MCS Thesis - David Warkentin

CORRECTING MENNONITE BRETHREN INDIVIDUALISM:
THE PERTINENCE OF STANLEY HAUERWAS’S THEOLOGY
BY
DAVID MARK WARKENTIN
B.A., Columbia Bible College, 2005
A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF CHRISTIAN STUDIES
with a concentration in
CHRISTIANITY AND CULTURE
___________________________________
_
Supervisor: John G. Stackhouse, Jr.
___________________________________
_
Second Reader: Bruce L. Guenther
REGENT COLLEGE
Vancouver, British Columbia
April 2009
David Mark Warkentin
ii
RIGHTS OF PUBLICATION AND LOAN
In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirement for an
advanced degree at Regent College, I agree that the Library shall make
it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that
permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes
may be permitted by the Librarian. It is understood that copying or
publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without
my written permission.
_________________________________
David M. Warkentin
iii
ABSTRACT
Individualism is a pervasive problem in Christian faith and practice in the twenty-
first century, elevating the individual experience of faith at the expense of acknowledging
the community-implications of Christian identity. Stanley Hauerwas, prominent Christian
ethicist and theologian, provides a response to individualism that is both compelling and
frustrating, offering an inspiring argument for the centrality of community in the
Christian faith, but leaving to his readers the task of applying his ideas.
A contemporary North American denomination susceptible to individualism is the
Mennonite Brethren. By emphasizing the individual nature of the Christian experience,
the Mennonite Brethren movement has demonstrated a propensity towards individualistic
interpretations of the Christian faith, both in its historical roots and North American
assimilation. Considering their individualism, the Mennonite Brethren are an appropriate
case study for assessing the applicability of Hauerwas’s theology.
This thesis examines the applicability of Stanley Hauerwas’s theology for
responding to Mennonite Brethren individualism. Hauerwas’s project helps Mennonite
Brethren identity by challenging them to rebalance their theology and practice away from
individualism and towards a more community-oriented faith. Unfortunately, Hauerwas
lacks practical and realistic solutions that could help envision Mennonite Brethren
community in the twenty-first century. Ultimately, Hauerwas’s project is only partially
valuable towards correcting Mennonite Brethren individualism.
iv
CONTENTS
ABSTRACT...................................................................................................................................................iv
CONTENTS....................................................................................................................................................v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................................................................................................viii
INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................................................1
CHAPTER I....................................................................................................................................................6
THE THEOLOGY OF STANLEY HAUERWAS......................................................................................6
I. Individual Identity: Character Ethics.......................................................................................................7
and the Category of Narrative.......................................................................................................................7

Character and Moral Agency.............................................................................7
Problems with Character Ethics.........................................................................9
Character and the Category of Narrative.........................................................11
II. Corporate Identity: The Church’s Social Ethics..................................................................................16

Narrative Community......................................................................................17
A Critique of the Church in Modern Society...................................................19
Christian Narrative and the Church.................................................................21
The Church’s Narrative Identity and the Centrality of Jesus.........22
The Social Ethics of the Church....................................................26
III. Theology of Culture: The Church Engaging the World.....................................................................34
Relative Engagement of the Church................................................................34
Imaginative Engagement of the Church..........................................................35
Political Engagement of the Church................................................................37
IV. Critiques..................................................................................................................................................40
Sectarian..........................................................................................................40
Impractical.......................................................................................................43
Relativistic.......................................................................................................45
Fideistic............................................................................................................47
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................................50
CHAPTER II................................................................................................................................................51
INDIVIDUALISM AND THE MENNONITE BRETHREN...................................................................51
I. Mennonite Brethren Origins....................................................................................................................52

Anabaptist Origins...........................................................................................52
v
Dutch Anabaptism: The Legacy of Menno Simons ......................53
Russian Origins of the Mennonite Brethren....................................................56
Loss of Religious Vitality..............................................................56
Nineteenth Century Renewal ........................................................60
Mennonite Brethren Formation......................................................61
Roots of Individualism ...................................................................................65
in the Russian Mennonite Brethren ................................................................65
Personal Conversion Experience...................................................65
Personal Morality...........................................................................67
Community Balance.......................................................................68
II. Individualism in North American Mennonite Brethren .....................................................................70

Assimilation to North American Culture ........................................................71
Urbanization ..................................................................................73
Shift In Ethnicity............................................................................74
Organizational Establishment........................................................77
Affiliation with Evangelicalism.....................................................79
Individualism and Mennonite Brethren ..........................................................81
Theological Identity.........................................................................................81
1. Ecclesiology: Voluntaryism ......................................................82
2. Soteriology: Personal Conversion..............................................85
3. Ethics: Personal Morality...........................................................87
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................................93
CHAPTER III...............................................................................................................................................95
CORRECTING MENNONITE BRETHREN INDIVIDUALISM: .......................................................95
THE PERTINENCE OF STANLEY HAUERWAS’S THEOLOGY.......................................................95
I. Stanley Hauerwas and Mennonite Brethren .........................................................................................97
Individual Identity........................................................................................................................................97
A. Narrative Identity and the Individual..........................................................97
B. Character Ethics and Mennonite Brethren Personal Morality..................102
II. Stanley Hauerwas and Mennonite Brethren ......................................................................................106
Corporate Identity......................................................................................................................................106
A. Narrative and the Mennonite Brethren Community ................................107
B. Mennonite Brethren Theology of Culture.................................................115
1. Faithfulness of the church........................................................117
2. Cultural Engagement...............................................................124
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................129
BIBLIOGRAPHY.......................................................................................................................................132
vi
VITA 144
vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would not have completed this project without the influence of many great people.
To my teachers at Columbia Bible College and Regent College, thank you for inspiring
me to retain a passion for the church in an age of ecclesial indifference—your
perseverance is admirable and contagious! In particular, Dr. John Stackhouse, I am
grateful for your intelligent and passionate engagement with the complicated issues
surrounding Christianity and culture, as you have pushed me to explore areas of my own
thought I would not have reached without your encouragement. J and Ryan, my fellow
thesis sojourners, your ongoing friendship and support has helped give me the motivation
to stick it out. To those who have given me feedback on my work along the way, thanks
for your thoughtful and challenging interaction as my project evolved. I am also indebted
to my Mennonite Brethren tradition and in particular my church family, Bakerview M.B.
Church. You have provided a context from which I have been able to consider how my
individual experience of faith integrates into the community in which I participate. Mom
and Dad Warkentin and Penner, your continuous encouragement helped sustain me
throughout this process. Most importantly, thank you, Julie! Your ongoing love and
support throughout this project motivated me not only to finish, but provided me with a
glimpse into what true community can look like. Your influence on me in this time has
been truly immeasurable!
viii
INTRODUCTION
A particular challenge facing North American Christianity in the twenty-first
century is the pervasive force of individualism. Individualism emphasizes that the
autonomous individual, separated from the resources and accountability of community,
has the adequate rational and moral capabilities for engaging the complexities of
Christian living.
The problem with individualism is that it promotes an imbalance, if not an
outright separation, between the individual and community in Christian faith and
practice. Instead of affirming the biblical admonition for personal transformation
occurring in the context of community, many North American Christians accept a strictly
individual faith, a situation in which the “the self has become the main form of reality.”1
Individuals are left alone in the definition and practice of their faith, neglecting the role of
community—the church—in determining what it means to be a faithful Christian.
One person who addresses the problem of individualism is prominent theologian
Stanley Hauerwas. A vocal critic of Christianity in America, Hauerwas provides a
poignant response to what he claims is a church compromised to the whims of
individualism and neglecting the community-aspects of Christian faithfulness. Hauerwas
argues that the community, not the individual, is the primary context in which Christian
1
Robert Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life,
updated edition (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996), 143.
1
2
faithfulness can be fostered with individual experience located properly only in this
context. Of particular interest here, then, is to examine the validity of Hauerwas’s
proposal, testing whether or not it is an adequate response to individualism.
My assessment will involve examining the applicability of Hauerwas’s project to
a specific instance of individualism. As a case study for Hauerwas’s project, therefore, I
will explore how individualism is evident in the North American Mennonite Brethren
denomination. Considering their Anabaptist heritage—one that typically endorses a
community-oriented faith—it is troubling that their history reveals a tendency towards
individualism and away from the emphasis of their ancestors. In light of this problem, I
will explore how Hauerwas’s work provides a solution for helping correct Mennonite
Brethren individualism.
Considering the broad nature of my project—the combination of Hauerwas’s
theology with an examination of individualism in Mennonite Brethren history—the
method of my analysis will be interdisciplinary. Discussion of Hauerwas will focus on his
theology and ethics, while my summary of Mennonite Brethren individualism will
incorporate the complex theological, historical, and sociological factors that have
contributed to the problem. All of these areas of study then will be taken into
consideration in assessing the application of Hauerwas’s work to the Mennonite Brethren
situation. To be clear, I will not be presenting either a comprehensive summary of
Hauerwas’s theology or a complete account of the Mennonite Brethren story. My analysis
of Hauerwas and the Mennonite Brethren, rather, will be focused upon the task of
responding to the question of individualism.

3
The first two chapters will lay the groundwork for my project. In chapter one I
will summarize areas of Hauerwas’s work that directly relate to the issue of
individualism. First, I will examine Hauerwas’s emphasis on character ethics and the
category of narrative. Individualism is refuted by Hauerwas’s assertion that individual
identity necessitates recognition of the complex manner by which historical contexts and
communities shape people’s lives. Second, I will explain Hauerwas’s adamancy that the
faith community is paramount to Christian faithfulness, as a strong theology of
community counters a purely individualistic faith. Third, my examination will turn to
Hauerwas’s proposal for the church’s cultural engagement, an area of his work I am
hesitant to endorse. Unfortunately, Hauerwas’s lack of specific examples for the church’s
cultural engagement coupled with a polarizing church-world theology makes the
application of his theology of culture a problematic endeavor. I will conclude the chapter
with a brief overview and assessment of the major criticisms of Hauerwas’s theology.
In chapter two I will explore the argument that the Mennonite Brethren are a
denomination susceptible to individualism primarily because of their strong emphasis on
aspects of the Christian life that pertain to the individual, an emphasis evident both early
in their history and in their subsequent assimilation into North American society.
Mennonite Brethren individualism has led to their accepting an unbalanced definition of
Christian faith and practice, a situation in which the individual experience of faith is often
highlighted at the expense of a strong corporate identity. In examining the Mennonite
Brethren story, then, my overall intention is to show how their emphasis on the individual
results in an unhealthy individualism, thus making them worthy candidates for an
application of Hauerwas’s theology.

4
With the groundwork laid in the first two chapters, chapter three contains my
proposed conclusions for the application of Hauerwas’s work in response to Mennonite
Brethren individualism. First, I will suggest that Hauerwas’s focus on narrative and the
formation of Christian character in its historical context helpfully balances the Mennonite
Brethren overemphasis on the individual. While the emphasis upon the individual is still
maintained with the focus on character, Hauerwas’s ethics rightly acknowledge that
individual identity is importantly formed by the external influences within people’s
historical contexts, whether they recognize it or not. I will argue that individualism can
begin to be corrected if Mennonite Brethren engage the Mennonite Brethren story,
recognizing how they have been shaped both by the movement’s history and the church’s
representation of that history. Instead of emphasizing only the individual experience of
faith, Hauerwas’s character ethics help remind Mennonite Brethren individuals that their
Christian experience occurs in relation to something outside of themselves—the Christian
community seeking faithfulness to the narrative of scripture.
Second, I will propose that Hauerwas’s views on the Christian community—a
community that is shaped by the narrative of scripture—can provide a challenging
framework in which the Mennonite Brethren can address their corporate identity in the
context of twenty-first century North America. I plan to show via Hauerwas that
reformulating a strong Mennonite Brethren corporate identity creates a necessary balance
to the individual emphasis already present in the movement, allowing for the often absent
community-implications of Christian faithfulness to be expounded more clearly.
Third, because of the problems with Hauerwas’s approach to the church’s cultural
engagement, I will offer a qualified endorsement of his theology of culture for the
5
Mennonite Brethren. While Hauerwas rightly challenges the church to consider its
faithfulness in relating to the world, the actual application of his proposal proves
unhelpful in developing a Mennonite Brethren theology of culture. The question of “how
to be in the world, in what form, for what purpose” is raised by Hauerwas, but remains
largely unanswered.2 His polarizing church-world distinction can lead to an isolated
community of faith and, combined with the absence of specific examples, his prescription
simply fails to address concretely how the Mennonite Brethren should relate to the
culture in which they find themselves. My suggestion, therefore, is that any development
of a Mennonite Brethren theology of culture requires a more practical framework than
Hauerwas provides.
Hauerwas’s vision for the twenty-first century church is both inspiring and
frustrating at the same time. And so a serious investigation into the applicability of his
project serves as a valuable opportunity in which readers can judge Hauerwas for
themselves. Concurrently, the Mennonite Brethren have exhibited characteristics of
individualism that make them excellent candidates for considering the applicability of
Hauerwas’s work. In seeking a response to Mennonite Brethren individualism through
Hauerwas’s theology, my desire is that this project will serve to address culturally
engaged Mennonite Brethren members, as well as those who find Hauerwas interesting,
fans and critics alike. In the process, I hope that readers—Mennonite Brethren or
otherwise—will be challenged to engage their own traditions more seriously, considering
how Christian faithfulness is both an individual and communal experience.
2
Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony
(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989), 43.
CHAPTER I
THE THEOLOGY OF STANLEY HAUERWAS
The purpose this opening chapter is to examine the work of Stanley Hauerwas as
it pertains to responding to modern individualism in the North American church.
Hauerwas presents a compelling argument for an emphasis on community as central to
defining Christian faithfulness, but is also vulnerable to certain critiques that cannot
easily be discounted. Positively, we will see that Hauerwas defines both individual and
corporate identity in a manner that provides a balance between the individual’s
experience and the community’s responsibility in Christian faith and practice. His
contention that character ethics and the category of narrative shifts individual identity
away from the autonomy of individualism and helpfully emphasizes the role of external
factors in shaping people’s lives. Likewise, his emphasis on community and the social
ethics of the church as an integral component to Christian faithfulness challenges the
individualistic view that faith is solely the private matter of individuals. Unfortunately,
while Hauerwas’s ideas motivate consideration for the role of community in defining
Christian experience, it will become evident that the practical implications of his project
are problematic, particularly his view on the church’s cultural engagement. With the
absence of specific examples for how the church engages culture along with a polarizing
church-world theology, the manner in which the church counters individualism in modern
6
7
culture is difficult to envision. I will conclude, therefore, with a mixed endorsement of
Hauerwas’s project as he offers a relevant framework for beginning to address
individualism, but does not adequately outline the practical implications for applying this
framework.
I. Individual Identity: Character Ethics
and the Category of Narrative
We begin our analysis by surveying Hauerwas’s view of individual identity in
Christian ethics, a topic in which he begins to address the prevalence of individualism in
modern Christianity with an emphasis on character ethics and category of narrative. At
the most basic level, Hauerwas’s character ethics emphasizes understanding the complex
identity of the whole person—the relationship between actions and “individuality or
distinctiveness.”3 Incorporating narrative into character ethics, we will see, highlights the
importance of recognizing how external factors contribute to determining people’s
identity.
Character and Moral Agency
Instead of promoting an approach to ethics that centers on the choices of self-
sufficient individuals and their ability to appeal to universal principles abstracted from
the context of everyday life, Hauerwas proposes that the concept of character is the
3
Stanley Hauerwas, Character and the Christian Life: A Study in Theological Ethics (San
Antonio, TX: Trinity University Press, 1975; reprint, Notre Dame, IL: University of Notre Dame Press,
1994), 8, 11.
8
essential alternative for developing Christian ethics, as it provides a framework for
understanding the complex relationship between identity and actions.4
Specific to the area of ethics, then, character can be defined as the “distinctive
core of a person from which moral discernment, decision, and actions spring.”5 Hence the
claim, “We are our character!”6 While character essentially describes the self, however,
individual identity is embodied in the contexts of everyday life.7 For this reason,
Hauerwas is careful to avoid a dualistic definition of selfhood, by which character refers
to an individual’s abstract identity and where actions in the particular situations of life are
believed to have no impact on the ‘true self.’8 Rather, focusing on character recognizes
that identity and action are inextricably connected.
4
Hauerwas is opposed to ethics in which people “assume that the primary issue for moral behavior
is the decision we make about particular situations and practices. As a result it is forgotten that what is at
stake in most of our decisions is not the act itself, but the kind of person we will be.” Character and the
Christian Life, 7-8. In this area, Hauerwas prefers the term ‘character’ over ‘virtue.’ He wants to avoid the
confusion regarding ‘virtue’ as moral identity and ‘virtues’ as the specific characteristics people possess
(e.g. patience and hope). Additionally, because there is so much variety in defining the specific virtues,
Hauerwas refuses to provide an account of virtues in general. Instead, he chooses to refer to virtues as
“context-dependent,” in which they are intelligible only in the specific instances they are referenced—e.g.
“Christian virtues” reflect a specific Christian context. See Stanley Hauerwas, “The Virtues and Our
Communities,” in A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), 111-28; and coauthored with Charles Pinches, Christians among
the Virtues: Theological Conversations with Ancient and Modern Ethics (Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1997).
5
Dennis Hollinger, Choosing the Good: Christian Ethics in a Complex World (Grand Rapids, MI:
Baker Academic, 2002), 46. Similarly, Hollinger states that “the key issue is not What ought we to do? but
rather What ought we to be?,” 45.
6
Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), 39.
7
James McClendon, Ethics: Systematic Theology, Volume One (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002),
329.
8
Hauerwas, Character and the Christian Life, 21. Hauerwas’s use of character contrasts with
Timothy O’Connell’s “onion peel view of the self,” in which identity is understood in distinct layers and
the “I” of individual identity is furthest from everyday actions. Timothy O’Connell, Principles of Catholic
Morality (New York: Seabury, 1978), 59; quoted in Hauerwas, Peaceable Kingdom, 40.
9
As a way of explaining this unity between identity and action, Hauerwas
discusses the moral agency of individuals. In referring to “the self fundamentally as
agent,” Hauerwas is defining agency as an individual’s ability to produce an effect in the
world.9 Actions, therefore, are not morally objective based solely on their results, but
rather reflect the identity of individuals—the agent. So when Hauerwas suggests that “our
character is the qualification of our agency,” he is saying that actions can be evaluated
only in relation to the individuals performing them.10 The goal of character ethics, then, is
to determine the consistency between individual identity and actions. As a practical
example, the morality of vehicle choice is not based solely on external factors, such as
environmental impact. Instead, people’s vehicle choice should reflect their character,
which, in the case of Hauerwas’s project, is their identity as Christians.11
Problems with Character Ethics
The discussion of character and moral agency raises certain concerns to which
Hauerwas himself readily admits.12 First, individualism is not avoided in character ethics.
Reflecting on his use of character, particularly early on in his career, Hauerwas warns that
a generic notion of character “can more be shaped by than shape individualism that has
occasioned the new interest in character and virtue in the first place.”13 Character can be
9
Hauerwas, Peaceable Kingdom, 38.
10
Hauerwas, Character and the Christian Life, 104.
11
For a brief discussion of vehicle choice in relation to Hauerwas’s ethics, see my article, “Should
Christians Own Sport Utility Vehicles,” Mennonite Brethren Herald 47.2 (Feb 2008): 14.
12
For a detailed discussion on the development of Hauerwas’s use of character ethics, see Samuel
Wells, Transforming Fate into Destiny (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster Press, 1998), 13-61.
13
Hauerwas, Character and the Christian Life, xv (emphasis mine).
