonite men declined to be conscientious objectors and allowed themselves either to be drafted or even to volunteer for military service.

We less-than-100% pacifists honor and respect the handful of absolute
pacifists among us. For they make us ask, "Doesn't Jesus want me, too, to turn the other cheek?" We assume that the peace churches will always beget non-conformists.

I blinked therefore when I picked up the MENNONITE WEEKLY REVIEW for December 24, 1998 and read on the front page, "Congregation Repents of 'Idolizing' Peace." I learned that on December 13, 1998 in Broadway, Virginia, Pastor Gerald Martin  prayed before some 1,000 persons at his Cornerstone Church. He then solemnly stated: 

The congregation also publicly repented of two other collective sins of their entire Mennonite denomination: 

"unloving treatment of women 
and racial/ethnic discrimination."

Pastor Martin had convinced his congregation that early in their history
Anabaptists had fallen away from a New Testament vision of proactive
evangelization and spreading of Christianity.  Many had, for example,
accepted invitations from princes to migrate to Russia and elsewhere on specific condition that they not evangelize. This compromise exaggerated a tendency towards submission and "peace at any price." Mennonites, argued Pastor Martin, had made peace an idol, loving peace even more than the Lord Jesus.

Mennonites also sin because "we have seen ourselves as more spiritual than other Christians, which has led to an unbiblical, distorted view of nonconformity." This makes some Mennonites now hold back from evangelizing others. It also makes members of the Armed Forces and other conditional pacifists reluctant to seek Mennonite fellowship.

At the Virginia repentance ceremony one conditional pacifist from an armed forces family told the congregation, "No matter what you think of the military, one thing is true: Every man in the military needs Jesus." Another said that he did not want to be a Mennonite but rather "a Christian--a radical Christian."

One week later the MENNONITE WEEKLY REVIEW printed a letter by Myron Zerger of Dearborn, Michigan disputing that Mennonites were not evangelizing others. "I have had many conversations about Christ while working on disaster projects. There are many ways to evangelize," he argued. Regarding the Cornerstone Church, Zerger concluded, "it seems  arrogant and presumptuous to speak for an entire denomination."

The Christmas eve article touched many believers. Reporter Carol Thiessen in a by-lined article for the January 14, 1999 MENNONITE WEEKLY REVIEW, pointed out that three months before the Virginia Congregation's public repentance there had been a seminal Mennonite leadership meeting to probe the problems of waning commitment to peace. In Winnipeg 18 Canadian peace workers had met for two days. Mennonite Peace ministries coordinator Tom Snowden analyzed  peace broadly  as follows. 

There is peace with God, 
peace with one's self, peace with others 
and peace with the environment.

The activists sense that Mennonites are decreasingly identified as a peace church even as their assimilation into the Canadian main stream accelerates. Congregations do not talk much about peace any more. Some Canadian Mennonites worry that characteristic Anabaptist practices and beliefs,  especially, absolute pacifism, push away people otherwise well disposed to the Gospel. Against this, peace leader Henry Dueck cautioned lest evangelical Mennonites, having become  engrossed in founding new congregations, slight other values. New Christians, he said, also need to be taught "about a peaceable walk." Many Canadians, observed Menno Kroeker, are too heavily influenced by certain streams of American evangelicalism. They hear "ideas that link Christianity with defending the American way of life."

Jennifer Mains from Kitchener, Ontario thought that a younger generation, having been raised in comfort and now taking abundance for granted, is drifting away from traditional peace theology. The Bible makes us ask whether our personal comfort is unjustly erected upon the discomfort of unknown humans far away. The Gospel message is counter-cultural, non-conformist, a never ending critique of this sinful world.

Henry Dueck thought it a mistake to define peace either too negatively or too narrowly. If peace-mindedness means nothing more than refusal to do military service, then how is pacifism relevant during good times, times without war or threat of war? Dueck recommended that pacifist Christians think more in terms of a "peaceable walk" with others and less in terms of non-resistance. Mennonites, he argued, should make themselves models of positive, pro-active peacemakers. Mennonites should not be perceived as "people who just withdraw from conflict."

Facing up to issues presented in the MENNONITE WEEKLY REVIEW is a must for anyone who demands more peace and less violence in our world.

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for Asheville TRIBUNE