RESPONSE AND LETTERS

Response

I have received the Summer 2003 DSM. You did it again! I sat and read straight through, which I do for very few publications. The article by Douglas Noll was probably my favorite. It makes me want to read his book.

I had some questions about the first article by Mark Wenger dealing with young adults and orthodoxy. It seems to me that orthodoxy is just a baby step away from dogmatism and what is known as fundamentalism. That happens when people are sure they have a corner on the truth and can stop looking further. The list of salient features says these people are not perpetual seekers.

Another feature Wenger identifies is that they "swim self-consciously against the flow of pluralism and relativism." The article quotes Andy Crouch as saying "Orthodoxy thrives in pluralism." Is that a contradiction? For me, there seemed to be other contradictions. I think the author is right about the trend toward orthodoxy, and the sense of relief young people feel when they find something solid. Lots of food for thought here.

The other issue that is of high interest to me is found in "One Faith, One Baptism. . . ?" There was a slight blip in information accuracy when author Norman de Puy, speaking of symbolic dress, refers to "the Mennonite beard and mustache-free upper lip." I have thought long and hard about denominationalism and am (at age 79) still thinking. After having been a Mennonite for most of my life, I now worship in a Baptist congregation where I have found much of what I need (although there are things I would change if I could).

Just as in his Summer 2003 column Michael King says he will always be Mexican, I will always be a Mennonite. After what I consider to be the disaster of the merger between the Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church, I would opt for leaving denominations in place, but doing as de Puy suggests—learning more about each other. I would add that we need to let go of what is unimportant and look for common ground.

As I ponder my part in the GC-MC merger from within my current setting and the perspectives provided by de Puy, I need to own my part. When merger was first discussed, I thought it was a grand idea. Hadn’t the two denominations been cooperating on many fronts for many years? Joint publishing of curriculum and worship materials, for example, had been going on for almost 50 years.

We had learned to worship together happily in the same congregations many years ago. Mennonite Central Committee has been a perfect meeting place for Mennonites of many different stripes, not to mention persons from many other denominations. So when the vote was taken on whether to make the GC-MC union complete and official, I enthusiastically cast a yes vote.

I didn’t realize how anxiety about money and thirst for power would corrupt the process. The results of the merger have resembled in many ways what happens in the corporate mergers we are seeing all around us. Combining resources produced bruised egos as blame for past mistakes was freely assigned, as so many faithful long-term employees were no longer needed, as congregations had to decide whether or not to be part of this new giant denomination. The immediate result seems chaotic from this distance.

What I have learned from this is that Christians can respect, love, learn from each other, and work together for the common good even though we worship and serve under differing banners.

Thanks for listening. I love your magazine.
—Dorothy Cutrell

Letter

Thank you for printing "A Spiritual Journey from Courtroom Warrior to Peacemaker by Doug Noll" (DSM Summer 2003). His account is, to me, a true conversion story. I would compare it to Saul Paul’s, in that Noll was won over to a new understanding of power. Saul went from believing in violent, coercive power to believing in the power of love, in all its amazing forms, as the way to build God’s community.

In Noll’s article one of the most important, or impressive, sentences in my view is this: "The human capacity for compassion, forgiveness, and tolerance astounded me time and again, until I realized that this is the way people are when given a chance" (emphasis added).
—John K. Stoner