10
used as a means to self-realization and not necessarily for the purpose of making the
Christian life more intelligible, a problem which perpetuates the individualism of which
Hauerwas is so critical.14 Second, character ethics is too abstract, failing to clarify how
moral agency—the relationship between individual’s identity and actions—is a coherent
concept. The problem, which Hauerwas openly admits, is that the consistent relationship
between character and actions is not self-evident.15 To simply state a connection between
identity and action fails to specify how this relationship can be assessed or even what
value such an assessment brings, particularly when faced with “unintelligible actions” in
which behavior does not properly reflect people’s identity.16 For example, an
unintelligible action would be if a ‘bad’ person does a ‘good’ work, such as a fleeing
murderer stopping to help a stranded motorist. If moral agency is understood as an
abstract notion, an action such as this appears “unintelligible,” as the action is examined
only as an isolated incident without considering what other factors may have led to such
behavior. Quite simply, life is too complex to assume that consistency between identity
and actions will always be obvious in a given situation.
Considering these problems, what is required is a way in which character ethics
can avoid perpetuating individualism and seek continuity between character and actions
amidst the complexities of everyday life. Responding to these two challenges, the
14
Colin Gunton, “The Church as a School of Virtue? Human Formation in Trinitarian
Framework,” in Faithfulness and Fortitude: In Conversation with the Theological Ethics of Stanley
Hauerwas, eds. Mark Thiessen Nation and Samuel Wells (Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark, 2000), 229.
15
Hauerwas comments, “I had mistakenly accepted the presumption of those who worked in
action theory that the concept of agency could be derived from the notion of action qua action. Such
analysis presupposes that ‘action’ or ‘an action’ is a coherent and conceptually primitive notion, but that
was simply wrong.” Sanctify Them in the Truth: Holiness Exemplified (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998),
95.
16
Hauerwas, Character and the Christian Life, xx. For discussion of intelligible and unintelligible
actions, see Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 3d ed. (Notre Dame: University of
Notre Dame Press, 2007), 209-11.
11
category of narrative, and more specifically the Christian narrative, has become and
remained central to Hauerwas’s understanding of individual identity.
Character and the Category of Narrative
According to Hauerwas, a narrative approach to character ethics is crucial.17 The
most influential source prompting Hauerwas to incorporate narrative into his work has
been moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre.18 In his book After Virtue, MacIntyre
presents narrative as the “basic genre for the characterization of human actions.”19 To
understand this statement and Hauerwas’s employment of MacIntyre’s work, we need to
examine the way in which Hauerwas discusses the narrative identity of individuals, as
well as consider how narrative expands beyond the lives of individuals to include the
narratives of history—more particularly, for Hauerwas, the narrative of Christian
history.20
At the most basic level, the narrative identity of individuals is the reality that
every person embodies a story—an “enacted narrative.”21 In the words of MacIntyre,
narrative here refers to the “concept of a self whose unity resides in the unity of a
17
Aware that narrative “constantly threatens to become a catch word for a new theological fad,”
Hauerwas prefers to view it as “a concept that helps clarify” themes in his work without becoming the
“central focus.” Peaceable Kingdom, xxv.
18
For a brief summary of how Hauerwas interprets MacIntyre’s overall project, see “The Virtues
of Alasdair MacIntyre,” First Things 17, no. 6 (Oct 2007): 35-40.
19
MacIntyre, After Virtue, 208.
20
In describing Hauerwas’s ethics, Samuel Wells refers to narrative in relation to individual
identity as the “narrative from below,” as Hauerwas focuses specifically on the dynamics of ethics in
everyday life, whereas Hauerwas’s use of narrative to describe Christian history is referred to as the
“narrative from above,” as Hauerwas focuses on the centrality of the Christian narrative as normative for
his general ethical project. Transforming Fate, 42-60.
21
12
narrative which links birth to life to death as narrative beginning to middle to end.”22
Basically, all individuals are “contingent beings,” as everyone’s context—the story they
find themselves in—is integral to forming who they are.23 In terms of moral agency and
relating character and actions, then, Hauerwas comments that
Our character is the result of our sustained attention to the world that gives a coherence to our
intentionality. Such attention is formed and given content by the stories through which we
have learned to form the story of our lives. To be moral persons is to allow stories to be told
through us so that our manifold activities gain a coherence that allows us to claim them for our
own. Stories and character are interdependent in the sense that the moral life, if it is to be
coherent, always has beginnings and endings.24
This coherence is achieved by examining the overall connections between people’s
identity and actions, not just isolated incidents. Therefore, when there is an apparent
inconsistency between identity and action, other aspects of people’s character, as revealed
through the story of their life, can provide the context for providing a sensible
explanation. Returning to the example of the murderer offering aid to a stranger, his
actions can appear unintelligible if one fails to examine the whole context of the
situation. Perhaps the murderer’s past reveals that helping others is consistent with a
deeply held truth taught in childhood. In MacIntyre’s work, this is referred to as an
“intelligible action,” as all actions make sense in relation to a person’s narrative identity.25
22
Alasdair MacIntyre, “The Virtues, the Unity of a Human Life, and the Concept of a Tradition,”
in Why Narrative: Readings in Narrative Theology, eds. Stanley Hauerwas and L. Gregory Jones (Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), 91. And for MacIntyre, because narrative is such a foundational reality of
human existence, “all attempts to elucidate the notion of personal identity independently of and in isolation
from the notions of narrative, intelligibility, and accountability are bound to fail,” 104.
23
24
Stanley Hauerwas, “Vision, Stories, and Characters,” in The Hauerwas Reader, eds. John
Berkman and Michael Cartwright (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001), 168-69.
25
13
Good deeds, for example, reflect the positive situations in which a person’s character has
been formed well in their lifetime, an intelligibility that should be evident to others.26
What this contingency of character and action in an individual’s narrative implies,
however, is that the modern notion of freedom requires radical redefinition. Reflecting
modern society’s individualistic values, freedom typically refers to individuals being the
“unconstrained creators of their own lives.”27 Essentially, the ability to define one’s
personal identity is based on freedom of choice. Consistent with the narrative reality of
the individual, however, Hauerwas proposes a view of freedom that is significantly
different.
The primary motivation to understand freedom differently for Hauerwas hinges
on his belief that the modern definition of freedom confined to ‘liberation’ or freedom
from something is inconsistent with the biblical definition of the concept.28 Rather,
Hauerwas suggests that the Christian view of freedom is not liberation as “a life free from
suffering, free from servitude, but rather a life that freely suffers, that freely serves,
because such suffering and service is the hallmark of the Kingdom established by
26
Commenting on MacIntyre, Hauerwas states that “here he argues that essential to our learning to
act is that we learn to behave in a way that others can construe our actions as intelligible. In other words,
the intelligibility of an action depends on the narrative continuities in an agent’s life. Yet the ability to
narrate my life depends on having narratives available that make my peculiar life fit within narratives of a
community that direct me toward an end that is not of my own making. The intelligibility of my life,
therefore, depends on the stock of descriptions at a particular time, place, and culture. I am, at best, no more
than a co-author of my life.” Hauerwas, “The Virtues of Alasdair MacIntyre,” 37.
27
Rasmusson, Church as Polis, 281. Rasmusson comments that “the liberal convictions about
freedom as freedom of choice and autonomy have individualized Christian faith and practice and given a
legitimating language for the strongly individualizing processes of modernity,” 300. Critiquing this modern
view of freedom, Hauerwas and Willimon state that “what we got was not self-freedom but self-
centeredness, loneliness, superficiality, and harried consumerism.” Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian
Colony (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989), 50.
28
This is Hauerwas’s contention against the project of liberation theology. See “Some Theological
Reflections on Gutiérrez's Use of ‘Liberation’ as a Theological Concept,” Modern Theology 3, no. 1 (1986):
69.
14
Jesus.”29 Thus Hauerwas claims that freedom “is therefore not just a freedom from, but a
freedom to”—to be a person whose identity is shaped not only by free choice, but by
faithfulness to Scripture and, as we will see below, the community of faith.30 Freedom,
therefore, is inextricably linked to character formation, not only personal liberation.
In order to understand how freedom relates to individual identity, Hauerwas
contends that freedom is rightly understood only in relation to the category of narrative.
He states,
Our “freedom,” therefore, is dependent on our being initiated into a truthful narrative, as in
fact it is the resource from which we derive the power to “have character” at all. Put simply,
our ability to “have character” does not require the positing of a transcendental freedom,
rather it demands a recognition of the narrative nature of our existence. The fundamental
category for ensuring agency, therefore, is not freedom but narrative.31
Referring to the narrative nature of character drastically changes the idea of choosing
one’s identity. Instead of unconstrained choice directing how people develop their
character, individuals exercise their free will in relation to the narrative they represent.
The only acceptable notion of freedom, therefore, is the acceptance of life’s narrative
reality—the freedom for individuals to be themselves in relation to their narrative.
This conceptualization of the narrative identity of individuals, however, limits the
use of narrative to the coherence of the individual’s life, opening it up to be interpreted in
an overly individualized manner—individuals using their “heroic” ability to attain a
certain level of “self-awareness” amidst the complexities of their narrative life.32 To
prevent this individualism, an account of the larger narratives in which individuals
29
Ibid., 69-70.
30
Hauerwas, “Gutiérrez,” 75 (emphasis mine).
31
32
Hauerwas, “A Retrospective Assessment,” 81.
15
participate is required. This is where MacIntyre’s discussion of tradition is especially
helpful for Hauerwas’s project.33
Under the rubric of narrative, a focus on tradition extends the category beyond an
individualized conception and provides an overarching continuity for understanding what
constitutes individual identity. In After Virtue, MacIntyre defines a tradition as that which
individuals “inherit” as the “larger and longer history” of life.34 While individuals
participate in their own narrative story, they also find themselves embedded in this
greater narrative that extends across generations. It is from tradition that individuals are
able to glean what the “pursuit of goods” entails, in this case, the life of consistent
character.35 Discussing this relationship of tradition and the individual, one commentator
states that “we are obligated to extend the tradition in which we find ourselves. This
means that we are to live in a way that is faithful to those narratives around which our
tradition was, and continues to be, formed.”36 The intelligibility of the moral life, while
including the coherence among an individual’s character, actions, and narrative, also
requires continuity in relation to the traditions in which people find themselves.37 For
Hauerwas, the value of this description of reality is the recognition that all people are
33
See Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 221-23; Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), 326-403.
34
MacIntyre, After Virtue, 221-22.
35
Ibid., 222.
36
Brad J. Kallenberg, “Positioning MacIntyre within Christian Ethics,” in Virtues & Practices in
the Christian Tradition: Christian Ethics after MacIntyre, eds. Nancey Murphy, Brad J. Kallenberg, and
Mark Thiessen Nation (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997), 63.
37
Hauerwas argues that “we cannot step back from our moral traditions into theory, but rather our
ability to have critical purchase on our moral practices depends on the substantive presuppositions of our
traditions.” In Good Company: the Church as Polis (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997),
179.
16
historically bound—part of a larger story. The question is, however, which story? Which
tradition does Hauerwas reference for his project?
Because all individuals are embedded in particular traditions, their ethics,
naturally, should be understood in relation to particular traditions as well. Hauerwas,
therefore, refers to his project as a “qualified ethic”—namely, ‘Christian’ ethics rooted in
the Christian tradition.38 Any attempt at Christian ethics must have a theological
foundation rooted in the Christian tradition and the scriptural narrative. Furthermore,
Hauerwas insists that this theological project must be concretely represented in the world,
as “tradition is not a ‘deposit’ of unchanging moral ‘truth,’ but is made up of the lives of
men and women who are constantly testing and developing that tradition through their
own struggle to live it.”39 The goal for Hauerwas is not timeless moral doctrine, but the
practical embodiment of the Christian narrative and tradition. And it is with this emphasis
on the embodied narrative that Hauerwas’s work takes a notable turn. His emphases shift
away from individual identity and character ethics to corporate identity and social ethics.
In the following section, then, we will see how Hauerwas proposes the community of
faith—the church—as the necessary embodiment of the Christian narrative.
II. Corporate Identity: The Church’s Social Ethics
38
Hauerwas argues that “all ethical reflection occurs relative to a particular time and place. Not
only do ethical problems change from one time to the next, but the very nature and structure of ethics is
determined by the particularities of a community’s history and convictions. From this perspective the
notion of ‘ethics’ is misleading, since it seems to suggest that ‘ethics’ is an identifiable discipline that is
constant across history. . . . Ethics always requires an adjective or qualifier—such as, Jewish, Christian,
Hindu, existentialist, pragmatic, utilitarian, humanist, medieval, modern—in order to denote the social and
historical character of ethics as a discipline.” Peaceable Kingdom, 1.
39
Hauerwas, “On Keeping Theological Ethics Theological,” in Hauerwas Reader, 71.
17
We have already seen how narrative is an essential component for Hauerwas’s
ethical project and his understanding of individual identity. And while the introduction of
the Christian tradition presented the conceptual content for envisioning Christian ethics,
the question still remains how that tradition is embodied in everyday life. In light of this,
Hauerwas proposes the following: “The maintenance of such a tradition requires a
community across time sufficient to sustain the journey from one generation to the next.
The Christian word for such a community is church.”40 This section, then, will explore
Hauerwas’s proposal for the centrality of community—the church in particular—in
concretely representing the Christian narrative in the world.
Narrative Community
Before we get into the details of Hauerwas’s ecclesiology, it is important to draw
out more clearly why he requires community to represent the Christian narrative. As we
have seen, Hauerwas avoids conceptions of morality that place individuals at the center
of ethical reasoning, suggesting narrative and character as corrective. In order to counter
an individualistic use of narrative and character ethics, however, requires not only
acknowledging tradition, but a community to help interpret the narrative connections
between character and actions.41

40
Hauerwas, “On Keeping Theological Ethics,” 71. Rasmusson comments that Hauerwas is
“skeptical of all abstract talk about community….The important question is which community.” Church as
Polis, 273. The danger, according to Hauerwas, is that “the use of the word ‘community’ soon earns one the
label of being a ‘communitarian,’” a view that attempts to define a generic form of community for all of
society as opposed to the specific church as Hauerwas promotes. In Good Company, 25-26. For an
extended account of the relationship between liberalism and communitarianism in modern society, see
Hauerwas’s Dispatches from the Front: Theological Engagements with the Secular (Durham, NC: Duke
University Press, 1994).
41
Stanley Hauerwas, Performing the Faith: Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence (Grand
Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2004), 140. As Samuel Wells puts it, “What matters is not how the agent sees
18
Community provides the context for making a narrative approach to identity and
actions intelligible. The task of living a consistent life is not left solely in the hands of
individuals and their ability to live consistently. Rather, as Hauerwas states, “community
joins us with others to further the growth of tradition whose manifold storylines are
meant to help individuals identify and navigate the path to the good. Self is subordinate to
the community as we discover self through the community’s narrative.”42 As we will see
below, then, the community helps individuals develop their character in relation to the
narrative of their lives—the community’s “gift of self.”43
While the community is the context in which the narrative existence of
individuals is made intelligible, the community is equally shaped by its own narrative
existence.44 Hauerwas points out that understanding the narrative tradition in which a
community belongs is essential for “reminding us of what kind of community we must
be.”45 Just as individuals seek consistency between identity and actions, the identity of
communities should be reflected in their corporate actions. According to Hauerwas,
recognizing the narrative reality of corporate identity requires the skill of remembering—
their own actions, but what significance those actions have in the narrative of their community. In the
context of community, narrative is a way of describing agents and their actions that is at the same time
publicly accessible and privately significant.” Transforming Fate, 41.
42
43
Pope John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor (Boston: St. Paul Books & Media, 1993); quoted in
Hauewas, In Good Company, 148. Elsewhere, Hauerwas states, “We are not the creators of our character;
rather, our character is a gift from others which we learn to claim as our own by recognizing it as a gift. Our
freedom is literally in the hands of others. I am free just to the extent that I can trust others to stand over
and against me and call my own ‘achievements’ into question. It is from them that I learn the story that
gives my life a purpose and direction.” Peaceable Kingdom, 44-45.
44
For a discussion on the role of narrative and the formation of community, see Hauerwas’s
interpretation of novelist Richard Adams’s book, Watership Down, in “A Story-formed Community:
Reflections on Watership Down,” in Community of Character, 9-35.
45
Hauerwas, Community of Character, 95.
19
remembering the narrative that shaped the community.46 By reminding themselves of
their foundational narratives, communities can assess whether or not their corporate
actions are consistent with their narrative identity. In the case of the church, the
implication is a constant examination of how the community is being shaped by and
reflecting the Christian narrative—“the stories of God…found in scripture.”47
A Critique of the Church in Modern Society
Any examination of a community’s faithfulness to its narrative identity invariably
involves critique—examination of how the community has deviated from faithfully
representing its narrative identity. In Hauerwas’s context, this involves a critique of the
church in modern society.48
The major thrust of Hauerwas’s critique of the modern church is that it is
compromised to society—allowing culture to define its identity.49 He labels the church
“accommodationist,” as it too often accepts the task of “underwriting American
democracy”—even at the expense of consistent and faithful theological doctrine.50
Hauerwas sees the church adopting the ideologies of liberal society, and to do so is
particularly troublesome when liberal society “gives primacy to individual autonomy
46
For a discussion that illustrates the importance of memory in Hauerwas’s work on narrative, see
“Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. Remembering,” in Wilderness Wanderings: Probing Twentieth-
Century Theology and Philosophy (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997), 225-237.
47
48
It is difficult to pinpoint one area in which Hauerwas critiques the church most, as the theme
permeates nearly all of his work. His most popular and widely read critique, however, is the book he co-
authored with William Willimon, Resident Aliens, which contains the subtitle, “A Provocative Christian
Assessment of Culture and Ministry for People Who Know that Something Is Wrong.”
49
Rasmusson, Church as Polis, 241.
50
Hauerwas and Willimon, Resident Aliens, 32.
20
over membership and participation in a narrative-based community.”51 Hauerwas laments
that the North American church allows its mission to be defined on the world’s terms,
rather than on the basis of the church’s discernment of their own theological
convictions.52
The term often associated with Hauerwas’s critique is “Constantinianism.”53 This
is the situation in which the perception of God’s activity in the world shifts from being
represented solely by the church to being represented by society—often referred to as the
“Constantinian shift” in reference to the historical example of Emperor Constantine’s
acceptance and spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire.54 While Hauerwas
acknowledges the reality of this sociological shift in Christian history, he is not so quick
to embrace it in all its forms, particularly in what is often referred to as “Christian
America.”55 While secularization and the privatization of religion have shifted the focus
away from Christianity dominating American society, many Christian theologians
conceive of the church’s task to be reclaiming the vision of a Christian America.56 What
51
Kenneth Carter, “The Theological Ethics of Stanley Hauerwas: Christian Ethics and the
Community of the Church,” Quarterly Review 6, no. 4 (Winter 1986): 68.
52
Hauerwas and Willimon argue that “our church leaders find it hard to imagine any valid
theology other than that which is used to tell us as Christians that our task is to make the world a better
place. The difficulty is that this better place is defined by the world.” Where Resident Aliens Live:
Exercises for Christian Practice (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996), 68-69.
53
See Hauerwas, Christian Existence Today (Durham, NC: Labyrinth Press, 1988), 180-84.
Hauerwas is indebted to Yoder for his understanding of Constantinianism. See John Howard Yoder, The
Priestly Kingdom: Social Ethics as Gospel (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985), 135-47.
54
What happens, according to Rasmusson, is that “the Constantinian shift means that the church
changes from being a minority to becoming the imperial religion of, with time, almost everyone.” Church
as Polis, 222.
55
Hauerwas, After Christendom? How the Church Is to Behave If Freedom, Justice, and a
Christian Nation Are Bad Ideas (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991), 7-8.
