In mid-January, the Leadership Commission of
River East Church, a Mennonite Brethren church in Winnipeg, sent a letter to the
Mennonite Brethren Church of Manitoba (MBCM) and the Provincial Faith and Life
Team (PFLT) affirming its support for LGBTQ+ persons and for same-sex marriage.
In sending the letter, the Leadership Commission indicated it “may put us in the category of ‘not in good standing' and a spot on the agenda (along with Jubilee Church) for the MBCM annual meeting March 3-4.” The MBCM board is meeting January 23 to discuss the River East letter.
The letter is below.
A Response to MBCM Board and PFLT
First, we are grateful to the MBCM board and the PFLT for walking this path with us. We thank Jason in particular for attending so many of our meetings to try to understand our motivation and process. And we appreciate your patience as COVID disrupted our ability to meet in person to continue our discussions about our Inclusivity Statement.
Your request to us is included here for clarity’s sake:
We expect REC to provide a clear response to the PFLT’s questions by January 31, 2022.
As a reminder, here are the initial questions from January 18, 2021.
● Do you have intent to do anything that disagrees with our shared confession?
● What do you
mean by ‘full participation?’ Have you worked this out?
●
Are you
willing to work with us on this journey?
●
Is REC able to affirm our shared
understanding of the MB Confession of Faith in regard to Article 11? “Marriage is a covenant relationship intended
to unite a man and a woman for life...Sexual intimacy rightfully takes place
only within marriage.”
Stories. So many stories. Stories of rejection. Stories of hurt. Stories of being hated. People kicked out of families. Sibling against sibling. Parents against a child. People no longer welcome in churches. People forced into unhealthy lives and relationships because they are ostracized. People with no choice of a committed long-term relationship within a church setting.
Churches have done wrong.
But there are stories of hope. Stories of being loved. Stories of being accepted without conditions. Stories of families reuniting. Sibling accepting sibling and finding forgiveness. Churches accepting people without limits. People entering committed relationships blessed by the church.
Churches can and must do better.
River East Church is trying to enable stories of hope. Our Statement of Inclusivity is broad, yet probably not broad enough. The statement is a goal and we know it’s a goal we’ll never quite achieve. The statement is a challenge to REC congregants to learn, and grow, and act; to break out of a status of fear and enter a posture of love and acceptance.
MBCM is concerned about only a part of our statement; the part that refers to gender identity and sexual orientation. We acknowledge that and the fear and confusion that surrounds this. But the REC focus is broader than this and we do not want to be limited by this. Our main areas of action right now are reconciliation, peace, homelessness, and climate change.
Where does the gender identity part come from? REC has been talking about, trying to understand the science about, praying about, and studying scripture about these ideas for over 20 years. We feel Spirit led to take on this challenge. We have been wrong to ostracize people with different ideas of gender identity or sexual orientation. We all experience some fear in the face of change. REC is no different. LGBTQ+ inclusion marks a change to our worldview and many feel it challenges the Confession of Faith. We need to remind ourselves that the CoF is a changing document; the clauses about gender identity were only added in 1999 as a reaction to other issues at the time. We know more now than we did then, and some of the authors of those changes to the CoF now regret putting in those limitations. We also know that many MBCM churches are out of alignment with aspects of the CoF that they feel are dated or don’t apply to their congregation. Is it better to ignore the CoF and just not say anything or to be honest about places where there is a rub?
REC affirms the CoF and affirms our intent to include same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ leadership. We agree that marriage is for life and that sexual intimacy should be within marriage. Since intimacy should be within marriage we believe that same-sex marriage for life should also be an option since not all LGBTQ+ persons will choose to be celibate.
This affirmation comes after a lengthy discussion process. MBCM leadership has been working with us during the whole process by attending congregational meetings, and having groups meet with our leadership team. Some churches partially align with the CoF and they extend (or diminish) their understanding of each of the articles. Perhaps we can recognize that although we are all part of the conference we all play different roles within that structure and value certain ideals more than others.
So to be clear about what we meant. When you look at the groups of people we identified, REC will invite all people to worship with us, provide leadership, teach our children, baptize and marry in accordance with our regular discernment of gifts process. We will not treat people differently. Full participation means full participation. As long as people are on the journey of discipleship in Jesus Christ they are included.
With warm regards, Reynold Redekopp, Moderator, River East Church
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