Rich Janzen is a member of a Mennonite Brethren church in Ontario and was a delegate to the March 2023 Ontario Mennonite Brethren Church convention where Southridge Community Church and the Toronto Free Church were expelled from membership.
Prior to attending the convention, he was informed by the leadership of his church that all delegates from the congregation were expected to vote to expel the two churches. Rich responded that he would vote his conscience.
Rich provided this reflection on the convention, along with his remarks to the delegate body about expelling Southridge and Free Church.
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When I was young, I had a construction boss who used to greet people with a strange question: “What do you know for sure?”
My personality is such that, at first, I thought I needed to answer him literally.
After a few mornings of awkward greetings, I came to realize that he was just being playful; inviting me to greet back in an equally flippant way (e.g., “certainly not the weather;” “not really sure;” “who are you again?”) Even so, his odd question has stuck with me.
It came to me again earlier this year after Southridge Community Church was suspended by the Ontario Mennonite Brethren Conference (ONMB).
During the time leading up to the March 2023 assembly, where the vote would be taken to expel Southridge from the Conference, I began thinking about what I would say on the convention floor about the motion to remove that church from Conference membership. How would I organize my thoughts for the brief 3-4 minutes of allotted time?
That’s when I decided to use that question from my old boss to help me frame my response: “What do we know for sure?”
I’m not a theologian. I’m not a pastor. I’m not even a lay church leader at the moment. But I know a few things for sure, as found in Palmer Becker’s Anabaptist essentials. Becker boils Anabaptism down to three essential statements:
· Jesus is the centre of our faith
· Community is the centre of our life
· Reconciliation is the centre of our work
Becker’s essentials are really just an updated repackaging of Harold S. Bender’s more famous Anabaptist Vision, where he highlights the distinctives of our radical Anabaptist forbearers relative to other reformers.
You can see the echo of these essentials in the new organizational tagline of the Mennonite World Conference: “Following Jesus, living out unity, building peace.” (In a recent article in Direction journal, Lynn Jost has offered how this three-part focus could be tweaked to our uniquely Mennonite Brethren context.)
All to say that I felt these three essentials were as good a starting place as any in helping me to frame a response to the unprecedented motion before our provincial conference. Below find what I shared with the convention delegates. I suppose others may have assessed the motion through this lens somewhat differently. But my point in speaking was not only to share my conclusion on the motion, but also that we should frame our assessment of it through the grid of some set of agreed upon first principles. (Not on cherry-picked statements of faith, much less on emotion such as fear.)
We now know that mine was a minority opinion among delegates. The vote wasn’t even close. Southridge (along with Free Church) was dismembered.
Over half a year later, I’m left wondering who we are as a denomination. I wonder if there is any consensus on what Mennonite Brethren would say are our essentials. And I wonder who gets to do this framing of our essentials, especially in light of the word “Brethren” in our name, with its non hierarchical and communal overtones.
And I also wonder what it means that we have come to dismember our own. (I use the term “dismember” because it conveys literally that some are no longer formal members, but also because it conveys figuratively the pain and loss involved, both to those dismembered and presumably for those who remain).
In the last two years there have been a number of Mennonite Brethren congregations across Canada that have been dismembered either actively (by formal vote) or passively (left voluntarily after struggle). Similarly, there have been individuals who have been dismembered from their local congregations—my own congregation has experienced a rash of dismemberings, including long-term members and former leaders.
I suspect that this recent inclination of Canadian Mennonite Brethren to dismember will continue. And it makes me wonder what we know for sure, and who we have become.
Comments made on the Ontario MB Conference convention floor (February 25, 2023)
Hello, I’m Rich Janzen. I’m struggling to see how this motion [to remove Southridge Community Church from Ontario Mennonite Brethren membership] is consistent with our Anabaptist identity. I’ll give three quick reasons for this that are linked to the three Anabaptist essentials that Palmer Becker talks about.
First, Jesus is the centre of our faith. We Anabaptists privilege the gospels and read the rest of scripture through that lens of the life and teachings of Jesus.
I haven’t heard the rationale of this motion being [explicitly] based on the Gospels, about how Southridge is no longer following the direct example and direct teachings of Jesus. One could argue that Southridge has been following the example of Jesus in his radical hospitality and inclusion.
Second, community is the centre of our life, Christian community that is marked by unity in fellowship. This unity was Jesus’s only prayer for us in John 17. Paul picks up on this unity theme in Romans 14 not in some abstract universal big “C” church way, but in tangible local fellowship. He teaches us how we can live together despite strong disagreements. His advice isn’t to check out of community or to push others out of community.
In contrast, the motion before us is to dismember Southridge from our community. To me, that seems to reflect the way of the world, which likes to create echo chambers and votes off the island those who are disagreeable or those whose views make one feel uncomfortable. I fail to see how this motion is a fulfillment of Jesus’ prayer for us to live united in community.
And third, reconciliation is the centre of our ministry. This point is made in Article 13 of our Mennonite Brethren confession of faith that says that we’re people of peace and reconciliation.
The truth is reconciliation between the church and our LGBTQ+ siblings is desperately needed. There has been harm done by the church to the LGBTQ community (something not acknowledged in the Provincial Faith and Life Team report). Southridge has acknowledged that truth and has begun the hard work of reconciliation.
That sounds Anabaptist to me. I would humbly suggest that congregations who have closeted the truth of harm or resisted conversations and other efforts of reconciliation are not in line with Article 13 of our Confession of Faith. We should be careful of casting stones.
So, three reasons for your consideration. Combined, they raise the question of why this topic is leading us to live outside of our character. I personally think we would do well to wrestle with this question and I think there is wisdom in the calls from across the country for a moratorium on congregational suspensions and pastoral credential reviews until we sort this out.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak.
Thank you, Rich, for centring this conversation on what's so important. They are healing words.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Rich for sharing and John for providing a place to listen. Rich, you echo the questions and thoughts of many of us across the country.
ReplyDeleteWe have, as a family, recently left the MB denomination we have all been part of since birth because in spite of speaking up and asking for prayerful, communal conversations, we instead continue to see harm being done.
We love our queer family members and are glad they have found a spiritual home where they are welcomed and can continue to grow in their faith. It is heartbreaking that this place isn't in the MB Church, where we used to feel like we belonged and could serve God together.