56
For example, Hauerwas is critical of H.R. Niebuhr’s underlying theological support of American
culture, as the assumption that culture should be accepted by the church fails at “providing any
discriminating modes for discerning how Christians should see the good or the bad in ‘culture’” (Hauerwas
21
has happened in the area of ethics, according to Hauerwas, is that “the primary subject of
Christian ethics in America has been America.”57 Hauerwas rejects the acceptance of this
situation because the church trades one narrative for another: in this case, the narrative of
scripture for the narrative of American society. As we will see, this compromises
Hauerwas’s view of the church representing the Christian narrative.
Christian Narrative and the Church
In response to this situation of the church mirroring the surrounding culture,
Hauerwas makes one of his most famous statements: “The church does not have a social
ethic, the church is a social ethic.”58 This statement suggests, echoing Hauerwas’s
character ethics, that the fundamental task of the church is to be ‘itself’—a faithful
representation of the biblical narrative.59 And where we saw Alasdair MacIntyre’s work
provide the framework for Hauerwas’s approach to narrative in ethics, we see now that
John Howard Yoder provides the framework for Hauerwas’s ecclesiology.60 We will see
that Yoder’s articulation of the church—a church fashioned after the nonviolent example
and Willimon, Resident Aliens, 38-43). Recently, Hauerwas and Willimon have been challenged for their
unsympathetic reading of Niebuhr, as in their “zeal” it is argued that they have caricatured Niebuhr and his
support of American culture. See John G. Stackhouse Jr., Making the Best of It: Following Christ in the
Real World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 37, n. 45.
57
Hauerwas, Christian Existence Today, 177.
58
Hauerwas, Peaceable Kingdom, 99 (emphasis mine).
59
Hauerwas claims that “the church’s main task is to be what we are—God’s salvation.” After
Christendom, 44.
60
Rasmusson comments that “it could not be strongly enough stressed that Hauerwas’ theology, as
it is today, is unthinkable without the extensive influence of Yoder, who has developed the basic tenets of
Radical Reformation theology more extensively than Hauerwas.” Church as Polis, 24. For Hauerwas’s
reflection on Yoder’s legacy, see “Why The Politics of Jesus Is Not a Classic,” in A Better Hope: Resources
for a Church Confronting Capitalism, Democracy, and Postmodernity (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press,
2000), 129-36.
22
of Christ—is paramount in Hauerwas’s ongoing theological reflection. This section, then,
will discuss the church’s narrative identity and the implications for its social ethics.
The Church’s Narrative Identity and the Centrality of Jesus
Foundational in defining the church’s narrative identity is the centrality of Jesus.
Speaking to the church’s Christological identity, Yoder states that “the lordship of Christ
is the center which must guide critical value choices, so that we may be called to
subordinate or even to reject those values which contradict Jesus.”61 Hauerwas adopts
Yoder’s point that the ethics of the church must be based on the truth claims of the
Christian faith, found most clearly in Jesus Christ.62 Thus Hauerwas’s claim that the
narrative of Jesus is “a ‘morality’ for the formation of the Christian community,” meaning
that the Gospel narratives present the church with a fundamental picture for who its
supposed to be—a reflection of Jesus’ example.63 Because of this assertion for Jesus’
example guiding the church, Hauerwas believes it is not the church’s task to popularize or
make relevant the particular message of Jesus into our contemporary pluralistic society.64
61
Yoder, Priestly Kingdom, 11.
62
Thus this statement: “Life is better lived in the church because the church, according to our
story, just happens to be true. The church is only community formed around the truth, which is Jesus Christ,
who is the way, the truth, and the life. Only on the basis of his story, which reveals to us who we are and
what has happened in the world, is true community possible.” Hauerwas and Willimon, Resident Aliens, 77.
63
Hauerwas, Community of Character, 95. Hauerwas is critical of any approach to a universal
Christian ethics that does not make the example of Jesus central. He states, “Christian universality is too
often based on a high view of the human, rather than a high view of Jesus.” Such approaches, he argues,
start from “assumed commonalities about mankind” instead of acknowledging that the universal nature of
Christian ethics is found in Christ—“the belief that the God who has made us his own through Jesus Christ
is the God of all people.” Against the Nations: War and Survival in a Liberal Society (Minneapolis, MN:
Winston Press, 1985), 77.
64
Exploring Yoder on this point, Hauerwas comments that Yoder “shows us that our sense of the
alternatives—that we must choose between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith, between prophet and
institution, between catastrophic kingdom and inner kingdom, between being political and being sectarian,
between the individual and the social—derives not from categories intrinsic to the human condition but
from a depoliticization of salvation that has made Christianity a faithful servant to the status quo.” A Better
23
The centrality of Jesus, rather, calls for the church to practice the truthful message of
Jesus in the midst of contemporary society. Anything else betrays the biblical witness of
Jesus’ embodied presence as God’s son and the admonition for the church to follow his
example.
In terms of Christian ethics, Hauerwas laments the unnecessary separation of
Christology and ethics, and calls for the two areas of thought to be inextricably bound
together, going so far as to say that “Christology which is not a social ethic is deficient.”65
Or as Samuel Wells states, “If Jesus is not the norm, other principles come to shape
Christian ethics, and Jesus can become almost irrelevant.”66 In order to avoid abstract
generalizations in Christian ethics for the purpose of cultural acceptance, then, the stress
on Jesus as a model reemphasizes Hauerwas’s acceptance of an explicitly ‘Christian’
ethics.67
With Jesus the model for the church’s ethics, it is the specific narrative of
Scripture in revealing him that Hauerwas believes is necessary to sustain the church’s
identity under the lordship of Christ. The biblical account of God’s story as exemplified
in the nation of Israel, culminating in the ministry of Jesus, and continuing in the example
of the early church provides the narrative framework for the church to rightly remember
Hope, 133.
65
66
Wells, Transforming Fate, 92-93.
67
Along these lines, Yoder argues that “we need to doubt the focus upon the generalizability of
ethical demands at the price of particular specifications, not only because all natural insight is fallen but
because (to say it again in Christian terms) we confess as Lord and Christ the man Jesus. Then the
particular and the general cannot be alternatives. The general cannot be arrived at by subtracting the
particular. Any embarrassment with the particularity which seeks to get at the general that way is a denial of
faith.” Priestly Kingdom, 43.
24
what it is supposed to be.68 When Hauerwas refers to narrative and the community,
therefore, he is stressing the need for the church to allow the narrative of God’s
interaction with the world—represented most clearly in Jesus—to be the story from
which the identity of the church is formed and the world is understood. The task of the
church, then, is to represent appropriately the biblical account of “a story of a people’s
journey with their God.”69
Integral to Hauerwas’s interpretation of living under God’s story is his
understanding of eschatology. Simply recognizing the story of God is inadequate without
a proper understanding of how the story’s telos shapes the church.70 The eschatological
identity of the church, then, refers not so much to the end of history, but to the
implications for Christian living now in light of this history’s end. The implication,
therefore, is that the church represents a “foretaste of the kingdom. . . . It is in the church
that the narrative of God is lived in a way that makes the kingdom visible.”71 Hauerwas
emphasizes that, inaugurated by Christ’s resurrection, the kingdom is already present in
68
Hauerwas argues that this approach to reading the Bible differs drastically from the typical
patterns of Bible reading in modern Christianity in which it is read as a book of abstracted truth with little
or no social or personal transformation. See Stanley Hauerwas, Unleashing the Scripture: Freeing the Bible
from Captivity to America (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993).
69
Hauerwas, Peaceable Kingdom, 24. Hauerwas claims that “we know who we are only when we
can place our selves—locate our stories—within God’s story,” 27.
70
Hauerwas and Willimon, Resident Aliens, 62. More importantly, the category of ‘telos’ for a
narrative by itself fails to provide the adequate content that Christian eschatology provides, as it merely
states the generic goal of a story, whereas eschatology is an inherently theological term that implies the
particular content of the telos in the Christian narrative. Hauerwas and James Foder, “Performing Faith,” in
Performing the Faith, 92-93.
71
25
history and it is the church’s task to live out that reality.72 Essentially, the life of the
community is reoriented in light of the history-changing existence of Jesus Christ.
This eschatological identity has important consequences for Hauerwas’s
understanding of the church’s place in the world.73 For Hauerwas the concepts of ‘church’
and ‘world’ are invariably theological terms in that they say “something about existence
from a Christian perspective.”74 Rather than seek metaphysical distinctions between the
two realms, however, Hauerwas proposes a distinction based on people’s allegiance. The
‘world’ under this theological construct, therefore, is simply made up of those who do not
confess Jesus as Lord, with the church consisting of those who do.75 By making this
church-world distinction, Hauerwas counters the approach of ethicists who “have
assumed a ‘continuity’ between church and world,” as he openly separates ‘church’ and
‘world’ on the practical level of allegiance.76 The church, then, is clearly distinguished
from the world by its foremost allegiance to God’s kingdom as revealed in Jesus. And it
is only from an understanding of this separation, argues Hauerwas, that the church can
72
Wells, Transforming Fate, 145. This concept, as one commentator points out, is “one of the most
seminal themes in Hauerwas’s work: the reconfiguration of time in relation to (the narratives of) human
existence made possible by the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Thus, Christian
existence is to be lived within the eschatological horizon of the Kingdom of God, and it is in relation to that
conception of ecclesial destiny that moral reflection on all human experience is to take place.” Michael G.
Cartwright, “Afterword: Stanley Hauerwas’s Essays in Theological Ethics: A Reader’s Guide,” in
Hauerwas Reader, 654.
73
See Hauerwas and Willimon, “Church and World,” in Where Resident Aliens Live, 46-66.
74
75
Ibid. Rasmusson clarifies that “[Hauerwas] does not give much help in answering all the
classical questions that this raises. His point is instead that the difference between church and world is not a
distinction ‘between realms of reality, between orders of creation and redemption, between nature and
supernature,’ but ‘between agents,’ some of whom confess Jesus as Lord and others who do not.”
Rasmusson quotes Hauerwas in Peaceable Kingdom, 101.
76
Carter, “The Theological Ethics of Stanley Hauerwas,” 68. In the words of Yoder, “The church
precedes the world…axiologically, in that the lordship of Christ is the center which must guide critical
value choices, so that we may be called to subordinate or even reject those values which contradict Jesus.”
Priestly Kingdom, 11.
26
understand its role in the world. As we will see below, however, this church-world
distinction makes the church’s practical engagement with society difficult to envision.
A fundamental characteristic of the church’s role in the world is that of service.
Hauerwas comments that the role of the church community “is never a question of
whether to serve the world but how they are to be of service in the world.”77 For
Hauerwas, specifically, the church’s key service is helping society understand itself better
from a Christian perspective—hence the phrase “the church serves the world by helping
the world know that it is the world.”78 And what the world is from this Christian
perspective is in need of redemption from the brokenness of sin.79 If we consider the idea
of justice as an example, the church provides an alternative view of justice that runs
contrary to the powers of sin exhibited in society.
The Social Ethics of the Church
Considering the church’s identity shaped by Jesus’ example, there are two aspects
of the church’s social ethic that are crucial for Hauerwas: (1) the church as a nonviolent
political alternative; and (2) the church as the context for discipleship.
1. The church as a nonviolent political alternative
We begin, then, by discussing how Hauerwas views the church as a nonviolent
political alternative. Central to this concept of ecclesiology is the belief that it was Jesus’
77
Hauerwas, In Good Company, 163. See Hauerwas, “The Servant Community: Christian Social
Ethics,” in Peaceable Kingdom, 96-115.
78
Hauerwas and Willimon, Where Resident Aliens Live, 58.
79
Along this line, Hauerwas and Willimon comment that “the way for the world to know that it
needs redeeming, that it is broken and fallen, is for the church to enable the world to strike hard against
something which is an alternative to what the world offers.” Resident Aliens, 94.
27
mission to do just that—establish an alternative community, referred to by Hauerwas as
“a new polis called church.”80 In allowing the gospel narratives to form the church, “the
challenge of Jesus is the political dilemma of how to be faithful to a strange
community.”81 This faithfulness is evident as the church provides an “alternative story”
amidst the world’s countless visions for reality.82
Hauerwas’s use of political language, however, should not be confused with the
politics of North American society—the process of “bargaining between interest groups
necessary to secure a relatively fair distribution of resources.”83 The church accepting this
political paradigm reflects an accommodation to culture, something which we have
already seen Hauerwas reject. Rather, the church’s politics, says Hauerwas, is “the way
we learn to speak about ourselves and the world.”84 Politics simply refers to the church’s
mode of being a community. The church as a political alternative, therefore, is essentially
about being a witness to God’s desire for the entire world—an example of “a
paradigmatic community…of what the world can be but is not.”85
Key to the church being this alternative is to accept its powerlessness in a world
prone to violence and injustice—refraining from showing support to aspects of

80
81
Ibid.
82
Chris K. Huebner, “Mennonites and Narrative Theology: The Case of John Howard Yoder,”
Conrad Grebel Review 16, no. 2 (Spring 1998): 20.
83
Hauerwas, After Christendom, 6. Thus Hauerwas argues, “The church does not exist to provide
an ethos for democracy or any other form of social organization, but stands as a political alternative to
every nation, witnessing to the kind of life possible for those that have been formed by the story of Christ.”
Community of Character, 12.
84
Ibid.
85
Hauerwas, Richard Bondi, and David B. Burrell. Truthfulness and Tragedy: Further
Investigations in Christian Ethics (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1977), 142; quoted in
28
government that are unjust.86 Rather than beginning with strategies and theories which
impose Christianity on society, following Yoder, Hauerwas prioritizes ecclesiology over
epistemology.87 Instead of beginning with rationalistic categories for understanding
Christianity, the faithful community of believers is the central context for cultural
interaction and understanding. Christian ethics as a discipline, then, is irrelevant for
Hauerwas apart from the concrete community of believers.
Placing the community of faith as the central context for making Christian ethics
intelligible as opposed to relevance in the surrounding culture is a definite shift from the
Constantinian vision. Key in Hauerwas’s conception of church is the priority for the
church to pursue faithfulness in determining its effectiveness.88 It is not the church’s task
to be relevant or to produce results in society when this involves accepting situations that
cause the church to be unfaithful.
The topic of the church’s faithfulness is particularly poignant for Hauerwas’s
theology of nonviolence. Confronting Christian ethicists who find violence acceptable for
securing justice, Hauerwas argues that “as Christians, therefore, we seek not so much to
be effective as to be faithful—we, thus, cannot do that which promises ‘results’ when the
86
Yoder, Priestly Kingdom, 101, 158. Yoder bases his argument on what he refers to as “gospel
realism,” which in referring to governing powers holds the position that Jesus’ reference to government is
merely a descriptive statement, not prescribing the way things should be in the realization of God’s
kingdom. Yoder comments that “there is in [Jesus’] words no ethical evaluation of ‘dominion’ as a good or
bad system for the nations. He is, one might say anachronistically, a positivist. He just says that it is that
way,” 156.
87
Harry Huebner, “Within the Limits of Story Alone?” Conrad Grebel Review 13 (Spring 1995):
159. Hauerwas and Willimon comment that “the church…teaches us what being moral is.…The church is
crucial for Christian epistemology. We would not know enough to be moral without the colony.” Resident
Aliens, 94.
88
By no means does Hauerwas wish to say that “faithfulness rather than effectiveness is the goal of
a confessing church.…This is a false alternative.” The key, according to Hauerwas, is trust in the
effectiveness of God’s reign, not society’s principles for success. Hauerwas and Willimon, Resident Aliens,
46.
29
means are unjust.”89 This concept reveals Yoder’s influence on Hauerwas’s social ethics,
as Yoder contends that the New Testament witness to Jesus’ death on the cross is the
example for Christians to follow—a guide for Christian faithfulness towards achieving
justice.90
The church as a political alternative, then, embodies and witnesses to Jesus’
nonviolent sacrifice. Hauerwas argues that pacifism is not a “position about violence
abstracted from discipleship to [Christ] as God’s anointed. Discipleship, moreover, is not
a heroic endeavor of individuals, but rather the way of life of a community that finds in
its shared life a foretaste of God’s kingdom.”91 Hauerwas’s, pacifism, then, is
fundamentally eschatological, following Yoder’s assertion that the presence of God’s
kingdom was instituted by Christ and is firmly rooted in the present through the witness
of the church.92 The example of Jesus as the initiator of God’s kingdom, then, is the only
89
90
Yoder argues that “the relationship between the obedience of God’s people and the triumph of
God’s cause is not a relationship of cause and effect but one of cross and resurrection.” The Politics of
Jesus, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994), 232.
91
Stanley Hauerwas “Explaining Christian Nonviolence,” in Must Christianity be Violent? eds.
Kenneth R. Chase and Alan Jacobs (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2003), 174. By rooting nonviolence
in the life of the discipleship community, Hauerwas intends to avoid defining the concept as an abstract
theological idea. He comments, “The very abstractions ‘pacifism’ and ‘just war’ tend to encourage an
ahistorical reading of Scripture and Christian tradition,” as they are typically viewed as ideas to be
defended instead of moralities to be lived out by the Christian community. “On Being a Church Capable of
Addressing a World at War,” in Hauerwas Reader, 441.
92
Stanley Hauerwas, “Should War Be Eliminated? A Thought Experiment,” in Hauerwas Reader,
420. Yoder’s eschatology asserts “the overlapping of two aeons,” which understands Jesus’ ministry as the
“radical break” in history that signifies “the institution of a new kind of life.” The Original Revolution
(Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1971), 58-59. This eschatological realization distinguishes Hauerwas (and
Yoder) from the realism of others in which it is argued that Christians must accept the tension of the
kingdom initiated by Jesus, but which is not yet fully realized, leading to the possibility of accepting a
degree of violence to secure peace. Oliver O’Donovan comments that a realist perspective is “for those who
wish to learn how to engage in the praxis of judgment—to engage in it in these days and in these
circumstances, where we actually find ourselves, here and now.” The Just War Revisited (Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 2003), 13. Similarly, John Stackhouse comments that “to obey the creation
commandments in the current situation—post-fall, pre-Parousia—means to wield ‘the sword’ indeed, and to
leave those functions to others is, in fact, to disobey Jesus—who is, with the Father and the Son, one God,
and the Author of the (whole) Bible.” Stackhouse, Making the Best of It, 215, n. 41.
30
model for the church’s nonviolence for Hauerwas, even if such an emphasis conflicts
with the aims of society or refuses to participate with others outside of the church.93
Again, faithfulness must always direct the church’s consideration of effectiveness, in this
case, responding to violence.94 Reflecting the emphasis on the church as ‘itself,’ the
focus, we see, is on the church’s witness to nonviolence, not its credibility in the world.
As we will see below, Hauerwas’s argument for nonviolence receives much critique for
refusing to extend his theology of nonviolence outside of the church.
2. The church as the context for discipleship
A major role the church plays in achieving its witness as a nonviolent alternative
politics is by providing the context for people’s discipleship—their character formation.
Not only do individuals have to recognize their dependence on their narratives and
communities, but likewise, the church has to take responsibility for influencing people’s
development. A fundamental task of the church, Hauerwas argues, is to produce people
who are able to take responsibility for their lives. The kind of people the church produces,
therefore, and whether or not they are capable of living ethically amidst the challenges of
modern culture, reflects the church’s faithfulness.95 And in particular, Hauerwas’s
93
As Yoder comments, “Christian pacifism which has a theological basis in the character of God
and the work of Jesus Christ is one in which the calculating link between our obedience and ultimate
efficacy has been broken, since the triumph of God comes through resurrection and not through effective
sovereignty or assured survival.” The Politics of Jesus, 239.
94
Hauerwas, “On Being A Church”, 455. For instance, when it is assumed that Christianity will
provide a credible political strategy, Hauerwas retorts that “such questions…assume that pacifists must
have an alternative foreign policy. My only response is I do not have a foreign policy. I have something
better—a church constituted by people who would rather die than kill.” (Quoted in Colman McCarthy, “‘I'm
a Pacifist Because I'm a Violent Son of a Bitch’: A Profile of Stanley Hauerwas,” The Progressive [April
2003] http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1295/is_4_67/ai_99818481/print [accessed November 26,
2007]).
