“Tonight is a night for listening.”
With those words, Reynold Redekop, Chair of the River East Leadership Commission, welcomed people to the January 14 meeting titled “The Story of our Biblical and Theological Foundations for Inclusion.”
“It’s not an evening for debate,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to hear a different view. We don’t claim our view is correct or the right point of view—we are all on a journey to follow Jesus and live out our faith. We all have a lot to learn.”
He was followed by Janet Schmidt, a member of River East who helped organize the event and the November 26 event where the church told the story of its journey to inclusion.
“This is not a conversation, though we would like to have one,” she said, noting the church had asked the Mennonite Brethren Church of Manitoba (MBCM) for an open discussion.
“We pleaded with MBCM for an open conversation,” she said, adding that not being allowed to talk about it as a whole denomination “is not the Anabaptist way.”
With that avenue shut down, “we created this event, the only way we could share what we are thinking,” she said.
The event was not intended as a “comprehensive theological argument,” Schmidt said. “It’s just a snapshot of how we embraced inclusion while being deeply rooted in scripture.”
Schmidt noted that for many at River East, becoming welcoming and inclusive of LGBTQ+ people meant “changing our minds” about the subject.
For Mennonite Brethren in Canada, this isn’t the first time members of that denomination have changed their minds, or the Confession of Faith, on topics once considered settled by the Bible, she said.
This included things like whether or not to accept into membership people not baptized by immersion; moving from the German language to English; embracing and supporting divorced people, including accepting them into membership if they remarried; and women in leadership.
The people who made those decisions to exclude others “were good men—and they were all men back then,” she said, adding “they also believed they were following scripture. Yet they did significant harm.”
Now those things are seen as unacceptable today, Schmidt said, noting that the Mennonite Brethren journey on issues like this seems to go from a definite conference-wide decision against something that is supported by scripture and tradition; to a tolerance of churches that hold different ways of practicing the faith; and then to “acceptance without judgement.”
River East believes the Canadian Mennonite Brethren conference is on one of these journeys with LGBTQ+, she said.
After Schmidt spoke, River East pastor Mary Anne Isaak shared some of her experiences as a pastor, including times she was part of excluding LGBTQ+ people from the church.
Back then, she said, “she “felt the Bible was clear, it was sinful.” Today, “still rooted in Jesus Christ and scripture,” she believes otherwise.
“The last 20 years has been a journey of slow change related to same-sex marriage,” she said.
Of the church’s journey on this topic, Isaak said she sees River East as “acting with historical integrity with how the Confession of Faith has been adapted in the past.”
At River East, "we are maintaining a posture of not being afraid to dive into complexity, with a spirit of humility, as we wrestle with biblical texts,” she said, adding “we believe God is calling us to do a new thing.”
Isaak was followed by Aaron Thiessen, also a pastor at River East, who spoke about his own journey of changing his mind about LGBTQ+ and other topics while taking the Bible seriously, and Gordon Matties, who formerly taught Bible at Canadian Mennonite University, who explored a single set of scriptures on the topic to reveal the cultural and other assumptions behind them at that time.
The evening was concluded by comments from Schmidt. Looking ahead to the January 20 vote about whether or not to expel River East from MBCM, she noted that most delegates to that meeting “will vote not having heard our story or how we understand scriptures.”
She said River East had asked MBCM to promote the January 14 event to other Manitoba churches so delegates to the January 20 meeting could learn more about the church's exploration of the Bible, but the request was denied.
In addition to 124 people at the church in person for the event, there were 181 screens for the livestream on Zoom.
Note: I made no effort to try to summarize the presentations by Thiessen and Matties. (Wouldn't be able to do them justice!) The event was recorded and will be available at a later date on the church’s website.
River East has also created a document titled “Talking Points from the Bible for Full Inclusion of LGBTQ+ Persons, and also about the Confession of Faith and Full Inclusion of LGBTQ+.” Find it here.
My prayers are with you.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for recoding the event.
Hi John,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for providing this blog. What an incredible service! Thanks for providing links to the documents from the MB conference and from River East Church that help explain their positions and approaches. Thanks Ken for interacting with John’s questions.
Thank you River East Church for your efforts over the past 5 years and more! That you have only been able to tell your story to a somewhat wider audience through your own initiative at this late stage is sad. Thanks for the two zoom sessions describing your journey and for the presentation of your theology! Thank you, John, for providing the ability to respond and hear responses in this blog.
Now in my 60’s and reflecting back on my local church experience in the MB Church of my childhood and youth, I was taught by example to ask questions and work together as a church community on difficult issues and so I had equated what River East Church is doing on LGBTQ+ inclusivity as the MB way. But I see from the MB conference process on this issue that my childhood experience is in fact not the current MB way, but was a fortunate anomaly, and is not representative of the wider MB ethos today. Thanks for providing the information in this blog to help clarify that.
Experience inevitably does challenge our prevailing certainties not because experience comes from outside the faith or is a threat to faith, but because we are growing, maturing and becoming individuals in particular social settings - the families we grow up in, the churches we attend, the work we participate in or other organizations that shape us. These social settings have a view of the world that can only be incomplete and yet often make claims that are too absolute, that one must assent to as a requirement for participation in the group. When experiences occur that challenge the prevailing certainties of a group, as they most definitely do, it may be helpful to remember that faith involves doubt and struggle, that faith involves seeking understanding and embracing change and that unchallenged certainty can betray faith. Faith and understanding are not in competition with each other, they are partners, seeing the world from different perspectives because they use different tools and use language differently.
In C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series, in “The Last Battle” at the grand conclusion, a new Narnia is being created from inside the stable (what a powerful image!). Within that ever enlarging stable Lucy observes with anguish that the Dwarfs are huddled among themselves, not seeing the new creation, the new kingdom unfolding in front of them and Lucy asks Aslan to do something. Aslan responds that not even He can change them, concluding, “They are so afraid of being taken in, that they cannot be taken out”.
Thanks John, thanks River East Church for modelling such a hopeful way of being in community, of being in the world, seeking understanding and full of faith and love.