Canadian and U.S. Mennonite Brethren Conferences release statement about the removal of three pages from On Holy Ground

The Canadian and U.S. Mennonite Brethren Conference Executive Boards have released a statement about the removal of three pages from On Holy Ground: Stories by and About Women in the Mennonite Brethren Church.

 

The book, the Boards say, is a collection of women’s stories (“life-writing”) about their experiences of encouragement and/or discouragement as they served in various ministry/leadership roles in the MB family across North America.

 

“However, three pages of one author’s writing suddenly departed to record reflections, experiences, and questions about her evolving perspective on gay, queer, and transgender folks and the MB church, the Boards say.

“The writer describes her journey where she expresses joyfulness at the marriage of a Christian woman to her same-sex partner and how she found her ‘perspective on gay marriage beginning to turn.’”

The Boards go on to say the author makes several biblical analogies to raise questions about LGBTQ+ inclusion and cites River East Church’s statement of inclusivity, “presumably as a possible model for the way forward.”

These three pages, they say, “move beyond the recording of personal experience about being encouraged and/or discouraged in leadership, to more of a mini-theology essay advocating for a type of LGBTQ+ inclusion in conflict with a straightforward reading of our MB Confession of Faith.”

The Boards acknowledge the book may contain material that is not affirmed by the MB Historical Commission, USMB, and/or CCMBC, but “this disclaimer does not seem robust enough to justify a credentialed leader including a mini-theology essay on something other than women in ministry leadership.”

This will “create confusion about what it means for MB credentialed leaders and local MB churches to ‘affirm’ the Confession of Faith, and unfortunately, it will reinforce the damaging stereotype that embracing women in leadership leads necessarily to an affirming stance on gay marriage for Christians,” the Boards say.

 

“It is primarily for these reasons that the men and women leaders on the two Executive Boards took this unusual step, wrote a letter of request to the MB Historical Commission, and contributed financially to the reprinting of the book in its present form.”

 

The Boards regret that because of the urgent timeline of the original book printing/distribution and the complexity of working as a joint USMB/CCMBC team, “we were unable to have personal conversations directly with the author, editor, and others involved.”

 

“We do believe that the slightly shorter edition of On Holy Ground being distributed by Kindred Productions will reach a larger audience and be more effective in its purpose of sharing MB women’s stories of their personal experiences in leadership,” they conclude.

 

Read the full statement here.

Read the three missing pages here.