95
Hauerwas, Community of Character, 2, 149.
31
emphasis on discipleship highlights how he envisions character development in the faith
community.
In defining discipleship, rather than begin with a theological anthropology,
Hauerwas makes it the “normative category of being in the world.”96 This counters a
propensity by some to provide a natural theology for understanding humanity which is
abstracted from the particularities of Jesus’ ministry—something which Hauerwas, as we
have already seen, has no desire to attempt.97 What it means to be human from a Christian
perspective, therefore, is sensible for Hauerwas only through the lens of Christology.
Jesus exemplifies a life that is consistent with God’s intentions for humanity. He is the
prime example of living a natural human life—life lived “with the grain of the universe”
so to speak.98 Disciples, then, invariably follow Jesus as the model for human existence.
For Hauerwas, there are several ways the Christian community nourishes discipleship.
First, discipleship in the church entails joining the community and immersing
oneself in the story of God. Hauerwas explains that “to be a disciple of Jesus it is not
enough to know the basic ‘facts’ of his life. It is not enough to know his story. Rather, to
be a disciple of Jesus means that our lives must literally be taken up into the drama of
96
Scott Holland, “Mennonites on Hauerwas: Hauerwas on Mennonites,” Conrad Grebel Review
13 no. 2 (Spring 1995): 146. See Hauerwas and Willimon, “Practice Discipleship: Embodiment,” in Where
Resident Aliens Live, 67-93; The Truth About God: The Ten Commandments in Christian Life (Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1999).
97
For example, see Stanley Hauerwas, “Reinhold Niebuhr’s Natural Theology,” in With the Grain
of the Universe: the Church's Witness and Natural Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2001), 113-
140. Hauerwas critiques Reinhold Niebuhr’s natural theology, which “in spite of its pretentious
presumption that its subject matter is God, is in fact but a disguised way to talk about humanity” (115).
John Stackhouse, however, is quick to dispute this claim of Hauerwas’s, arguing that Niebuhr is not
anthropocentric on the basis that Niebuhr does in fact make Jesus Christ the final authority in revelation.
Making the Best of It, 90, n. 23.
98
Hauerwas, With the Grain, 225. This phrase comes from John H. Yoder, “Armaments and
Eschatology,” Studies in Christian Ethics 1, no. 1 (1988): 58.
32
God’s redemption of this creation.”99 Discipleship, therefore, requires the recognition that
(1) God is already at work in the world—meaning that individuals are not the center of
God’s project; and (2) integration into the community of faith is the context to practically
participate in what God is already doing. Discipleship along these lines is not a static
identifying mark—but a complex process of learning to be shaped through the
community by the story of God in our lives and the world.100
Second, the church’s discipleship must revolve around the concept of freedom
that, as we saw above, is based on the example of Jesus and centers on the life of service
to others. Freedom in the context of discipleship, therefore, counters the modern desire to
flee from authority and accountability, and embraces instead that true Christian freedom
is invariably related to living life as a gift from God and in the presence of others. People
are free, in this sense, to be disciples of Jesus Christ.
Third, discipleship in the church requires an acceptance of authority in the context
of Christian community—something lacking in individualistic ethics. For example,
Hauerwas shows how an individualized approach to reading the Bible in many churches
reflects the loss of any concept of authority outside of oneself.101 A life of discipleship in
the context of the church, however, challenges “the very presumption that communities
can exist without authority.”102 By deriving identity from God as revealed through Jesus
in the Bible, the discipling community challenges people to submit their lives to God’s
story.
99
Hauerwas, “God’s New Language,” in Hauerwas Reader, 148.
100
Hauerwas and Willimon, Resident Aliens, 52, 102-03.
101
Hauerwas, “The Insufficiency of Scripture: Why Discipleship Is Required,” in Unleashing the
Scriptures, 47-62.
102
Hauerwas, Unleashing the Scriptures, 17-18, 61-62.
33
Finally, the community forms disciples by participating in God’s narrative
through its worship—worship, in particular, that acts out as a public statement of the
community’s identity.103 The worship practices of a discipling church portray what it
means for both individuals and the community to accept the lordship of Jesus Christ. The
practice of baptism, for example, identifies individuals with God’s kingdom and the
community of faith—testifying that life is gift from God.104 At the same time, the worship
gathering, according to Hauerwas, is a time for the community to reorient itself towards
God’s priorities—a sort of “rehearsal” for what it means to participate in God’s kingdom
in the world.105 In this regard, worship acts as a constant reminder of the identity of a
discipleship community and challenges all participants to continually be formed by God’s
narrative.
The question, however, is how exactly does Hauerwas’s social ethics of the
church—a nonviolent discipling community—extend outward to practically engage a
culture that has contributed greatly to the presence of individualism in the church.
Therefore, an explication for how Hauerwas defines the church’s engagement with this
influential culture is necessary to gauge the effectiveness of his theology for correcting
individualism. Simply put, how applicable is Hauerwas’s theology of culture?106
103
See Hauerwas, “The Liturgical Shape of the Christian Life: Teaching Christian Ethics as
Worship,” in In Good Company, 153-68; “Suffering Beauty: The Liturgical Formation of Christ’s Body,” in
Performing the Faith, 151-65.
104
Hauerwas, In Good Company, 154, 161.
105
Hauerwas and Foder, “Performing Faith,” 98.
106
I refer to John Stackhouse’s definition of theology of culture: “A comprehensive theological
understanding of the world and the Christian role in it.” Making the Best of It, 4.
34
III. Theology of Culture: The Church Engaging the World
Hauerwas’s conception of the church has direct implications for how he envisions
the church’s engagement with the world. The problem, however, is that he is hesitant to
provide specific, practical principles. This reticence makes application of his work for the
church a frustrating exercise at times, as we will see below in the critiques of Hauerwas’s
theology. Interestingly, Hauerwas himself admits to this frustration, yet does not budge
from his vague explication for practical engagement in certain areas, stubbornly refusing
to “conceive of Christianity as a strategy.”107 Thus, it is important to examine whether
Hauerwas’s theology of culture contributes to a practical response to individualism.
Hauerwas’s proposed model for the Christian community’s engagement in the
world is what I refer to as ‘organic engagement’—the natural response to the particular
contexts in which a church is embedded. Essentially, cultural engagement is a matter of
addressing the particular situations individual churches encounter, recognizing that every
cultural context presents its own challenges. Again, there is no universal approach in
Hauerwas’s program—simply the church as the concrete community that embodies
Christian ethics and engages the world.108 This proposal has several implications.
Relative Engagement of the Church
Hauerwas’s conception of the practical engagement of the church endorses a
specific kind of relativism. Importantly, Hauerwas’s relativism avoids what he refers to as
“vulgar relativism,” where all moral convictions have no meaning beyond “notional
107
Hauerwas, After Christendom, 21. He refers to this refusal as writing “without knowing the
answers.”
108
See Hauerwas and Willimon, Where Resident Aliens Live, 21.
35
commitments.”109 Contrary to this, Hauerwas proposes that Christian engagement must
acknowledge the “truth of relativism”—how multiple moralities reflect the “nature of our
world.”110 In the face of this reality, Hauerwas states that his task “is not an argument that
provides an a priori defeat of relativism, but an interpretation of and the corresponding
skills to live in a world where others exist who do not share my moral history.”111 And it
is in this context that the church “provides the framework for discerning how one lives
and expresses oneself in the world.”112 In terms of cultural engagement, then, Hauerwas’s
relativism entails the church accepting its particularity and, out of this, critically engaging
each situation it confronts and responding in the appropriate manner. For example,
assessing the impact of individualism on the church would involve examining the
complex process from which it arises in each situation, something I will attempt to do in
the following chapter with the Mennonite Brethren.
Imaginative Engagement of the Church
The relativistic reality does not mean the church has no role in the world. Rather,
Hauerwas is adamant that the Christian message can unite people in their differences
109
Hauerwas, Community of Character, 104. Hauerwas opposes relativism that radicalizes the
contextualization of ethical commitments, a situation in which there is an accepted “pointlessness to
choosing between options that do not matter to anyone.” This relativism only accepts universal moral
principles that apply to anyone. Hauerwas criticizes this relativism as it fails to address “the reality of real
confrontations” between competing moralities.
110
Ibid.
111
Ibid.
112
Duane K. Friesen, “A Critical Analysis of Narrative Ethics,” in The Church as Theological
Community, ed. Harry Huebner (Winnipeg, MB: CMBC Publications, 1990), 238. Similarly, Hauerwas
states, “The kind of alternative the church provides will differ from society to society, system of belief to
system of belief, from culture to culture, state to state [and] general claims about the relation of church to
world are never sufficient and cannot be substituted for the hard work of social analysis and of particular
societies.” Hauerwas, Community of Character, 105, 110.
36
through its genuine interaction with other moralities.113 What is required for this
engagement, however, are imaginative practices to address the different contexts the
church finds itself in.114 Because the church encounters a variety of issues in the world—
each requiring its own careful consideration for an appropriate response—an emphasis on
imagination is relevant. Quite simply, there are no easy answers in defining the church’s
theology of culture, making imagination necessary for considering how the church can
remain faithful to the Christian narrative. The complexity of seeking faithfulness in the
face of so many conflicting moralities requires the church to develop creative responses
to each situation it encounters. The basis for imagination, according to Hauerwas, is
found in the church’s Christological identity. He claims, “Our character as a Christian
community, after all, is but the normal result of our extraordinary conviction that in Jesus
the Christ we witness God’s kingdom. That conviction, making us who we are, is the
source and basis of our ability to remain imaginative people.”115 For example, the
church’s creativity in responding to a culture that accepts abortion necessarily requires
imaginative practices for welcoming all children into the community of faith—a way of
reminding the world “that our lives are not our own, but belong to God.”116 Considering
the world’s politics, however, reveals that the church’s imaginative engagement is a
cautious endeavor.
113
114
See Hauerwas, “On Keeping Theological Ethics Imaginative,” in Against the Nations, 51-60;
and Emmanuel M. Katongole, “Hauerwasian Hooks and the Christian Social Imagination,” in God, Truth,
and Witness: Engaging Stanley Hauerwas, eds. Gregory L. Jones, Reinhard Hütter, and C. Rosalee Velloso
Ewell (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2005), 131-52.
115
Hauerwas, “On Keeping Theological Ethics Imaginative,” 54.
116
Ibid., 57.
37
Political Engagement of the Church
Hauerwas’s view on the church’s political involvement could be termed ‘hesitant.’
It is not that he is uncertain about whether or not Christians should participate in the
political issues of society. Rather, Hauerwas’s hesitance derives from his contention that
the primary focus of the church should be its own politics, not society’s politics.117 The
politics of the church are foremost a witness to God’s kingdom and any engagement with
society’s politics must then be an extension of that witness. And considering the politics
of society often stand in contrast to God’s kingdom in Hauerwas’s view, he is highly
suspicious of any relationship the church develops with society’s political structures.118
Hauerwas hesitates, therefore, to contribute practically to the world’s political systems,
even if this refusal is critiqued as promoting a culturally withdrawn church, as we will see
below. Once again we encounter Hauerwas’s reminder that the church’s engagement
should seek effectiveness only through careful attention to what is most faithful to God’s
narrative. Essentially, this means that political engagement begins in the church and its
identity as an alternative politics. As Arne Rasmusson summarizes,
This concentration on the church’s life and on everyday life does not, Hauerwas thinks,
prevent the church from speaking to larger society. Instead it is to make use of the best
resources of the church. The church, as a distinct community with its own tradition, can be a
carrier of alternative practices and alternative ways of seeing the world.…A church with a
strong sense of community, living with a tradition and practices that partly stand apart from
the dominating stories, traditions and practices of modernity (as a contrast society), might
have a larger ability (because of a different ‘grid’) and the social space to see modern society
from other perspectives, and to form and sustain new ways of thinking and living.119
117
For a detailed analysis of where Hauerwas’s project fits into modern social theory, see
Rasmusson, 352-374.
118
See Hauerwas, After Christendom, 6; Hauerwas and Willimon, Where Resident Aliens, 52-53.
119
38
Hauerwas is careful to emphasize that the church’s alternative identity does not mean
withdrawal from society, as “the church need not worry about whether to be in the world.
The church’s only concern is how to be in the world, in what form, for what purpose.”120
Hauerwas’s solution to the issue of how, much to the chagrin of his critics, is consistent
with his view that the church is not required to achieve political success or global unity,
but determines its engagement from its own identity in faithfulness to its role in God’s
kingdom. 121 This emphasis leads Hauerwas to give greater attention to the politics of the
church itself and the practices that constitute this politics than to political engagement
with the world. Perhaps a better term than engagement, then, would be “witness,” as the
contribution of the church community to the wider world is its testimony to an alternative
mode of politics.122 The church represents this witness by modeling alternative views of
living based on its commitment to the narrative of Scripture—the testimony of healthy
family relationship being one example.123
Another example from Hauerwas of the church’s witness to an alternative politics
is his participation with the Christian organization, “Ekklesia Project,” which unites
Christians with the goal of placing the alternative church at the center of cultural issues,
not away from them.124 The aim of this organization is to practically engage society by
building up local churches in North America. Through conferences, congregational

120
Hauerwas and Willimon, Resident Aliens, 43. On this issue, the authors make the simple
observation that “the church is not out of the world. There is no other place for the church to be than here.”
121
Hauerwas quotes Yoder as stating that “‘politics’ affirms an unblinking recognition that we deal
with matters of power, of rank and of money, of costly decisions and dirty hands, of memories and feelings.
The difference between church and state or between a faithful and an unfaithful church is not that one is
political and the other not, but that they are political in different ways.” John Howard Yoder, Body Politics:
Five Practices of the Christian Community before the Watching World (Nashville: Discipleship Resources,
1992), ix; quoted in Hauerwas, In Good Company, 249-50, n.12.
122
123
See Hauerwas, “The Moral Value of the Family,” in Community of Character, 155-66.
39
formation, and publishing material, the organization acts as a resource for churches “to
talk with one another about being faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.”125 Basically, the
Ekklesia Project acts as a network for churches to dialogue with one another regarding
how to faithfully represent this alternative way of living—offering “a resource of
resistance to the social and political structures of the age” by making “discipleship a lived
reality in the world.”126 The Ekklesia Project exemplifies how Hauerwas’s conception of
the church’s political engagement is based on witness to an alternative way of life, even if
such a construct is considered ineffective or sectarian.127
As we saw above, for Hauerwas nonviolence is integral to the church’s role as a
political alternative, but how this peaceable witness is envisioned in the church’s cultural
engagement requires further elucidation. Unfortunately, Hauerwas does not provide a
clear proposal for an application of the church’s nonviolence. He remains adamant that
any definition of the church’s nonviolence must be made in relation to the Christian
community’s following of Jesus’ example. But instead of outlining clearly how the
church can work towards peace and justice, Hauerwas remains frustratingly abstract.128
124
Hauerwas, Better Hope, 211-15. As the mission statement suggests, “The Ekklesia Project aims
to put discipleship and the church as an alternative community of practices, worship, and integration at the
center of contemporary debates on Christianity and society.” The Ekklesia Project, “Who We Are,”
http://www.ekklesiaproject.org/content/view/16/35/ (accessed March 14, 2008).
125
The Ekklesia Project, “What We Do,” http://www.ekklesiaproject.org/content/view/33/48/
(accessed March 14, 2008).
126
Hauerwas, Better Hope, 212-13.
127
In discussing the nature of the Ekklesia Project, Jason Byassee summarizes the criticism that
Hauerwas’s work separates the church from engaging the world’s politics, as the movement’s focus on the
church’s politics neglects a serious Christian engagement with the politics of the world. “On Becoming
Church,” Christian Century 121, no. 18 (Sep 7, 2004): 32-36, 38-39, 41.
128
In fact, Hauerwas and Willimon intentionally hesitate to define the church’s nonviolence
practically. They say, “Big words like ‘peace’ and ‘justice,’ slogans the church adopts under the
presumption that even if people do not know what ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’ means, they will know what peace
and justice mean, are words awaiting content. The church really does not know what these words mean
apart from the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth.…It is Jesus’ story that gives content to our faith, and
40
While he discusses how hope and patience are essential in defining the church’s
nonviolent engagement and how the church needs to imaginatively develop alternatives
to violence, he does not provide a picture of how this looks.129 The problem, quite simply,
is Hauerwas is elusive in offering specifics on how these components in the church’s
nonviolence translate practically into its cultural engagement. By continuing to assert the
particularity of each situation, the task of envisioning practical nonviolence is left up to
churches themselves. Considering this absent application, Hauerwas’s project would
benefit from a more extended discussion on the practical implications of implementing
his proposal, particularly when there are relevant examples available.130 In light of this
criticism, and several others that require attention, we turn now to a survey of where
Hauerwas’s project comes under attack.
IV. Critiques
Sectarian
teaches us to be suspicious of any political slogan that does not need God to make itself intelligible.”
Resident Aliens, 38.
129
Hauerwas, Peaceable Kingdom, 145. Hesitant to offer specific application, Hauerwas
comments, “Exactly because we understanding how morally compelling war can be we know what a
challenge we face. That is why we offer the world not simply moral advice designed to make war less
destructive, but rather a witness to God’s invitation to join a community that is so imaginative, so rich in its
history that it gives us the means to resist the temptation to give our loyalties to those that would use them
for war.” Against the Nations, 198.
130
For example, Samuel Wells refers to the community of Le Chambon in France as a concrete
example of a community that lived out their nonviolent identity in practical ways during World War II.
Transforming Fate, 134. See Philip Hallie, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed: The Story of the Village of Le
Chambon and How Goodness Happened There (New York: Harper and Row, 1979). Hauerwas’s only
reference to this example occurs in a footnote, the main purpose being to show how Hallie’s account
unfairly portrays the community’s nonviolence as “general humanistic concern about each individual’s life”
instead of their belief that “Jesus had inaugurated a social revolution based on the jubilee year that
necessarily entailed the church to be a counter culture.” Against the Nations, 87-88, n. 37. A more thorough
account from Hauerwas on this community as a practical example of the church’s nonviolence would help
clarify the application of his argument.
41
The lack of concrete proposals for the church’s engagement has led to the most
vocal criticism of Hauerwas’s work, namely, that he is sectarian.131 This critique entails,
essentially, that Hauerwas’s theology of culture promotes a “world-denying theology”
that rejects any value in the present role of liberal democratic society.132 This critique
harkens back to Ernst Troeltsch’s usage of the term, defining a sect as a gathering of
Christians who “live apart from the world, are limited to small groups, emphasize the law
instead of grace, and in varying degrees within their own circle, set up the Christian order
based on love.”133 In essence, Hauerwas is charged with failing to acknowledge
continuity between ‘church’ and ‘world’—areas other ethicists view as more closely
integrated or at least negotiable in the present.134 All Hauerwas can promote, in this view,
131
This accusation has come from a variety of critics, most notably, James Gustafson, “The
Sectarian Temptation: Reflections on Theology, the Church, and the University,” Proceedings of the
Catholic Theological Society 40 (1985): 83-94; Wilson D. Miscamble, “Sectarian Passivism?,” Theology
Today 44, no. 1 (April 1987): 69-77; Michael J. Quirk “Beyond Sectarianism?,” Theology Today 44, no.1
(April 1987): 78-86. For Hauerwas’s response, see “Will the Real Sectarian Please Stand Up?,” Theology
Today 44, no. 1 (April 1987): 87-94; “Why the ‘Sectarian Temptation’ is a Misrepresentation: A Response
to James Gustafson,” in Hauerwas Reader. For a summary of the issue, see Rasmusson, “The Genealogy of
the Charge of Sectarianism,” in Church as Polis, 231-47.
