Fall Canadian Mennonite Brethren conference to feature plenary session on biblical ethic of sexuality, birth sex, and gender identity

“Fire and Ashes: Why Church? Why MB?” is the title of the Oct. 26-28 Equip conference being put on by the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches (CCMBC). 

The event will feature a number of plenary sessions, including one titled “Why the Church needs a biblical ethic of sexuality, birth sex, and gender identity” with speaker Iain Provan of The Cuckoos Consultancy. 

“For many, sexuality and gender questions are at the forefront of whether participation with church itself (or an MB church in particular) is worth the effort,” according to the plenary’s description. “How should the church respond to the highly esteemed cultural values of justice and inclusion embraced almost universally in our world?”

Provan, who formerly was a professor of biblical studies at Regent College in Vancouver, founded The Cuckoos Consultancy in 2022. Its goal is to equip Christians “to recognize the non-Christian roots of the powerful, competing ideas of ‘the human’ that they encounter every day and to have the courage to reject them.”

Why that name? According to Provan, it comes from the behaviour of the European cuckoo, a bird that does not raise its own young. 

Instead, it sneaks into another bird’s nest and deposits an egg that looks very much like the host’s eggs. The host goes on to raise the cuckoo chick believing that it is one of its own.

“Unfortunately, the cuckoo is, from the moment of birth, an assassin. It goes around systematically pushing any other eggs or chicks out of the nest. It grows as a consequence to two or three times the size of the original chicks. In all of this the cuckoo is a superb master of misdirection.”

For Provan, who attends an MB church in Vancouver, “unbiblical anthropological ideas are like cuckoo chicks in the Christian nest. They have been smuggled into it by birds whose natural habitat is elsewhere. They are foreign bodies in our nest, and they are a threat to the survival of the family. They can ‘misdirect’ us to our doom, such that the Church is no longer really the Church.”

Provan also has published a book on this topic, titled Cuckoos In Our Nest: Truth and Lies About Being Human.

I asked Ken Esau, National Faith and Life Team director, some questions about the plenary session.

Why did you decide to offer this plenary session? 

Mostly because this topic has become so important in our CCMBC family. Churches have been asking for resources to assist them as they navigate these questions.

How do you choose the plenary speakers? (Originally I asked Ken why someone who was not MB was selected, since I saw nothing in Provan's bio suggested otherwise. He responded to that question.)

The Equip conferences have not chosen plenary speakers firstly based on their affiliation with our MB church family—so membership was not our primary concern this year either. However, all of our Plenary speakers (and all of our Workshop presenters) are either members of or attenders of an MB church. I don't think this has happened in any recent Equip conference. As noted in the advertising, we are trying to make this year's event more of an MB family conversation—which also means that we will be holding three Table Discussion Group sessions.

Are you worried that his metaphor about the Cuckoo bird—killing the other birds in the nest—might feel unwelcome and offensive to MBs who want to see the denomination become more open to LGBTQ+ people? (Comparing them to baby killers and nest destroyers.) 

Iain's book is not comparing people to baby killers and nest destroyers, but describing how widespread cultural ideas are sneaking into the nest of Christian faith communities that have been orthodox in their histories. 

Any speaker addressing the topic of sexuality and/or gender from one perspective or another will result in someone in our family feeling unwelcome and the presentation experienced as offensive.  There is no neutral ground to stand on that will be inoffensive to all. 

CCMBC's Collaborative Unified Strategic Plan expresses that CCMBC leaders will plan and make all of our decisions in order to keep with our seven key values. This means that we will "weigh all our decisions in light of scripture, theology, and the MB Confession of Faith" (CUSP, p.7). These seven values and the commitments that grow out of them are guiding our planning for Equip 2023.

Will you provide opportunity for people who hold a different view to speak on this topic? Or respond to the speaker?

There will be Table Discussion Group time first thing on Friday morning for participants to respond to Iain's presentation. We hope to collect responses electronically. 

What do you hope to achieve by holding this session?

Everything about Equip and all of our NFLT (and CCMBC) activities are geared toward moving our churches closer to our mission: "To cultivate a community and culture of healthy disciple-making churches and ministries, faithfully joining Jesus in his mission." 

That mission statement is how we will measure the effectiveness of all of our Equip sessions—including this one.