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The Anabaptist Mennonite Digital Collaborative, coordinated by staff at Mennonite Church USA, Goshen College, and Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, is working with Internet Archive to provide digital copies of this title. Amy Gingerich Please seek permission from the copyright owner Editorial Director, MennoMedia if your use of this item is not permitted under the license. MennoMediaseeks to engageandshapechurchandsociety with resourcesforlivingChristianfaithfrom anAnabaptistperspective. Digitized by the Internet Archive 2015 in https://archive.org/details/gospelherald199386peac January 1993 5, Gospel Herald THE WEEKLYMAGAZINE OF THEMENNONITE CHURCH Mennonites and the future: Will peace survive past the year 2000? The powers of darkness and evil are arraigned against us as the people of God. Systemic evil that seeks to erode our faiths and beliefs as a people ofpeace. Will Mennonites stand for peace in the fu- by ture? I wish I could simply say "yes" David and leave it at that. I feel in my heart the answer is "yes," but I wish it could be a Schroeder Canpeace survive? That depends on whether we will stronger "yes"! What the answer will be in the become apeople ofpeace, which may bring us into end depends on many things that have to do conflict with the very structures ofoursociety. with being the people of God rather than a people ofthe world. We Christians must constantly be on guard against the attack of the powers of darkness. ALSOINTHISISSUE Paul says that in the last analysis we do not fight against flesh and blood, but against the Sing to the Lord a new song 6 principalities and powers of darkness and evil . . (Eph. 6:12). The powers of darkness came to the Menno- Gold, frankincense, and myrrh . 8 nites in the USSR 70 years ago through a hostile government and through overt persecution. The World conference faces powers of darkness come to us today in terms of financial challenges 9 all the enticements this world has to offer; in . . . . , terms of all the good things that we want for our- MMA selves; and in terms of all the material benefits board studies of our culture. mutual fund possibility 10 These powers of darkness are aligned against a We need to understand peace is an inte- gral part of the gospel of Jesus Christ It is not an add-on. Peace is not some- thing you omit and still have the gospel. us as individuals, against us as families, against a church community are needed to sustain the us as a people of God, against us as a total Christian virtues required to stand against the human community, and against the cosmos in darkness of our society. which we live. We need to look at the things Another target is our care for one another. these powers of darkness use to entice us in our As Mennonites we used to use economic power lives to stand less and less for the gospel of to the advantage of others in the community. peace. There were the Waisenamts for the widows and Individualism. This is the idea that persons orphans. There were credit unions to help those have to look out for themselves. We are ex- who needed loans, which were often made with- pected to pit ourselves against everyone else to out asking for interest. Implements were shared, achieve our self-chosen goals in life. But this de- and there were barn-raising bees. But now we stroys trust and all sense of peoplehood! And use economic power for ourselves; the Waise- — without being a people, our faith will not sur- namts are gone we have state welfare! The vive. Apart from the community of faith, we will credit unions are still there, but now they serve lose the virtues that make for peace. the depositor more than the borrower. The free Materialism. Mennonites have come into con- siderable wealth. But the disease of consumer- wisemhhaavseetahteenmodreeepwley icnrtaoveo,uarnsdoutlhse. Tmohreemwoere It is not enough to have a few crave the more we have to make room for. people speah for peace—all These things are so precious to us that they who are in Christ must have have to be protected and guaranteed to remain ours. When a desire for security takes over, we God's peace in their hearts. are only one step away from reasoning that it is justified to have an army to protect what we have acquired. enterprise system serves those who have eco- Professionalism Every profession has its nomic leverage, not necessarily the whole com- own built-in ethic. This ethic need not necessar- munity. To use economic power for ourselves ily be Christian. Almost always it is self-serving threatens the whole sense of a Christian commu- to the professions. As Christians we need to nity. It causes us to lose the virtues necessary bring a Christian ethic into our professions, for peace. whether it is welcomed or not. To challenge the A third target is our beliefinpeace. We now ethic of the profession from a Christian perspec- live in a culture in which the basic structures of tive may cause difficulties for the Christian. But society are adversarial. Legal, political, and eco- ifwe don't challenge the professions, we will nomic systems are all basically adversarial. To lose our Christian integrity. survive in this culture we have to learn to fight. But the more we learn how to fight, the less we |hese are just a few of the ways in which know about true peace. Fighting each other is we are assailed by the powers of darkness built right into the structure ofthings. You can- We in the world. are constantly enticed to not escape it, it is everywhere, it is a systemic leave the way of the cross and to follow the way evil. How can we learn peace when conflict is of the world. But we ought to be even more con- Abuilt into the basic fabric of our society? cerned about the powers of systemic evil that — are arraigned against us as the people of God fourth target is our strong biblicism As systemic evil which seeks to erode our strengths Mennonites in the past, we did not have a as a Mennonite people. very explicit theology, yet we knew what One of the targets of attack is the close-knit we believed and handed this down from genera- extended family, long a traditional Mennonite tion to generation. But today things are differ- strength. The industrial world gave us the nu- ent. We borrow theologies from many other clear family—the extended family did not suit denominations and movements. We borrow the the industrial world, which wanted a small fam- theological language of others, often not noticing ily unit, where only one person was employed. that it does not mesh with who we are as a peo- The nuclear family is not a strong unit in soci- ple. We borrow the thinking of others and find ety. When it stands alone, it will be forced to ourselves arguing about the situations in which comply with the rest of society. It cannot oppose to use all available power and might to protect the whole culture on its own. A larger family and our own interests. We borrow from the 2 / JANUARY 5, 1993 / GOSPEL HERALD