132
Wells, Transforming Fate, 131.
133
Ernst Troeltsch, The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches (New York: Macmillan, 1931),
993; quoted in Hauerwas, “Sectarian Temptation,” in Hauerwas Reader, 96. Working from Troeltsch,
Rasmusson defines sects as communities who “stress both a more personal and a more communal faith and
practice. They are connected with lower, or at least oppositional, classes, and do not try to dominate the
world, but work from below and defend egalitarian views and practices.” Church as Polis, 234.
134
Kenneth Carter points out that “Troeltsch, Niebuhr, and many natural law ethicists have
assumed a ‘continuity’ between church and world.” “The Theological Ethics of Stanley Hauerwas,” 68.
Another option, besides assuming continuity, is to acknowledge a degree of tension in the relationship
between church and world, where the issue of the church’s participation is not always explicated in
either/or terms. For example, John Stackhouse argues “most of us live in a world that is grayer than these
black-and-white options, and some of us earnestly want Biblical guidance for such living. Indeed, most of
us make our way in a world in which success means asking for ten, hoping for eight, and settling for six.
We experience compromise, disappointment, unexpected impediments, and unintended consequences.”
Stackhouse suggests a theology of “cultural persistence” as middle ground between “conquest” and
“withdrawal.” Making the Best of It, 7.
42
is a concept of the church that exists on the fringes of society—where “Christianity
becomes isolated and its participation in public life becomes severely limited.”135
This critique leads to a passionate denial from Hauerwas, as he states, “I would
rather be called a heretic or schismatic than be described as a ‘sectarian’”136 In his
opinion, the sectarian critique leveled at him is based on the sociological presumptions of
liberal society that assumes the church’s role should be defined by society.137 Therefore,
according to Hauerwas, the sectarian critique is only valid in the context of an
“Enlightenment rationalism” that seeks a universal morality to unite opposing views in
modern society, an ethical approach we know Hauerwas rejects.138 This response,
however, actually confirms a sectarian component to his project—defining the church’s
role as completely separate from the public sphere of society. As opposed to stubbornly
denying the accusation, then, Hauerwas would do well to decide instead what kind of
sectarian he actually is.139 By accepting a level of sectarianism, Hauerwas could put his
energy towards better representing why he believes his ecclesiology is right, instead of
having to constantly refute how others define his work. In fact, a degree of sectarianism
135
Rasmusson, Church as Polis, 231. Nigel Biggar suggests that “by ‘sectarianism’ what is usually
meant is a retreat into the private world of the church and into personal spirituality, and what is assumed to
be a correlative disengagement from public concerns and debate.” “Is Stanley Hauerwas Sectarian?,” in
Faithfulness and Fortitude, 141. In the words of Gustafson, Hauerwas’s church exists “virtually for its own
sake.” “The Sectarian Temptation,” 89.
136
Hauerwas, “Storytelling: A Response to ‘Mennonites on Hauerwas,’” Conrad Grebel Review
13, no. 2 (Spring 1995): 169.
137
Hauerwas, “Will the Real Sectarian Please Stand Up?,” 94.
138
Terrence Reynolds, “A Conversation Worth Having: Hauerwas and Gustafson on Substance in
Theological Ethics,” Journal of Religious Ethics 28, no. 3 (Fall 2000): 400.
139
Michael Quirk makes the following suggestion regarding Hauerwas and sectarianism: “Perhaps
this is the task facing Christianity and Christians today: not how to avoid sectarianism while remaining
faithful to their distinctive forms of life, but to choose the right kind of sectarianism, while being open to
the possibility that previous failures of nerve and acts of bad faith on the part of Christians precipitated the
crisis wherein sectarianism has become such a doleful necessity.” “Beyond Sectarianism,” 86.
43
may be necessary, particularly in response to a culture of individualism. Accepting a level
of separation in defining the church community seems necessary in rejecting the
selfishness that often accompanies individualistic frameworks for Christian faith. The
criticism, therefore, is appropriate, but perhaps should not be viewed so negatively in all
circumstances.
Particularly relevant to the sectarian critique is the assessment that Hauerwas’s
church-world theology is too polarized, failing to acknowledge the presence of God’s
kingdom outside of the church. For many, Hauerwas’s view of the church as an
alternative community is not the only right interpretation of the biblical narrative. For
example, John Stackhouse rejects Hauerwas’s explicit separation of the church from the
world, offering an alternative scriptural interpretation. He suggests, “Christian theology
addresses the politics of everyone in a positive way via creation commandments, and in a
negative way via the doctrine of sin.”140 Stackhouse represents a reading of the scriptural
narrative that expands the vision of God’s action in the world to everyone, not just the
church’s representation of that action. Such an interpretation pushes Hauerwas to more
openly acknowledge the extent in which God’s kingdom is present outside of the church.
Impractical
Along with the sectarian label, the critique of Hauerwas’s impracticality is also
partially valid. As one commentator summarizes, “He gives us a corporate ethic of
disposition but is not interested in the ethics of action.”141 Hauerwas’s focus on the
identity of individuals and the church, it appears, leaves little room for practical solutions
140
Stackhouse, Making the Best of It, 208, n. 34.
141
Miscamble, “Sectarian Passivism?,” 75.
44
for the church’s cultural engagement. In essence, Hauerwas’s view of the church’s
engagement is seen as idealistically impractical, adopting an approach to cultural
interaction that fails to recognize the complexity of faithfulness in modern society.142 By
referring to ethical issues only in the context of the church, “contemporary challenges”
such as nuclear arms or abortion are not addressed in the context of society.143
This critique reveals that Hauerwas’s theology of culture is prone to practical
ineffectiveness, as he neglects to produce concrete examples for integrating the church’s
witness into the political complexities of modern society. He only describes “what it
might mean to be a disciple first-century style, but [has] little concrete advice on how to
embrace plurality and ambiguity responsibly, faithfully, gracefully, and humanly at the
end of the twentieth century.”144 For the church to simply exist as an alternative witness in
society is too passive a role. Instead, the fragmented reality of pluralistic societies
requires the church’s active participation in the world, working to practically achieve a
degree of moral common ground between the church and the world. For many,
Hauerwas’s distinctly Christian ethics shirks the responsibility that Christians have
towards transforming culture, something which a more engaged and universal approach
to ethics could provide.145 Essentially, Hauerwas’s project is seen as too limited,
narrowing ethics from benefiting society to being a minority moral code for the church.146
142
George Lindbeck, “Ecumenisms in Conflict,” in God, Truth, and Witness, 216.
143
This is Hauerwas summarizing Gustafson’s critique. Christian Existence Today, 5. Relating
impracticality to the sectarian critique, Duane Friesen comments that “the charge of sectarianism will only
be counteracted when the church demonstrates how its involvement in the world can offer a creative and
practical alternative to the typical approaches to war and peace, issues of social and racial justice, issues in
medical ethics, problems of family life, environmental destruction and crime.” Friesen, “A Critical Analysis
of Narrative Ethics,” 238.
144
Holland, “Mennonites on Hauerwas,” 146.
145
Miscamble, “Sectarian Passivism?,” 74.
146
Quirk, “Beyond Sectarianism?,” 85.
45
The impracticality criticism is especially pertinent in the case of Hauerwas’s
pacifism. In the face of injustice or violence, such as terrorism, it is difficult to envision
how Hauerwas’s contextualized ethic can provide immediate solutions to the issues
governments face.147 Basically, Hauerwas’s nonviolence promotes a withdrawal from
active engagement with the political ramifications of our violent world, failing to offer
any practical framework as to how the church can be a faithful witness to peace.
Contrarily, some ethicists place faithfulness and effectiveness together as essential
characteristics that are both necessary for engaging our violent world, an opposite
approach to Hauerwas’s prioritizing faithfulness before effectiveness in defining the
church’s nonviolence.148
We see again how differences regarding the role of the church are what drive the
critique. This critique, however, is even harder to refute because of the noted absence of
practical specificity in Hauerwas’s work. Therefore, even if Hauerwas is not concerned
with being practical for the sake of pleasing his critics, more practical examples of how
the church engages society would benefit his project.149
Relativistic
147
Oliver O’Donovan comments that “the private virtues of patience and suffering, which are all
that the pacifist can recommend, do not satisfy [the] sense of obligation” in pursuing justice. In Pursuit of a
Christian View of War (Bramcote, UK: Grove Books, 1977), 4.
148
For example, O’Donovan displays an interim ethic for a Christian response to violence, stating
that “God’s mercy and peace may and must be witnessed to in this interim of salvation-history through a
praxis of judgment.” Just War Revisited, 9. Effectively seeking judgment, then, is essential to the church’s
faithfulness.
149
Samuel Wells comments that “much of [Hauerwas’s] work amply demonstrates the church
needs a politics, but with some exceptions this has not been mapped out in detail.” Transforming Fate, 140.
46
With a narrative emphasis on the church’s identity, the question remains: “Which
story is right?”150 We have witnessed how for Hauerwas this question can be answered
only by examining the church as the embodiment of a narrative. For Hauerwas, instead of
focusing on abstract truths—objective metaphysical ideas about God and reality—
focuses on the truthfulness of the Christian narrative referring to the way in which the
truth of a narrative propels people to accurately reflect it.151 “Christian convictions,”
according to Hauerwas, are true insofar as they compel people to “live truthfully in terms
of what those convictions entail.”152 This account of truth is criticized for being
relativistic—limiting truth to its relation to a specific community, in this case the
church.153 By making the narrative community central, “the truth of God’s presence and
action in the Christian community is subject to the community, rather than vice versa.”154
Lacking, then, is a metaphysical account for the existence of God as the foundation for
the church’s narrative.155 Our understanding of Christian truth should not be limited to the
church’s representation of it, as the existence of God is not dependant on people’s
reflection of that existence. It is difficult for Hauerwas to refute this critique, as he prefers
150
Friesen, “A Critical Analysis of Narrative Ethics,” 234.
151
152
Hauerwas, “Truthful Difference,” Stimulus 4, no. 2 (May 1996): 20.
153
Wells, Transforming Fate, 77-79. One could take this critique a step further and point out an
unbalanced use of narrative in Hauerwas’s insistence on the centrality of Jesus represented in the gospels
for ethical understanding, a view he relies heavily on Yoder to support. See Yoder, Priestly Kingdom, 37.
John Stackhouse argues against this perspective stating that “I believe that Christian thinking should be
Christological and Christocentric, but…that means neither that the earthly career of Jesus is normative in
Yoder’s sense nor that the gospels themselves are privileged above other Biblical literature.” Making the
Best of It, 119. Quite simply, Hauerwas is in danger of ignoring other important aspects of the biblical
account.
154
Ibid., 83.
155
James Reimer, Mennonites and Classical Theology (Kitchener, ON: Pandora Press, 2000), 502.
47
the church “over all attempts at systematic justification of proper metaphysical claims
independently of the narrative context in which they are represented and consumed by the
community of the faithful.”156 Basically, Hauerwas is so focused on the social
implications of the Christian narrative that questions of truth are left largely unaddressed,
resulting in an area of theology to which he has little to contribute.
Fideistic
By claiming that truth is relative to the church’s faithful representation of the
scriptural narrative, it is not surprising that the rationality of Hauerwas’s ethics gets
labeled as ‘fideist’—faith without reason.157 Quite simply, apart from the specific context
of the church, Hauerwas’s epistemological foundation is unintelligible, as he provides no
rational justification for his project outside of the church community. Hauerwas’s
theology is considered an “‘in-house’ affair, culturally marginal, and, worst of all, lacking
in any sort of robust rationality.”158
In a way, the fideist accusation is the flipside of the sectarian accusation, coupling
the withdrawal of sectarianism with the logical flaws evident in Hauerwas’s work. In this
manner, Hauerwas’s fideism is rational withdrawal from public intelligibility. With a
rationality grounded in the narrative of a particular community, namely, the church,
Hauerwas’s position is unintelligible apart from the specifics of that community, thus
156
Paul Griffiths, “The Limits of Narrative Theology,” in Faith and Narrative, ed. Keith E.
Yandell (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 229.
157
See Gustafson, “The Sectarian Temptation,” 92, 94; Quirk, “Beyond Sectarianism?,” 81-82.
Wells defines a fideist as “one who believes without rational grounds.” Transforming Fate, 130.
158
Emmanuel Katongole, Beyond Universal Reason: The Relation Between Religion and Ethics in
the Work of Stanley Hauerwas (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000), 180-82.
48
revealing an unwillingness to interact with the terminology of the surrounding culture.159
Hauerwas is so driven by his insistence on the church’s narrative existence that he renders
the church “incapable of useful dialogue” in the realm of society.160 As a result, people get
uncomfortable when they interpret Hauerwas’s method because he appears to deny any
sort of general discourse to unite moral reasoning in society. The issue, then, is essentially
one of translation. Hauerwas’s work, in the view of his critics, is unintelligible because it
cannot be reformulated into the language of modern secular culture.161
Based on our examination of Hauerwas and his use of narrative, he cannot
completely dodge both the fideist and relativist critiques, especially as we already have
seen him accept a form of relativism. In response, however, Hauerwas refuses to accept
the fideist accusation. His basis for this refusal, via MacIntyre, calls for traditions to
interact with other traditions—not with the goal of arriving at generalized moral
understandings, but in order to continually refine the tradition of which one is a part.162
The implication for the church, then, is to engage and interact with opposing concepts of
reality in order to be challenged towards a better understand of itself and its role in the
world.
159
Reynolds, “A Conversation Worth Having,” 400. Alister McGrath offers a more polite
description of this situation, referring to Hauerwas’s project as “intrasystemic,” meaning that Hauerwas’s
ethics “concerns the study of the internal moral values of the community. To be moral is to identify the
moral vision of a specific historical community, to appropriate its moral values, and to practice them within
that community.” Christian Theology: An Introduction (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2001), 120.
160
Ibid., 396.
161
Katongole, Beyond Universal Reason, 185.
162
Ibid., 185-89. See Alasdair MacIntyre, “Tradition and Translation,” in Whose Justice? Which
Rationality? (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), 370-388. MacIntyre suggests an
approach to moral reasoning that retains the particularities of each moral tradition while at the same time
calling for genuine dialogue between traditions in order to better understand differences. This is often
referred to as the “incommensurability thesis,” meaning that the ability to universally translate moral
concepts is an epistemological illusion but the opportunity for dialogue and understanding means that at the
same time intelligibility is not resigned only to particular contexts.
49
This position reveals Hauerwas’s nonfoundationalist epistemology.163 Hauerwas
promotes a theology that finds its basis in the “historically rooted and socially embodied
nature of Christian belief,” rather than metaphysical truth claims about God and nature.164
This epistemology accepts that not “all accounts of knowledge and existence are at root
the same,” calling for an acknowledgement of the differences that various contexts
present.165 For Hauerwas, then, there is no Christian truth apart from the context of the
church.
Returning to the fideism critique, however, Hauerwas’s nonfoundationalism can
appear as a theology of convenience more than anything else. In limiting truth to the
contexts of specific communities “religious claims are immune to rational criticism.”166
While the call for dialogue between traditions begins to address this critique, the fact
remains that Hauerwas does not present a universally accessible form of truth, thus
remaining a fideist to a degree. For example, his fideism was evident somewhat in the
discussion above, as we saw Hauerwas deflect criticism by working from such a
completely different framework that he rejects any pejorative labels thrust his way.
In a way, by remaining adamant on the church’s centrality for his theology,
Hauerwas has left himself without much of a defense beyond simply reiterating that it is
not his intention to provide a theological framework that will satisfy his critics or
163
Hauerwas’s nonfoundationalist epistemology can be defined as the process in which
“justification of Christian belief is specific to the Christian faith, community, and tradition.” Ronald
Thiemann, Revelation and Theology (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985), 72ff; quoted in
Rasmusson, Church as Polis, 33. Alister McGrath defines nonfoundationalism (or “anti-foundationalism”)
as an epistemology that “rejects the notion of a universal foundation of knowledge.” Christian Theology,
119.
164
165
Wells, Transforming Fate, 157.
166
Max Stackhouse, “Liberalism Dispatched vs Liberalism Engaged,” The Christian Century
(October 18 1995), 964; quoted in Hauerwas and Willimon, Where Resident Aliens Live, 56.
50
categories of modern society he deems unacceptable.167 These critiques provide insight
into the challenge Hauerwas faces in translating his ethical project into modern culture.
Conclusion
Addressing the problem of individualism, we have seen that Hauerwas’s project
contributes both positively and negatively. In terms of individual identity, Hauerwas’s
suggestion that character formation and narrative are key components to personhood
counters the acceptance in modern culture of the centrality of individual autonomy.
Additionally, his demand for making community a central facet to Christian faithfulness
refuses to accept the individualistic tendency to relegate faith to being a private matter.
Unfortunately, considering our discussion of Hauerwas’s idea of the church’s cultural
engagement and the relevant critiques he faces, it is difficult to envision the application of
his project to the concrete situations of individualism. Despite this mixed review, one
thing is clear: for Hauerwas himself to consider his project effective, it must be embodied
by the church. The rest of this paper, then, is going to explore how one church tradition in
particular can serve as an example for testing Hauerwas’s project, being challenged to
address its own propensity towards individualism along the way.
167
Thus Hauerwas comments, “I have learned there is simply nothing I can do to prevent my
position from being characterized as fideistic and/or sectarian. That these characterizations presuppose the
epistemological and social positions I am challenging does little to quiet the criticism.” After Christendom,
16.
CHAPTER II
INDIVIDUALISM AND THE MENNONITE BRETHREN
As a case study for Stanley Hauerwas’s ecclesiology and ethics, we turn now to
examine the Mennonite Brethren. In their 150-year history, the Mennonite Brethren have
continuously sought to integrate both the communal and individual aspects of Christian
faith and practice. The combination of specific theological emphases on the individual
and their assimilation to North American culture, however, has made it difficult for the
Mennonite Brethren to maintain a balance between these two facets of the Christian faith.
The emphasis on the individual eclipses the focus on community, such that individualism
has become a problem in Mennonite Brethren identity. In order to consider restoring
balance in Mennonite Brethren identity via Hauerwas, it will be beneficial to understand
the nature of their individualism. This section will examine the presence of individualism
in the Mennonite Brethren story, noting cultural situations and theological concepts in
which the problem is evident. In outline, individualism will be traced in Mennonite
Brethren history and theology in the movement’s early Anabaptist and later Russian
origins, followed by a discussion of it in the North American context. I will conclude that
an examination of certain aspects of Mennonite Brethren identity—ecclesiology,
soteriology, and ethics—reveals an inconsistency between the profession of a balanced
51
52
individual-communal faith and the actual implementation of that balance in Mennonite
Brethren individuals and communities.
I. Mennonite Brethren Origins
Anabaptist Origins
Emphasis upon the individual experience of the Christian faith is evident already
in the Mennonite Brethren’s Anabaptist heritage. The Anabaptists, often referred to as the
largest segment of the “Radical Reformation” branch of the sixteenth-century
Reformation, took the reforms of Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli and radicalized
them.168 Most notably, it was their believers’ church theology that identified them as
radical, as they believed the true church was constituted by adults who had been baptized
upon personal confession of faith in Jesus Christ, as opposed to the Protestant and Roman
Catholic practice of infant baptism. By clearly rejecting paedobaptism, the Anabaptists
defined themselves from the beginning in opposition to the surrounding culture.169
The essence of the Anabaptist’s separation from the other Reformers is
exemplified well by one major event: the first adult baptism, which occurred on January
21, 1525, in Zurich, Switzerland. A group of dissenting followers of Ulrich Zwingli—a
leader in the Zurich reforms—decided to follow their more radical convictions and
baptize one another. So significant was this event that one commentator has stated that
168
The term “Radical Reformation” was developed by George H. Williams. See The Radical
Reformation, 3d ed. (Kirksville, MO: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1992).
