Friday, June 14, 2013

Coming out from the Mennonite Church.

It is difficult. I realized a few years ago that something was horribly wrong with the denomination, nay, the culture that I have belonged to since my birth. Since that time I have come to see the movement of Menninism as a false religion; as false as the Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons. You can scarcely find a witness in the whole heretical lot of them who will stand up and testify that "τη γαρ χαριτι εστε σεσωσμενοι δια πιστεως. και τουτο ουκ εχ υμων, θεου δωρον. ουκ εξ εργων, ινα μη τις καυχησηται." (Eph.2:8). NO ONE STANDS FOR THIS. Mennonites, as a corporate whole, truly believe that they are saved by their faithful and righteous obedience to Jesus. God help them. They are worse than the Judaizers, who at least limited their soteriological requirements to circumcision and feast days.

I am left adrift, without a family, without a denomination or a body of believers to call my home. Like David on the run, I know not where to turn. This is the season of doubt. To be sure, I will always love Mennonites in the midst of my hatred and contempt. Hatred and love are not so averse as one might think. I love the school that I attend (Canadian Mennonite University) and look forward to continuing my studies there. I also have grown inexorably attached to certain Mennonite intellectuals, most especially Gordon Zerbe but also Sheila Klassen-Wiebe. These strike me as people whom God dotes on. I don't know how to describe it. I love them so much.

1 comment:

Richy said...

Mark!

What happened!?

I know that you have long had your matricidal quarrel with the Mennonite Church, but I am curious why this has launched you into a season of doubt. I suppose the reason I am wondering is because:
1) The Mennonite Brethren Church, which you grew up with for the most part in the Fraser Valley, distinguishes itself doctrinally from the GCers, and tend to accept justification by faith, at least with some level of seriousness; and,
2) I thought you had made your home in some rose-bed of Reformed, Lutheran, and Neo-Orthodox thinkers. Must you doubt your faith as a whole, simply because of the downward trend of the culture in which you have partially grown up (your coincident rants against culture, which I have just read, might contest some of the sentiments you're expressing here).