RULES HELP DISCERNMENT

Everett Thomas

But all things should be done decently and in order.
—1 Corinthians 14:40

For the first time in Mennonite Church USA’s young history, a pastor has been disciplined for performing a same-sex wedding (The Mennonite, "Ministerial Credential Suspended," June 7). In an unrelated story, a congregation’s membership policy was judged by its conference to be inconsistent with Mennonite Church USA membership guidelines ("Hyattsville Guidelines Found ‘Inconsistent,’" March 14). Recently a Mennonite camp decided it would no longer allow an advocacy group to use its facilities for its annual Queer Camp ("Camp Friedenswald Denies BMC Space," May 17).

These actions in the last three months illustrate that our denomination is in a much stronger position than it was in 1999 and 2000 to respond to matters of sexuality and faithfulness. For that we can be grateful to the many leaders who worked tirelessly at three critical documents: first, Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective; second, A Mennonite Polity for Leadership; and third, "Membership Guidelines for the Formation of Mennonite Church USA."

Although some individuals involved in these recent situations carry a great deal of pain—and may struggle to proceed with integrity—these events are not roiling the church as they would have just five years ago. That is because we have established the necessary framework of accountability and discipline. Consequently it appears that new governance structures are working. It took several decades to get to this point.

Our Confession of Faith, adopted in 1995 by both General Conference Mennonite Church (GC) and Mennonite Church (MC) delegates, was a decade in the making. It was adopted almost unanimously by both groups and is now the bedrock upon which our discernment begins. It also provided the foundation for two binational Mennonite denominations to form two national denominations: MC Canada and MC USA.

But though few expected the GC-MC merger process to result in separate national structures, even that outcome may be providential: with the Canadian government on its way to legalizing same-sex marriage, MC Canada is free to respond without needing to fashion its response within a binational church context.

A GC-MC committee spent eight years in the 1990s hammering out the second document now providing some order. A Mennonite Polity for Ministerial Leadership created a governance structure for authorizing ministerial credentials. The leadership polity document also is clear about what is expected of those who receive a ministerial credential. For example, the ethics section lists "Major theological deviation from Christian and Anabaptist Mennonite understandings," as one example of a breach of trust that can cause a conference to initiate a hearing and review process.

But it was a third document that enabled our fledgling denomination to begin finding its way through the incendiary issue of membership for sexually active gays and lesbians.

MC USA membership guidelines allow each congregation to establish its own policies for individuals to be members within it. But no congregation can just do whatever seems right in its own eyes if it wants to be part of MC USA. For any congregation to be a part of our denomination, it must belong to an area conference—and each conference establishes its criteria for membership within it. For a congregation to be part of a conference, its membership policies for individuals must satisfy conference guidelines.

While some leaders and congregations continue to disagree with our confessional statements—or how they are interpreted—it is helpful to have the rules in place. They are necessary in our tradition, which has believed for nearly 500 years that the church is the discernment community—with ultimate authority to determine what is right and wrong. The new guidelines, polity, and confessional statements created during the formation of MC USA are now helping us do such discernment decently and in order.

—Everett J. Thomas is editor of The Mennonite, where this editorial was first published June 21, 2005.