169
In sociological typologies of religious groups, this stance of opposition has typically resulted in
Anabaptists being labeled a sect. A sect is designated by its separateness from society and the religious
majority, choosing rather to be defined in terms of voluntary commitment to its own theological
convictions. See Richard G. Kyle, “Theoretical Church Types,” in From Sect to Denomination: Church
Types and their Implications for Mennonite Brethren History (Hillsboro, KS: Center for Mennonite
Brethren Studies, 1985), 7-25.
53
“this was clearly the most revolutionary act of the Reformation. No other event so
completely symbolized the break with Rome. Here, for the first time in the course of the
Reformation, a group of Christians dared to form a church after what was conceived to be
the New Testament pattern.”170 For the Anabaptists, faithfulness to the biblical model of
the church meant that beyond believers’ baptism the church was separated from society,
exhibited most clearly in the practice of nonviolence. This contrasts with the other
Reformers’ view that the church was constituted by all citizens of the purported Christian
state.171 The Anabaptists believed that faithfulness to the New Testament required that a
personal confession of faith, followed by the act of baptism, was the only manner in
which the church could be truly constituted—a conviction that reveals an individual
expression of faith to be integral to the formation of Christian community in earliest
Anabaptist theology.
Dutch Anabaptism: The Legacy of Menno Simons
While the first baptism in Switzerland signified the beginning of the Anabaptist
movement, it soon grew beyond those borders to affect most other areas where the
Reformation was occurring in Europe. One area of interest is the Netherlands, as it was
here that Menno Simons, through the call of several Anabaptists, became a key leader in
170
William R. Estep, The Anabaptist Story, 3d ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 14.
171
Estep refers to the other Reformation churches as consisting of a “mixed multitude,” meaning
that because of infant baptism there could be church members who did not actually profess a personal
confession of faith, but were considered members of the church nonetheless. Anabaptist Story, 20.
54
the movement.172 And as we will see later, Menno Simons’s theology would be a major
factor in the development of the Mennonite Brethren in Russia during the 1800’s.
Upon his conversion to Anabaptism from the Catholic priesthood, Menno was
successful almost immediately in his leadership of the Dutch Anabaptists. Through his
extensive writing and itinerant ministry, Menno was able to spread the Anabaptist
message throughout the Netherlands, creating a unity in belief and practice that was
paramount to the movement’s later success. The extent of his legacy is most obvious in
the very fact that his subsequent followers eventually took on the name “Mennonites.”
There are key aspects of Menno’s theology that became integral to the growth of
the newly formed Mennonite movement.173 Menno based his theology on the insistence
on Scripture as the sole mediator of Christian truth, not the tradition of the church as was
the case with his experience as a Roman Catholic priest. This distinction illustrates how
his belief in sola scriptura was more radical than the Protestant Reformers’ view of the
Bible. As a result, his theology regarding the nature of the Christian life and the nature of
the church distinguished him from the other Reformers.
Regarding the Christian life, Menno taught that what was required of individual
Christians was new birth. This new birth was the experience of “true repentance,” in
which individuals were “changed and renewed” in their hearts, following the example of
Christ in the life of personal discipleship.174 Where Menno, along with all Anabaptists,
172
Originally Menno was hesitant to assume leadership in the face of Anabaptist persecution. But
upon the persuasion of others, he accepted the call to leadership with the emerging Dutch Anabaptists. See
Cornelius J. Dyck, An Introduction to Mennonite History, 3d ed. (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1993), 75-
83.
173
For a compilation of Menno Simons’s theological writings, see The Complete Writings of
Menno Simons: c.1496-1561, trans. Leonard Verduin, ed. J. C. Wenger (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1986).
174
Simons, “The New Birth,” in Complete Writings, 92.
55
was different from the Protestant Reformers, was in insisting on the experience of new
birth preceding baptism—an experience to which only adults could testify. By stressing
the individual experience of faith, Menno helped lay the foundation for the Anabaptist
view of the Christian life that demanded personal transformation.
In terms of the nature of the church, Menno demanded that the individual
transformation—new birth—be accompanied by voluntary integration into the Christian
community. Menno’s “true church” theology affirmed the Anabaptist doctrine of
“voluntary church membership” in that participation in the community of faith was an
extension of one’s personal choice of the Christian faith.175 Baptism was a visible
extension of the individual’s new birth, marking entrance into the community of faith. In
Menno’s words, baptism signified people “becoming obedient members of [Christ’s]
church.”176
This “true church” theology resulted in Menno adopting a strict view of church
discipline in which individuals were excommunicated from the church if unrepentant for
their sins. Often referred to as “the ban,” church discipline served to ensure that the purity
of the church was upheld, based on the belief that only those who were truly regenerated
could participate in the life of the community.177 As Walter Unger summarizes, the church
according to Menno was necessarily “without spot or wrinkle.”178 It was the church’s
responsibility to judge people’s behavior and, in order to maintain its purity, to exercise
175
John A. Toews, A History of the Mennonite Brethren Church (Fresno, CA: General Conference
of Mennonite Brethren Churches, 1975), 12.
176
Menno Simons, “The New Birth,” 93. For Menno’s argument for believers’ baptism and against
paedobaptism, see his “Christian Baptism,” in Complete Writings, 227-87.
177
John A. Toews, Mennonite Brethren Church, 12.
178
Walter Unger, “The Church ‘Without Spot or Wrinkle’: Testing the Tradition,” Direction 33, no.
1 (Spring 2004): 33-47.
56
discipline when necessary. Menno’s ethics, while not neglecting the community, placed a
strong emphasis on the observable behavior of individuals within the community. We see,
then, that in Menno’s theology and ethics individual Christian living was integral to the
Christian faith. The danger, as we will see below with the Mennonite Brethren, is that an
overemphasis on the individual aspects of Christian faith can result in individualism, in
which the balance of a community emphasis is neglected.
Russian Origins of the Mennonite Brethren
While the Mennonites became established under Menno, they began to spread to
other regions of Europe following his death in 1561, eventually settling in Russia in the
late eighteenth century. While it was in Russia that the Mennonites prospered
organizationally, they also encountered many pressures on their religious vitality. These
pressures eventually led to the development of the Mennonite Brethren. Continuing to
trace the roots of Mennonite Brethren individualism, then, we will see how the decadence
of the Mennonite religion in Russia served as a backdrop for renewal—in particular, a
renewed emphasis on the individual experience of faith.
Loss of Religious Vitality
Upon entering a country where religious freedom was guaranteed by the ruling
authorities, the Mennonites experienced significant growth both numerically and
economically while in Russia. Given the freedom to create colonies where agricultural
life could be practiced in a village context, the Mennonites prospered.179 The most
179
John A. Toews, Mennonite Brethren Church, 482-83. The success of Mennonite colonies
illustrates this prosperity, as the two largest colonies, Chortitza and Molotschna, combined to form 75
villages and possess over 400,000 acres of land.
57
significant development during this time was the autonomy achieved by the colonies
from the rest of Russian society, quite literally becoming their own “state within the
state.”180
In achieving autonomy, farming and acquisition of land was a major part of
growth and success for the Mennonite settlements, but brought with it particular
obstacles. One significant challenge was the increasing Mennonite population. Towards
the middle of the nineteenth-century many families did not own land, creating a social
gap between the landowners and the landless. As John A. Toews comments, “This
division of the population…resulted in a social stratification approaching a caste
system.”181 Colony leadership illustrates this class division as only landowners were able
to participate in the governance of the communities, perpetuating the disparity between
the rich and the poor.182 In addition to this, with much of the focus directed towards
agricultural success, education was often neglected, leaving a large number of people
uneducated and illiterate.183
180
Ibid., 15. Richard Kyle describes Russian Mennonite autonomy well: “Two factors were
primarily responsible for the emergence of this closed Mennonite social system. Subjectively, the
Mennonite immigrants were motivated not only by the desire to escape a threat to their religious principles
and economic welfare, but also by the positive hope of realizing a utopian community suggested by the
moral and social ideals of their religion, without interference from the ‘wicked world.’ Objectively they
were confronted with a legal framework provided by the Russian government that not only permitted the
almost complete segregation of the Mennonites from the native Russian population, but also tended to
increase and protect their homogeneity, closure, and self-sufficiency.” “The Concept and Practice of
Separation from the World in Mennonite Brethren History,” Direction 13, no. 1 (January 1984): 34-35.
181
182
John B. Toews, A Perilous Journey: The Mennonite Brethren in Russia 1860-1910 (Winnipeg:
Kindred Press, 1988), 18.
183
John B. Toews, “The Russian Origins,” 90-92. While this neglect was particularly evident early
on in their settlement in Russia, later years did see some improvement. For example, John Cornies worked
tirelessly to promote economic and educational growth in the Russian colonies, achieving much success in
both areas. Dyck, Mennonite History, 176-77.
58
In this culture of colony life, in which population growth, social division, and
illiteracy were ongoing challenges, Mennonite religious life suffered. For instance,
church leadership became closely associated with the hierarchal organization of colony
leadership, which as we know, was restricted to landowners.184 Ministers became
involved in colony politics and civic leaders dominated the church, often placing the
political needs of the colonies ahead of the church’s priorities, acting as “defenders of the
status-quo.”185 Essentially, this integration resulted in a Mennonite “parish church.”186
Mennonite identity had become associated with the political entity of colony
membership. People were Mennonite simply on the basis of birthright, not the former
identification that was contingent upon a personal confession of faith.187 In essence,
“Mennonites in Russia—geographically isolated, intellectually anemic and spiritually
impoverished—‘had become a society to themselves. Religion and politics had
intermingled, church and state had become one.’”188
As a result of this social context, traditional Mennonite religious values became
underemphasized and in many instances lost altogether. By creating a society in which
religious affiliation and colony life were interchangeable, the values of “voluntary
184
Cornelius J. Dyck, “1525 Revisited? A Comparison of Anabaptist and Mennonite Brethren
Origins,” in Pilgrims and Strangers: Essays in Mennonite Brethren History, ed. Paul Toews (Fresno, CA:
Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies, 1977), 62-65.
185
Dyck, Mennonite History, 177.
186
John A. Toews, “From Believers’ Church to Parish Church,” in Mennonite Brethren Church, 13-
25.
187
As Cornelius Dyck points out, “the colonies became, in fact, a corpus christianum in which
membership was acquired by birth and all social, economic or religious privileges were enjoyed by virtue
of membership in the group, not by individual right.” “1525 Revisited,” 63.
188
John B. Toews, Czars, Soviets and Mennonites (Newton, KS: Faith and Life Press, 1982), 31;
quoted in J.B. Toews, Pilgrimage of Faith: The Mennonite Brethren Church 1860-1990 (Winnipeg, MB:
Kindred Press, 1993), 7.
59
membership, a pure ethic, and a separation from society” faded.189 Especially problematic
was a shift away from the believers’ church model of their Anabaptist forebears. Once
based on personal faith and voluntary church membership, the experience of faith had
become entangled with the political reality of Mennonite colony membership. Baptism
was often simply a “civil right” based on colony membership, not based on a genuine
confession of faith—“‘believer’s baptism’ had become mere ‘adult baptism’ in many
instances.”190 At the same time, moral values degenerated and the practice of church
discipline was almost nonexistent.191 Quite simply, rather than a church consisting of
individuals who ascribed to Menno’s vision of the “true church,” the Mennonite church
had become a stagnant religious institution. The original Anabaptist concept of the church
as a separate social entity had evolved into the very thing they were supposed to be
rejecting—the integration of religion and civil society.192 In a climate in which the
Mennonite colony had become its own state, the need to emphasize the separation of
religion and politics essentially dissolved. We see, then, that the individual emphases of
the Anabaptists had practically disappeared in the Russian Mennonites, eventually
leading to revival.
189
Kyle, “The Concept and Practice of Separation,” 35.
190
191
Ibid., 22-25. The absence of moral accountability was evident in church discipline being
executed only in situations of “grave public moral offenses such as adultery or physical assault.…
Preventative church discipline in the form of pastoral counseling and mutual watch-care was virtually
unknown,” 22.
192
As John B. Toews summarizes, “Religious voluntarism, so basic to the Anabaptist-Mennonite
past, produced its own social frame in the Russian environment. Functioning within a self-contained
system, the Mennonite community was not required to elect a religious or secular stance as the underlying
base of its social structure because these interests tended to merge into one.” “The Russian Origins,” 87.
60
Nineteenth Century Renewal
There were several groups within the Mennonite community that protested the
decline in Mennonite religious vitality, seeing a need to recommit to Menno’s vision for
the church. Of these groups, the Mennonite Brethren were the most notable as they went
beyond reform and actually seceded from the larger Mennonite community.193 Of
particular interest for the Mennonite Brethren renewal is the influence of Lutheran Pietist
and evangelist Eduard Wuest, as his teaching played a monumental role in early
Mennonite Brethren development. Already in the mid-1800’s, Wuest’s enthusiastic
preaching on free grace and his emphasis on brotherly love in the Christian community
began to influence the Mennonites. Many people had a personal conversion experience as
a result of Wuest’s preaching.194 In the face of a Mennonite culture that had integrated
religious identity with that of colony life, Wuest highlighted the individual experience of
faith in a way that not only challenged the decadence of the colony churches, but also
inspired people to re-engage the tenets of their Anabaptist heritage.195
One notable result of Wuest’s ministry was the development of house Bible
meetings, in which the participants would later be referred to as “Brethren,” reflecting
Wuest’s emphasis on brotherly love.196 In these meetings, many Mennonites were

193
Other notable groups include the Kleine Gemeinde (“small church”) and the Gnadenfeld
community. In the early 1800’s the Kleine Gemeinde opposed “Mennonite backsliding” and called for a
return to “a committed church, a faithful remnant”. Similarly, the “Gnadenfeld enlightenment” displayed a
religious fervor that challenged the Molotschna colony towards religious and educational reform, resulting
in many young leaders who would be influential in the Mennonite Brethren formation. John B. Toews,
Perilous Journey, 12, 16-17.
194
John H. Lohrenz, The Mennonite Brethren Church (Hillsboro, KS: Mennonite Brethren
Publishing House, 1950), 25-26.
195
This reflects Wuest’s professed desire to “shake things up” with his ministry in Russia. Quoted
in Jacob Bekker, Origins of the Mennonite Brethren Church, trans. D. E. Pauls and A. E. Janzen (Hillsboro,
KS: The Mennonite Brethren Historical Society, 1973), 24.
196
Dyck, Mennonite History, 179-80, 278.
61
inspired by Wuest’s message, as his stress on the personal experience of grace coupled
with a demand for a sanctified life radically challenged the stagnant congregations in the
Russian colonies. This “Wuestian formula” for the Christian life involved “the vigorous
pursuit of discipleship with its demand for a pure, separated church and the equally
vigorous celebration of the ecstasy of the inner life.”197
Amidst the renewal from Wuest’s ministry the Mennonite Brethren were formed.
In fact, Wuest’s work was so influential that he has been referred to as the “second
reformer” of the Mennonite Brethren alongside Menno Simons.198 So while Menno
provided a theological foundation for a revitalized believers’ church, Wuest provided the
impetus for renewal. In this manner, the Mennonite Brethren were “born of Anabaptism
and Pietism.”199 Following Wuest’s death in 1859, the small groups, or “Brethren,” came
to make a decision that would forever change the Mennonite culture in Russia: they
formed the Mennonite Brethren.200
Mennonite Brethren Formation
197
John B. Toews, Perilous Journey, 35.
198
Friesen, Mennonite Brotherhood, 211-12. Wuest’s impact leads Peter Hamm to suggest that
“perhaps no other individual was as influential in bringing renewal as was Lutheran pietist Eduard Hugo
Otto Wuest” (Continuity and Change—Among Canadian Mennonite Brethren [Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid
Laurier University Press, 1987], 47). In terms of Menno Simons, he is cited directly several times in the
original Mennonite Brethren secession documents as playing a major role in the development of their
beliefs. See Bekker, Origins of the Mennonite Brethren Church, 43-47.
199
Victor Adrian, “The Mennonite Brethren Church: Born of Anabaptism and Pietism,” insert in
the Mennonite Brethren Herald 4, no. 12 (March 26, 1965). In recognizing the nature of Pietism’s impact
on Mennonite Brethren identity, Adrian argues that “not only does it indicate a view which regards Pietism
as congenial with Anabaptism, but more important, it displays an attitude, an ecumenical spirit, an
openness to spiritual forces and views in the church of Jesus Christ which are biblical and which may
enrich and deepen one’s life, tasks and commitment to Jesus Christ,” 6, emphasis original.
200
As Lohrenz summarizes, Wuest’s small groups “became the nucleus for the foundation of the
Mennonite Brethren church.” Mennonite Brethren, 26.
62
The original intention of these “Brethren” was to remain a part of the larger
Mennonite community with the hope of receiving permission to practice private
communion within the fellowship of the small groups.201 The problem, however, is that
the request to practice communion privately actually promoted separation, not unity. The
act of communion in Mennonite theology invariably symbolizes membership in the
community of faith—the church. The reformers request to practice private communion,
therefore, was a request to separate from the Mennonite church whether it was
acknowledged or not.
In early 1860, upon the denial to practice communion privately, several
“Brethren” members sent a letter to the Mennonite church leaders, stating their intentions
to create an independent fellowship—the Mennonite Brethren. The letter, later referred to
as the “Secession or Founding Document,” critiqued the moral decline and loss of a
vibrant personal faith in the colony churches.202 The document did not so much alter the
identity of the Mennonite faith, as state the dissenters’ intentions to return to their
Anabaptist roots. While attempts were made to maintain a congenial relationship with the
Russian Mennonite church, the new movement could not deny its convictions amidst
disagreement, thus resulting in great turmoil in the early years of formation.
The newly formed Mennonite Brethren experienced difficulty in several ways.
First, they experienced political pressure from the Russian colonies. Colony leadership
accused the Mennonite Brethren of being a secret society, which if convicted under
201
202
Friesen, Mennonite Brotherhood, 230-32. As Cornelius Dyck observes, “The document accused
the church of being in a state of growing corruption and its leaders of tolerating this condition of spiritual
decay. There seemed to be little quarrel over doctrine. The primary concern centered around moral and
ethical laxity among church members.…The statement consciously stood for historic Anabaptism-
Mennonitism in its discussion of baptism, communion, foot washing, election of ministers, church
discipline, and other issues.” Mennonite History, 279.
63
Russian law would lead to deportation or relocation.203 A far cry from an Anabaptist
church-state separation, the Mennonite church attempted to exercise a civic form of the
ban by refusing to acknowledge Mennonite status for the new group. As a result, the new
movement was forced to formalize its organization, leading to several years of
negotiating with the Russian government and the Mennonite church, finally culminating
in freedom as a church over half a decade after the original secession. Unfortunately, the
tensions experienced between the Mennonite Brethren and the larger Mennonite
community led to an overemphasis on the separateness of the new church from the other
Mennonites—a move that “proved to be a most fatal legacy, separating the rebels from
the parent community for generations.”204
Second, the Mennonite Brethren experienced internal difficulties. One such early
challenge was referred to as the “exuberant movement.”205 A segment of the new church
placed a high emphasis on the emotional experience of faith, leading to meetings that
were often out of control and the emergence of authoritarian leaders who could
excommunicate anyone who did not actively participate in these charismatic meetings.206
An individual’s charismatic experience was central to defining Christian identity.
Additionally, some members of this group took Wuest’s doctrine of free grace to the
203
John A. Toews, Mennonite Brethren Church, 39-40.
204
John B. Toews, “The Russian Origins,” 97.
205
Friesen, Mennonite Brotherhood, 262. Friesen also refers to this group as the “joyous brethren”
or the “false movement.” The latter title reveals the condescending attitude many held towards these
people.
