Multi-Axis
Identities as a Unifying Concept:
Note: This is a reflection on the organizational
difficulties in mapping out an organizational structure for a proposed cultural
and spiritual history of the EMB church or Brüderthaler Mennonite culture.
While I understand previous thoughts
regarding a structure based on the name changes, I am not sure that this as
effective for delineating the generational shifts in perception of the
conference, the self-identity of the membership, or the growth stages of the
conference.
I
would recommend an organization based on growth stages (Erikson’s developmental
models provide some intriguing ideas), with a strong emphasis on biographical
details of the men and women who created the conference, supported the missions
and were called to service.
What we need is a system that recognizes
that the EMB were often a very loose fellowship of many different groups who
were more involved or more influential at different times but always present in
shifting alliances -- the missionaries, the Mennonites, the non-Mennonites, the
Evangelicals, the Urbanites, the Rural Farmers, those who wanted to Reform
existing movements, those who wanted to plant new endeavors. Furthermore, I am more and more convinced
that many of the church bodies joined and remained part of the conference for
different reasons -- some wanting fellowship with reform-minded congregations,
some wanting to join resources but otherwise be left more or less to their own
devices, and those who wanted to join resources to generate a strong missions
presence, and those who wanted to maintain a strong ethnic identity. Even amongst the ethnic Mennonites, you had
Kleiners, General Conference, those who leaned towards the MB, the
Bruderthaler, the cultural Mennonites, etc.
In a sense, the EMB are notable not for
being overly similar to each other, but rather for building a fellowship on a
sense of diversity, tolerance, extreme democracy, volunteerism (not depending
on professionals) and lowest-common denominator conscensus building. In that sense, they still retain many of the
same characteristics of a sub-ethnic group when contrasted to the Amish, the
heavily organized General Conference, the more strict Mennonite Brethren, etc. Yet, the Mennonite identity also gave them a
sense of identity, purpose, belonging, history and mission that are often
lacking in non-denominational-style community churches. Perhaps the closest body to the FEBC is the
Evangelical Free movement.
The history is then the history of these
groups joinging together in a loose conscensus-style fellowship and how they
attempt to convince each other to cooperate to share strengths, interests, and
resources with each other in order to establish successful Christian personal
lives, effective missions projects, etc.
This process of conscensus building and how certain groups led the
conference at different times serves as the narrative or voice of the
history. In this sense, the Redekop “complex”
actually misses the point somewhat in that while the conference had a strong
Mennonite contingency, it was never designed to be solely Anabaptist per
se. A close examination of personal
archives would indicate that these Mennonites were always working closely with
non-Mennonite groups such as the American Sunday School Union, the Temperence
League, Guideons, etc.
An easy way to demonstrate these efforts
and relationships would be to add additional axes to Redekop’s rather flat
timeline. If we combine O.J. Wall’s
perceptual shifts from a focus on Pietism towards a focus on Missions with
Redekop’s slide from a Mennonite identity to an Evangelical identity, we come
up with a graph similar to the following (a sort of Lustre Synthesis):
In this sense, you could graph my proposed
understanding of the EMB in that it has historically fluctuated in identity,
emphasis and effort between the horizontal pole with Anabaptism on the far left
and Evangelical on the far right, with a vertical pole with Pietism at the top
and Service or Missions at the bottom.
The upper left quadrant would be filled with Mennonites seeking personal
renewal and church reform (the original Brüderthaler and Ebenezers). The lower right would be
non-Anabaptist-oriented persons focused on Evangelization and Service from an
American Evangelical perspective or efforts involving the American Sunday
School Union and the Gideons for instance.
The lower left quadrant would be those who were moved by their Mennonite
faith to establish and pursue missions and were active in the conscientious
objection movement during the world wars or the MCC. The Upper Right quadrant would be those
persons and efforts directed at church renewal along an American Evangelical
model, pursuing congregational spiritual growth through Christian Endeavour
programs, Evangelization crusades, the Harvest Festivals, etc. Many of these groups would find themselves
cooperating with each at different times to accomplish shared goals.
One would probably discover that the
conference as a whole has shifted between these poles and quadrants at
different times during its history while struggling to unify congregations and
persons scattered across the entire graph into a single, unified purpose or
movement. The conference has also
pursued, often concurrently, many different projects located at different
points along these dual axes. So in many
ways, the story of the FEBC conference is its struggle to unify these four
quadrants or to identity along these four polarities.
Unlike other proposals, this history would
not focus on the so-called identity crises -- they are old news and often
perceived as divisive, but rather be able to focus on the Faith, Courage, and
Renewal of the conference’s various components, and the struggle to establish
effective roots in a new world while reaching it for Christ.
On the other hand, a short-coming of my
proposed model is that it is heavily based on my experiences with and
impressions of the Lustre, Steinbach, Chicago, and Mountain Lake churches and
would have to be examined in light of the other congregational histories and
experiences.
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