206
John B. Toews “Early Mennonite Brethren and Evangelism in Russia,” Direction 28 no. 2 (Fall
1999): 190-91. Toews states that “the desire to sustain the ecstasy of conversion as well as their
inexperience in small group dynamics exposed the emerging fellowships to the domination of arrogant,
self-assured personalities. Emotional, out of control meetings attracted undue public attention and brought
widespread ridicule. In a sense, the exuberance movement was a celebration of beginnings reflecting a
selfish spirituality more focused on emotional joy than on the demands of discipleship.”
64
extreme, leading to a skewed definition of Christian identity. Referencing the teaching
that “in Christ all distinctions cease,” these people believed that “sexual differences did
not really exist in the community of believers.”207 Thankfully, the early Mennonite
Brethren recognized these dangers, officially refuting these two anomalies early on in the
movement’s history.
During these formative years Mennonite Brethren encounters with Baptists
proved invaluable to their development as a distinct Mennonite movement. While
Wuest’s Pietism was particularly influential in providing the motivation for the early
Mennonite Brethren renewal, interaction with Baptists provided an ecclesial framework
that propelled the autonomous organization of the Mennonite Brethren and helped
solidify specific theological distinctives.208 As John B. Toews summarizes, “The Baptists
provided a paradigm for the dissidents into which they could fit much of their new life
experience.”209 In the areas of conversion and baptism, the Baptist theology appealed to
the dissenters’ critique of the Russian Mennonite church, in which a personal confession
of faith and baptism by immersion were not typically practiced.210 The Baptist missionary
zeal also inspired many Mennonite Brethren to evangelize in Russia, both in organized
Baptist missionary endeavors as well as in personal interaction with other citizens.211

207
John A. Toews, Mennonite Brethren Church, 60-61.
208
Richard G. Kyle points out that by providing an organizational framework, the Baptists, in a
sense, supplanted the Pietists as the primary formative influence on the early Mennonite Brethren. From
Sect to Denomination, 69-70.
209
John B. Toews, “The Mennonite Brethren in Russia during the 1890’s,” Direction 30, no. 2
(Fall 2001): 144.
210
John B. Toews, “Baptists and Mennonite Brethren in Russia (1790-1930),” in Mennonites and
Baptists, 85.
211
Ibid., 87-89. Similarly, Wuest’s Pietist influence is also cited as a major factor in igniting this
missionary renewal. The stress on a genuine personal faith as the necessary condition for salvation
encouraged a missionary zeal to reach out to unbelievers who would otherwise be lost. J.B. Toews,
65
Particularly helpful, considering the lack of organizational development of the early
Mennonite Brethren, was Baptist church polity. The Baptists provided a “parliamentary”
framework for Mennonite Brethren church governance and helped form the first
Mennonite Brethren General Conference in 1872, even providing a model for the first
Mennonite Brethren confession of faith.212 In sum, the Baptists helped the Mennonite
Brethren create a stable context in which a distinct Mennonite Brethren identity could
develop.
Roots of Individualism
in the Russian Mennonite Brethren
As the Mennonite Brethren grew, their specific identity began to be formulated—
an identity that in several areas propagated an individual expression of faith, thus
revealing the roots of the movement’s later tendency towards individualism. This section
will highlight two areas of early Mennonite Brethren theology and practice in which the
individual emphasis is promoted, while at the same time showing a parallel theological
emphasis on community that brought a balance to their faith.
Personal Conversion Experience
The Mennonite Brethren call for a personal experience of salvation as a
prerequisite for church membership was fundamental in the movement’s early theology,
Pilgrimage of Faith, 84.
212
Ibid., 86. It was not until 1902 that the first independently constructed Mennonite Brethren
confession of faith was drafted. See Howard John Loewen, “The Confession of Faith of the Mennonite
Brethren Church (1902),” in One Lord, One Church, One Hope, and One God: Mennonite
Confessions of Faith (Elkhart, IN: Institute of Mennonite Studies, 1985), 163-73.
66
highlighting the return of a voluntaryist ecclesiology.213 As their 1902 confession of faith
states, the process of conversion through Christ is the “new birth and renewal of the
sinner unto new life of sanctification and a joyous hope of eternal life.”214 While open to
extreme interpretation as we have seen with the exuberant movement, the primary
intention was to stress the recognizable experience of salvation for individual believers.215
On one level this doctrine reflects the Mennonite Brethren intention to return to Menno
Simons’s theology, as the document of secession confesses a belief in a “genuine, living
faith” that includes a “born again” experience, which is “in agreement with our dear
Menno.”216 At the same time, however, this belief reflects the formative influences of
outside groups, as there is nothing revolutionary about a soteriology that fits the
“classical Protestant and later Pietist model.”217 Notable, rather, is the shift away from the
mainstream Mennonites in Russia, where, as we have seen, voluntaryism was in many
cases nonexistent.
The emphasis on personal conversion led to a Mennonite Brethren renewal of
Menno’s “true church” doctrine—the belief that the church consisted only of regenerated
believers. Baptism, therefore, followed the personal confession of faith as opposed to
signifying mere ethnic identification, a practice common among other Mennonites.218
213
J.B. Toews comments that “a central concern in the Mennonite Brethren movement was the
salvation of the individual in personal experience of repentance, conversion, and new birth.” Pilgrimage of
Faith, 29.
214
Loewen, One Lord, One Church, 165.
215
As John B. Toews comments, “It was natural that the early Brethren spoke much of personal
conversion since this experience had brought ultimate meaning to their lives. Even the 1865 reaction to the
excesses of the exuberance movement never completely eliminated the celebration of the salvation
experience. It could be argued that for almost half a century the style of Brethren worship was in part
evangelistic: by its deployment of hymns exalting the experiential, testimonies recounting the miracle of
216
217
Cornelius Dyck, “The Life of the Spirit in Anabaptism,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 47
218
Dyck, Mennonite History, 279, 283-86.
67
Along with baptism, the practice of communion became a “closed” affair, where only
those who had been baptized by immersion could participate in the Lord’s Supper.219
Significant to church participation, then, was an individual confession of faith signified
by baptism. Indeed, now the individual experience of faith becomes primary. And as we
will see below, this leads to certain inconsistencies, particularly in understating a
theology of community as a necessary concomitant of faith along with individual
experience.
Personal Morality
A discussion of early Mennonite Brethren ethics will further highlight the strong
focus on the individual in their understanding of the Christian faith. For example, the
1902 confession of faith demands that the process of sanctification, exhibited in personal
morality, be recognizable in people’s lives—a direct result of “faith dwelling in the heart
of the regenerate man.”220 This stress on personal morality as the evidence of faith
demonstrates the early Mennonite Brethren opposition to the apparent moral decay of the
Russian Mennonites.221 Countering the neglect of rigorous Christian living, the
Mennonite Brethren stressed that individuals in the church must display “uprightness” as
219
Some historians cite the Baptists as especially influential towards this exclusivity for
communion. See Albert W. Wardin, “Baptist Influences on Mennonite Brethren with an Emphasis on the
Practice of Immersion,” Direction 8, no. 4 (October 1979): 33-38.
220
221
The Document of Secession goes so far as to refer to the “satanic lives” of many in the
Mennonite colonies, condemning their apparent moral inconsistencies with Anabaptist ethics. John A.
Toews, Mennonite Brethren Church, 34. Similarly, John B. Toews states that “much of their criticism of
conventional Mennonitism related to lifestyle issues. Consequently, Brethren concern with public and
private morality was defined and articulated over and against the perceived decadence of Russian
Mennonite society.” “The Mennonite Brethren in Russia during the 1890’s,” 140.
68
a sign of genuine faith.222 The avoidance of drinking, smoking, playing cards, and
dancing was integral to “not conforming to the world.”223 Quite simply, personal
conversion was necessarily accompanied by the rigid path of moral living—the
individual’s life of discipleship.
The emphasis on personal morality as the necessary component for genuine faith
reflects the Mennonite Brethren motive to separate themselves from the world.224 While a
theology of separation implicated the whole Mennonite Brethren community, it
implicated individuals as well. The stress on individual rebirth and moral uprightness was
a countercultural theology in itself, as they believed that “to be the people of God meant a
distinct lifestyle with different priorities, values and conduct.”225 Here again was Menno’s
vision for a pure church, in which those who had experienced regeneration testified to a
new way of life.226 The identity of the church as separate, then, depended upon
individuals displaying separateness in their own lives.
Community Balance
While there was a strong emphasis on the individual in Russian Mennonite
Brethren theology, by no means did they neglect the role of the church amidst their
renewed emphasis upon the individual experience of faith. Early on, the intimacy of the
house church congregational meeting brought a helpful balance for living the Christian
222
223
224
The 1902 confession of faith claims that living the obedient Christian life requires that the
church “[separate] themselves from the world.” Loewen, One Lord, One Church, 166.
225
J.B. Toews, Pilgrimage of Faith, 70.
226
Ibid., 13, 73.
69
life, a situation in which the individual experience of faith was incorporated into a vibrant
community. Individual piety was not isolated, as “holiness and sanctification occurred in
the midst of the congregation.…The inner life, however radiant and glorious, found its
outlet in obligation to the larger community.”227 The tendency to elevate the individual
experience of the Christian life was balanced with a belief in the church community as
the context for personal faith. As John B. Toews concludes on this communal corrective
in the early Mennonite Brethren, “Living openly and accountably in community
invariably surrounded the emotional and ecstatic with a sober realism. Here was a
practical piety tied to the rhythms of daily life.”228
With this attempt to maintain the balance between the individual and community
came a renewed practice of church discipline.229 Through commitment to the church,
regenerated individuals willingly submitted themselves to the accountability of the
community. The church, then, provided this accountability, ensuring that people’s
behavior reflected a genuine faith. For as we have seen, it was believed that true faith
would be evident in people’s actions. Mennonite Brethren membership, then, was
invariably the entrance into covenant relationship not just with God, but with the church.
As J. B. Toews comments, “covenant community expressed the interrelated character of
the church. Members committed themselves to a covenant statement, later referred to as
227
John B. Toews, Perilous Journey, 50. Elsewhere, Toews asserts that “the place of conversion
became the place of discipleship. Following conversion the individual immediately belonged to the small
group which the conversion accounts simply designate as die Geschwister, a German term implying deep
intimacy, belonging, caring, and concern. The convert’s understanding of the Bible expanded in a setting of
community exegesis, and his or her evolving discipleship occurred under the watchful eye of loving
brothers and sisters.” “Early Mennonite Brethren,” 194.
228
John B. Toews, “The Mennonite Brethren in Russia during the 1890’s,” 140.
229
This is evident in the Document of Secession as well as the 1902 confession of faith. See John
A. Toews, Mennonite Brethren Church, 35; Loewen, One Lord, One Church, 168.
70
‘church rules’—that spoke to the nurture of their spiritual life, to their relationship within
the larger fellowship, to the world and to principles of lifestyle.”230 In a sense, church
discipline was the manner in which the identity of the community was upheld, and while
legalism was a present danger, the motivation for discipline to be exercised in “love and
helpful compassion” was to protect individuals from being left to their own devices in
navigating the Christian life.231 The question, nevertheless, was whether this community
balance would be strong enough to respond to the individualism encountered upon
entrance into North American culture—a topic to which our discussion now shifts.
II. Individualism in North American Mennonite Brethren
The period between 1860 and 1915 in which the Mennonite Brethren movement
developed in Russia saw the once small renewal movement become a large faction within
the larger Mennonite culture.232 With the onset of World War I, however, the peaceful
existence of all Mennonites, including the Mennonite Brethren, was offset by increasing
pressure to support the Russian government and its military efforts, resulting in
significant emigration from Russia over the course of both major wars, many relocating
to North America.233
230
231
Loewen, One Lord, One Church, 168. Discussing “an inclination toward legalism,” John A.
Toews points out the Mennonite Brethren propensity to isolate moral accountability to an examination of
people’s visible acts without an accompanying focus on “sins of the spirit.” “Mennonite Brethren: Past,
232
John A. Toews suggests that the time “prior to World War I could well be described as the
‘golden age’ of the Mennonites in general, and of the Mennonite Brethren Church in particular. The
Mennonites, including the Mennonite Brethren, had unparalleled opportunities for establishing biblical
truth and their heritage.” Mennonite Brethren Church, 86. The freedom given to the Mennonite Brethren in
Russia in the late 1800’s played an integral part in developing their identity as a movement, as they were
allowed the opportunity to define themselves without the pressure of having to assimilate to Russian
culture.
71
Assimilation to North American Culture
The Mennonite Brethren isolationism of colony life in Russia was immediately
challenged in the North American setting. Intending to perpetuate the separation that they
had achieved in Russia, they soon found out that isolation in North American culture was
much more difficult to maintain.234 What happened, essentially, is that the Mennonite
Brethren became assimilated to modern North American culture.
At the most general level, assimilation involved Mennonite Brethren
modernization, a process which has contributed greatly to a shift in their identity.235
Discussing Mennonite identity in general, Paul Toews describes modernization as
follows:
The new modernizing order…with its industrial and urban revolutions, required greater
contact between different people groups. With the building of national economic and social
networks, pressures for cultural assimilation and integration increased. Urban patterns of
interaction and interdependence distorted older, more provincial loyalties and identities.
Whether by choice or by intrusion, modernity created an expansive society and fractured the
small Mennonite world.236
233
John B. Toews summarizes, “[Mennonite Brethren] belief in God clashed with a militant
atheism, their local autonomy clashed with state control, and their commitment to free enterprise clashed
with radical socialism. Was reconciliation with the new order possible? Some felt their past industrial and
agricultural accomplishments might, with economic development, win the tolerance of the regime and
allow them to survive as a distinct minority. It gradually became apparent, however, that this was not to be,
and those who could emigrated.” “Revival and Mission in Early Communist Russia (1917—1927),”
Direction 31, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 206-07.
234
Richard Kyle comments, “The Mennonite Brethren came to North America with the intention
of reestablishing, in some way, their isolationist communities. In this objective, to be sure, they largely
failed. As a consequence, in North America the Mennonites faced a challenge to their autonomy, their self
control, and thus their ability to separate from the world.” “Concept and Practice of Separation,” 37.
235
By modernization, I am simply referring to the process in which the Mennonite Brethren
became integrated into the distinct characteristics of modernity in North American culture, in which
economic, technological, scientific, and social developments are central in defining culture. For a
sociological description of modernization, see Craig M. Gay, The Way of the (Modern) World: Or Why It’s
Tempting to Live as if God Didn’t Exist (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 9-12; and J. Howard
Kauffman and Leo Driedger, The Mennonite Mosaic: Identity and Modernization (Scottdale, PA: Herald
Press, 1991), 27-46.
236
Paul Toews, Mennonites in American Society, 1930-1970: Modernity and the Persistence of
Religious Community (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1996), 32.
72
Mennonite Brethren are no exception to this modernization of broader Mennonite
identity.237 Of particular interest in our study is how the Mennonite Brethren emphasis on
the individual is affected by modern North American culture—a culture of individualism
in which “the self has become the main form of reality.”238 Considering their theology of
community balances their individual emphases, Mennonite Brethren theology is far from
promoting this extreme form of individualism. The challenge, however, is that the
movement’s immersion into North American culture has strained the Anabaptist
community corrective to individualism.239 Quite simply, they have become assimilated to
modern North American culture. And in examining aspects of their assimilation, we will
see how the individual emphases in Mennonite Brethren identity are unhealthily
perpetuated towards individualism when confronted with aspects of North American
society.240
237
In fact, Kaufman and Driedger, in their 1989 sociological analysis, show that the Mennonite
Brethren were the most modernized out of the five Mennonite-related denominations examined. The
authors comment that “they were the most urbanized, the most highly educated, the most strongly
represented in the professions and business, and had the highest average income.” Mennonite Mosaic, 46.
238
Robert Bellah and others, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American
Life. Updated Edition. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996), 143.
239
In the movement’s history, the challenge of individualism has not gone unnoticed by Mennonite
Brethren leaders. For example, Paul Toews refers to the Mennonite Brethren General Conference report in
1948 and its warning against the “spirit of individualism…identified as destructive to the interdependence
and unity of the church.” “Introduction,” in Bridging Troubled Waters: The Mennonite Brethren at Mid-
Century, ed., Paul Toews (Winnipeg: Kindred Productions, 1995), vi. In 1986, leaders sounded a similar
warning, as J.B. Toews comments that “our culture of relativity and individualism has eroded the fabric of
social and spiritual interdependence. Churches in North America…are struggling like never before with
questions of theology and ethics.” Pilgrimage of Faith, 213, 281.
240
The task here is to describe where individualism is a challenge to Mennonite Brethren identity
and ethics without rejecting individual emphases in the Mennonite Brethren faith altogether. As two
Mennonite sociologists comment, “Inasmuch as individualism lies at the core of North American culture,
we can hardly abandon it because it is part of our deepest identity.” The task, they continue, is “holding
individualism in check so it can be used toward larger religious and civic goals.” Leo Driedger and Leland
Harder, “Introduction—PolyMennos: Identities in Ferment,” in Anabaptist-Mennonite Identities in
Ferment, eds., Leo Driedger and Leland Harder (Elkhart, IN: Institute of Mennonite Studies, 1990), 6-7.
73
Urbanization
Integration into North American culture has seen significant incidence of
urbanization in Mennonite Brethren identity.241 Urbanization in this case, while referring
to geographic migration to cities, also broadens to refer to the shift in the overall
Mennonite Brethren “style of life” in North American culture—a shift felt both in urban
and rural Mennonite Brethren contexts.242 The worldview resulting from urbanization is
characterized by an emphasis on people achieving personal success, often in the form of
material prosperity. This view challenges the Mennonite Brethren balance of the
individual in community by placing personal success above community. The danger, as
Richard Kyle comments, is that “urban life…often pressures a religious body to conform
to the ethical and cultural norms of the surrounding community or churches and may
promote a compromise with the world.”243 This compromise, as Kyle suggests, reveals
that “the failure of the Mennonite Brethren to establish autonomous villages probably
facilitated the adjustment from communalism to democratic individualism.”244 The role of
the individual, once stressed primarily in Mennonite Brethren religious experience but
countered by a communal experience of colony life, is now highlighted in the social
241
Kaufman and Driedger’s 1989 study indicates that 73% of Mennonite Brethren are considered
urban, 20% higher than the closest Mennonite group in the study, Mennonite Mosaic, 36.
242
Hamm, Continuity and Change, 170-72. Hamm explains that typically this change is evident in
an increased openness to new ideas, rationality, and acceptance of the heterogeneity of the surrounding
culture. Similarly, urbanization, according to Paul Hiebert, “is a way of life and a worldview....It is
characterized by mobility, transiency, pragmatism, and specialization. The city nurtures a view of the world
that values human engineering of nature and society, achievement and profit, competition and success, and
diversity and tolerance.” “Planting Churches in North America Today, Direction 20, no. 2 (Fall 1991): 9-10.
243
Kyle, From Sect to Denomination, 107.
244
Kyle, “Concept of Separation,” 40. Kyle is merely describing urbanization, not actually calling
for a return to rural Mennonite villages as a necessary ideal.
74
experience of North American life as well, contributing to the inroads of individualism in
urbanized Mennonite Brethren identity.
An example in which Mennonite Brethren accept individualistic aspects of
urbanized culture is in their economic success. Great wealth has been accumulated both
by urban professionals and modernized farmers.245 The traditional emphasis of the
individual experience of faith has been confronted with an alternative, one in which
consumerism is a common grid through which personal experience is viewed. As a result,
it has become a source of tension for the Mennonite Brethren to balance an appropriate
individual experience of faith with a life of economic prosperity.246 Assimilated to a
culture that awards individuals for their autonomous achievements, the Mennonite
Brethren faith should be wary not to assume that individual success equates with God’s
blessing. This construct simply perpetuates an individualized definition of faith, often at
the expense of considering the community’s responsibility to provide guidance to
individuals for addressing everyday issues of urbanized life, such as wealth.
Shift In Ethnicity
245
John A. Toews, Mennonite Brethren Church, 335-38. Toews comments that “coinciding with
their rapid urbanization, Mennonite Brethren have been climbing steadily upward on the economic ladder,
so that today the majority of them have achieved the status of a comfortable middle class society,” 338.
More critically, Peter Hamm refers to the Mennonite Brethren as a “cult of acquisitiveness,” describing
their historical tendency to establish themselves materially, whether it be the colony life in Russia or the
economic prosperity of North American capitalism. Continuity and Change, 212.
246
T.D. Regehr, “The Economic Transformation of Canadian Mennonite Brethren,” in Bridging
Troubled Waters, 97-115; Calvin Redekop, “Mennonite Brethren Economic Developments in the United
States,” Bridging Troubled Waters, 117-35. Both authors describe particular economic challenges related to
urbanization and the inconsistent Mennonite Brethren stance for evaluating how personal morality and
personal experience in Mennonite Brethren faith relates to economic ascendancy. For example, Regehr
laments an imbalance in moral emphases, referring to an absence of economic accountability in the church
that parallels great attention paid to disciplining sexual indiscretion, Regehr, 105.
75
Another effect of assimilation has been a shift away from ethnicity defining
Mennonite Brethren identity, signified by the shift from German to English as the
movement’s dominant language.247 While this shift is by no means wholly complete, the
Dutch-German-Russian background that accompanied Mennonite Brethren immigration
to North America is no longer the primary context from which individuals identify
themselves with the movement.248 Integration into modern North American communities
for business and residence has led them to adapt to their surroundings both culturally and
linguistically.
Positively, this shift has promoted continuity with the movement’s theology of
voluntaryism as individuals are not automatically considered Mennonite Brethren based
on birth. This renewed emphasis on voluntaryism has extended across racial lines as well,
as North American Mennonite Brethren display a rich multicultural diversity, evident in
the high number of non-Dutch-German-Russian members participating in churches who
have integrated immigrant populations into the life of the church. One challenge
regarding Mennonite Brethren diversity, however, is when the former blend of cultural
and religious identity is lost, the maintenance of the religious vision can become much
more difficult to maintain.249 Following Peter Berger’s concept, there is no longer a
247
For a detailed discussion of the issues related to Mennonite Brethren ethnicity, see John H.
Redekop, A People Apart: Ethnicity and the Mennonite Brethren (Winnipeg: Kindred Press, 1987). For a
historical account of the issue in Canadian Mennonite Brethren, see Gerald C. Ediger, Crossing the Divide:
Language Transition Among Canadian Mennonite Brethren 1940-1970 (Winnipeg, MB: Centre for
Mennonite Brethren Studies, 2001).
248
Describing the shift away from ethnicity defining Mennonite Brethren identity, Bruce Guenther
states that “it is entirely inappropriate to equate the term Mennonite with only one ethnic group. The
Mennonite Brethren have become a global multicultural community of faith.” “MB history tour: A global
multicultural community of faith,” MB Herald 44, no. 9 (July 2005),
http://www.mbherald.com/44/09/historytour.en.html (accessed November 12, 2007).
249
Peter Hamm discusses how ethnicity in the past protected the Mennonite Brethren from any
major ideological changes, as their cultural identity formed the context for defining their religious ideology
and navigating cultural influences, Continuity and Change, 87-88. The thesis of Hamm’s book is that at
least into the late twentieth-century, Mennonite Brethren identity was still intact due to their ongoing
76
“sacred canopy” of ethnic-religious Mennonite Brethren identity to guard a common
vision for the movement.250 With the ethnic-religious context removed, individuals lose
the protective context of the ethnic community that can foster their beliefs. It is not
surprising, then, that Mennonite Brethren assimilation to North American culture has led
to an ongoing “identity crisis” in which there is an underdeveloped definition of
Mennonite Brethren corporate identity.251 In this context, the difficulty is that any
theological unity for Mennonite Brethren identity must be achieved ideologically—a
process of considering how beliefs and values, not just ethnic heritage, determine
Mennonite Brethren identity.252 And if ideological unity is not maintained, individualism
continues to determine religious identification, a situation in which people pick and
choose aspects of Mennonite Brethren identity that appeal to their own personal opinion.
insistence on maintaining at least a degree of separation from society.
250
Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy (New York: Anchor Books, 1967). Berger proposes that the
“sacred canopy” is the structured religious context in which “a meaningful order…is imposed upon the
discrete experiences and meanings of individuals,” 19. Any loss of this protective context, such as in the
process of assimilation to modern culture, leads to the loss of meaning that was previously experienced.
For an extended application of Berger’s work in relation to Mennonite identity, see Kauffman and Driedger,
Mennonite Mosaic, 65-85.
251
Peter Hamm, “Assimilation and Identity Crisis,” in Continuity and Change, 226-43. For an
interdisciplinary discussion of identity in the broader Mennonite-Anabaptist world, see Dale Schrag and
James Juhnke, eds., Anabaptist Visions for the New Millennium: A Search for Identity (Kitchener, ON:
Pandora Press, 2000).
252
As Peter Hamm states, “In the case of the present-day Canadian Mennonite Brethren…religious
identity is no longer determined largely by external, cultural behavioral patterns, but by association with
those within a culturally pluralistic world who have a similar ideological intent, despite the varying external
features of ethnicity.” Continuity and Change, 237. This process should still involve examining the
historical contexts in which these beliefs arose, but not allow ethnic relation to those contexts to determine
people’s Mennonite Brethren affiliation. A major theme in John Redekop’s book, A People Apart, considers
how a Mennonite Brethren name-change could contribute to a stronger corporate identity. The term
‘Mennonite’ has too many ethnic ties to be considered a clear ideological term that can represent the
diversity of the movement. This proposal, however, creates a problematic separation between Mennonite
Brethren beliefs and the historical context from which those beliefs arose. Regardless of one’s ethnic
background, there is no Mennonite Brethren identity that can separate itself from the historical context in
which the movement’s theology developed. Instead of changing their name, therefore, I would suggest the
Mennonite Brethren address how people of any background should consider the process in which their
identification with the movement is shaped by the complex historical context of the movement.
77
The goal for Mennonite Brethren identity, then, should be to promote theological unity by
developing a stronger corporate identity in which church communities, not ethnic
communities, serve as the context for the formation of the individual’s faith.
Organizational Establishment
An additional effect of assimilation to modern culture has been a shift in
Mennonite Brethren organization North American culture—a transition “from sect to
denomination.”253 A sect is a decentralized religious organization, in which there is a
strong emphasis on separation from the world and voluntary participation, whereas a
denomination, although retaining certain sect characteristics (e.g. voluntaryism), is more
integrated with society, adopting practices and beliefs that are less exclusive in nature. In
the process of assimilation, the Mennonite Brethren have gone from an isolated religious
movement separated from Russian culture to gradually integrating into North American
society as an established denomination. This has perpetuated the loss of the separation
motif in Mennonite Brethren identity, as the movement has become simply one of many
Christian denominations in North America.254 Reasons for this shift include a continued
interaction with non-Mennonite groups, many of which promote a denominational format
of religious organization, as well as integration into a culture that promotes
institutionalization of religious movements. As a result, Mennonite Brethren have
253
Kyle, From Sect to Denomination, 9, 16-20. For similar discussion see Richard Kyle’s article,
“The Mennonite Brethren and the Denominational Model of the Church,” Mennonite Life 2, no. 3 (Summer
1987): 30-36.
254
For a discussion of how this shift has affected various aspects of Mennonite Brethren theology
of culture, see Paul Toews, “Faith in Culture and Culture in Faith: Mennonite Brethren Entertaining
Expansive, Separative and Assimilative Views About the Relationship” (paper presented to the Symposium:
“Dynamics of Faith and Culture in Mennonite Brethren History,” Winnipeg, MB, 14-15 November 1986),
Columbia Bible College Library, Abbotsford B.C.
78
adopted a complex conference organization and a professionalization of church
leadership has become the norm.
The Mennonite Brethren conference organization has been affected by shifts in
North American denominationalism in which there is increased autonomy for local
churches. This shift is evident in many churches dropping the “Mennonite Brethren” label
from their title, many preferring instead the title of “community church.”255 So while
denominationalism continues in the form of conference leadership, the format in which it
is practiced is changing drastically.256 Indeed, the Mennonite Brethren frequently
reorganize their denomination. In the late 1990’s there was a split of the North American
conference into separate Canadian and American entities. Concurrently, recognizing the
reality of globalization, the International Community of Mennonite Brethren churches
(ICOMB) has been formed in an attempt to seek greater global unity in the movement.
An obvious benefit of denominational organization has been a major influx of
beneficial Mennonite Brethren programs, most notably in the organization of educational
institutions in which the Mennonite Brethren faith is taught.257 At the same time, however,
a disadvantage to their denominational organization is a neglect of lay ministry
involvement, as “professional ministry that tends to reduce lay participation” by

255
This distancing from denominational affiliation reflects some congregations’ desire to seek their
own distinct identity apart from the larger Mennonite Brethren group, as well as distance themselves from
the issues of ethnicity we discussed above. John A. Toews laments such situations, commenting that “the
brotherhood-consciousness and church loyalty among Mennonite Brethren has been undermined and
weakened by the inroads of American individualism as well as by modern interdenominationalism.”
Mennonite Brethren Church, 372.
256
Denominational support is evident in a recent survey done by the Canadian conference.
Discussing commitment to the Mennonite Brethren denomination, “77% of survey respondents said they
were ‘enthusiastic about our denomination.’” Dora Dueck, “Strategic Planning Survey Results,” Mennonite
Brethren Herald 44, no. 4 (March 18, 2005): http://www.mbherald.com/44/04/survey.en.html (accessed
May 5, 2008).
257
See John A. Toews, “Training for Life and Service: Institutional Education in the Mennonite
Brethren Church,” in Mennonite Brethren Church , 254-82.
79
organizing church ministries around a select group of paid pastors and staff as opposed to
including the whole congregation.258 The laity contribute less to the life and ministries of
the church than when the Mennonite Brethren were a sect, a shift from the previous
theological emphasis on the priesthood of all believers in which lay-leadership was the
primary model for church organization.259 And as a result, the individual experience of
faith so important to Mennonite Brethren identity becomes a private matter, no longer
shared in the ministries of the community of faith, which as we will see below, promotes
individualism in Mennonite Brethren ecclesiology.
Affiliation with Evangelicalism
A major component in Mennonite Brethren assimilation has been their integration
into North American religious culture, particularly in their affiliation with North
American evangelicalism. In fact, the Mennonite Brethren were the first Mennonite
denomination to join the National Association of Evangelicals in 1944, starting a trend of
identification with mainstream evangelicalism that has continued to this day.260 In
general, evangelicalism crosses denominational lines, uniting various Christian groups on
certain fundamental beliefs, such as “a concern for personal evangelism, conservative
biblical interpretation, personal piety and salvation by grace.”261 As a denomination

258
Kyle, Sect to Denomination, 124.
259
Clarence Hiebert, “The Development of Mennonite Brethren Churches in North America: Some
260
John A. Toews, Mennonite Brethren Church, 375. In particular, Toews notes that
Fundamentalism was particularly attractive for many Mennonite Brethren, as the Fundamentalist stance
against modern culture accorded well with the original separatist stance of the Mennonite Brethren.
261
Lynn Jost and Connie Faber, Family Matters: Discovering the Mennonite Brethren (Winnipeg,
MB: Kindred Press, 2002), 28. At the most general level, George Marsden indicates that “the essential
evangelical beliefs include (1) the Reformation doctrine of the final authority of the Bible, (2) the real
historical character of God’s saving work recorded in Scripture, (3) salvation to eternal life based on the
redemptive work of Christ, (4) the importance of evangelism and missions, and (5) the importance of a
spiritually transformed life.” Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, MI:
80
assimilated to North American culture, the Mennonite Brethren have many similarities
with other evangelical denominations both theologically and organizationally, even
referring to their theology as “Evangelical/Anabaptist.”262 While still claiming an
Anabaptist heritage, their integration into evangelical culture in North America is not
particularly surprising considering that the Mennonite Brethren, despite their separatist
theology, have often drawn from other Christian groups in defining who they are, as we
already saw with the Pietists and Baptists in Russia.
This integration with evangelicalism presents a tension in Mennonite Brethren
identity revolving around the influence of Anabaptist and evangelical theology in forming
the movement. The issue is how or even if the two traditions can be incorporated in
defining a clear Mennonite Brethren identity.263 If the relationship is ignored or the two
traditions become blended into one theological identity, the loss of the Mennonite
Brethren’s Anabaptist identity could result. Certain Anabaptist characteristics of
Mennonite Brethren identity—beliefs that could potentially balance individualism—
could be altered or lost altogether.264 This danger is especially pertinent since the
Eerdmans, 1991), 4-5. For helpful discussions on the relationship between Mennonite Brethren and North
American evangelicalism, see Elmer A. Martens, ed., “Mennonite Brethren and Evangelicalism,” Direction
20, no. 1 (Spring 1991): 3-86; Patricia Janzen Loewen, “Embracing Evangelicalism and Anabaptism: The
Mennonite Brethren in Canada in the Late Twentieth Century” (M.A. Thesis, University of Manitoba,
2000).
262
Dueck, “Strategic Planning Survey Results.”
263
Richard Kyle explains this challenge, commenting that “North American Evangelicalism has
been a source of tension and ambivalence to Mennonite Brethren, impacting both relationships within the
fellowship and with other Mennonite bodies. Mennonite Brethren are ambivalent in their attitudes toward
mainstream Evangelicalism, ranging from a strong sense of kinship to one of near contempt.” “The
Mennonite Brethren and American Evangelicalism: An Ambivalent Relationship,” Direction 20, no.1
(Spring 1991): 26.
264
Paul Toews expresses a concern about losing a distinct Mennonite Brethren identity because of
evangelical affiliation, while at the same time not calling for a loss of the relationship altogether. He
comments, “Mennonite Brethren who have been drawn to alliances with the evangelical world should
recognize that so long as we maintain the center of evangelical faith, there is no particular reason to try to
adopt or to mimic much of the rest of evangelicalism. Evangelicalism in American history is the story of
many different peoples with their own distinguishing traditions, history and language. It is the story of
81
Mennonite Brethren generally view individualism as a prevalent danger in
evangelicalism, perpetuating an overemphasis on the individual experience of faith in
Mennonite Brethren identity.265 In a culture of individualism that devalues ecclesial
commitment, the danger is that the Mennonite Brethren incorporation into evangelicalism
that is itself immersed in this culture will only further the imbalance of individualism and
community.266 In sum, integration with evangelicalism along with assimilation to other
aspects of modern North American culture reveals the social pressures the Mennonite
Brethren have encountered when it comes to individualism. We turn now to consider the
impact these developments have had on contemporary Mennonite Brethren theological
identity.
Individualism and Mennonite Brethren
Theological Identity
diverse peoples building their own cultural systems, developing institutional programs, and creating
networks of association, work and play. Those institutions, traditions and networks, en masse, are no better
or worse than ours. Some individually may work better, some no doubt worse.” “Recent Interpretations of
Evangelical Pluralism,” Direction 20, no. 1 (Spring 1991): 24. More critically, Richard Kyle comments on
Mennonite Brethren evangelical affiliation, observing that “all of this success has come at a price, namely
the breakdown of Anabaptist distinctives. Most significant, only about half of the Mennonite Brethren
currently uphold their historic peace position. Many Mennonite Brethren have bought into values so
prevalent in contemporary Evangelicalism: subjectivity, personal feelings, self-improvement, pragmatism,
materialism, and rampant individualism.” Kyle, “The Mennonite Brethren and American Evangelicalism,”
34.
265
Mark Baker discusses the “great reversal” in evangelicalism, referring to the rejection of liberal
social ethics as a way of distancing themselves from liberal theology. The result was a view of the Christian
faith in which “the most important spiritual unit was the individual” and “ethical focus was on individual
morality.” Religious No More: Building Communities of Grace and Freedom (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 1999; reprint, Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2005), 67.
266
As an example of evangelicalism perpetuating the individualistic focus in Mennonite Brethren
theology, Jost and Faber cite the tendency for evangelicalism to highlight the specific act of personally
confessing faith in Jesus Christ above other areas of faith, such as the life of discipleship in the church as a
necessary component that accompanies a personal commitment to Christ. Family Matters, 28.
82
Historically, Mennonite Brethren theology has maintained that the individual
expression of faith should be experienced alongside integration into the faith community
—the church. And while the individual’s experience can be overemphasized, a parallel
community emphasis has prevented a completely individualistic faith. Examining the
present individual-community dialectic, however, reveals a tendency towards
individualism in contemporary Mennonite Brethren identity. I intend to argue that there is
an inconsistency between Mennonite Brethren theology and practice, as their current
theological confession endorses an individual-community balance, but the actual practice
of this balance is mostly absent.267 As one historian suggests, “The issue facing
Mennonite Brethren is to reconcile their strong individualism with their verbal
affirmations of orthodoxy.”268 In order to see this imbalance, I will examine three areas of
contemporary Mennonite Brethren identity, suggesting that the stress on the importance
of the individual experience of faith at times neglects the appropriate balance of
community, thus revealing a degree of individualism.
1. Ecclesiology: Voluntaryism
Individualism is evident in a Mennonite Brethren ecclesiology similar to their
Anabaptist forbears, but one in which the realization of individual faith occurring in
267
For Mennonite Brethren theology I will focus primarily on the latest edition of their confession
of faith. See Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith: Commentary and Pastoral Application (Winnipeg,
MB: Kindred Press, 2000). In this process, I will measure the acceptance of Mennonite Brethren theology
by referencing several sociological studies that have been conducted on Mennonite Brethren belief and
practice in the latter half of the twentieth century. See Dora Dueck, “Strategic Planning Survey Results”;
Kauffman and Driedger, Mennonite Mosaic; Leo Driedger and Leland Harder, eds., Anabaptist-Mennonite
Identities in Ferment (Elkhart, IN: Institute of Mennonite Studies, 1990); Hamm, Continuity and Change;
Al Dueck, J.B. Toews, and Abram G. Konrad, eds., “Mennonite Brethren Church Membership Profile,
1972-1982,” Direction 14, no.2 (Fall 1985): 2-89; and J. Howard Kauffman and Leland Harder,
Anabaptists Four Centuries Later: A Profile of Five Mennonite and Brethren in Christ Denominations
(Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1975).
268
83
community is neglected. In general, voluntaryism is oriented towards individuals choice
to participate in the community of faith. The Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith
states, “people who respond in faith are united with the local congregation.”269 With this
believers’ church ecclesiology, Mennonite Brethren voluntaryism distances itself “from
those who practice infant baptism,” affirming instead that “being part of the church
requires a personal surrender to the Lord.”270 The personal choice of baptism, then, is the
ordinance through which individuals profess their faith and voluntarily join the church.271
In terms of ordering the experience of faith, individual choice comes first, followed by
integration into the church. Sociological surveys reveal that this voluntaryism translates
into Mennonite Brethren individuals experience. In fact, one survey shows that 95% of
Mennonite Brethren members indicate that church membership was their own personal
decision free from the pressure of others.272
Now, to be clear, the actual choice of church affiliation is only one component in
Mennonite Brethren ecclesiology, as individuals voluntarily commit themselves to
integration into a community of accountability and corporate mission. For example,
immediately following the call for personal commitment, the Confession of Faith
includes an extended piece on “fellowship and accountability” as the church is believed
to be the “covenant community in which members are mutually accountable in matters of
269
“Nature of the Church,” in Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith, 66 (emphasis mine). This
echoes the original Mennonite Brethren confession in which the church is described as being composed of
those who join the community upon their own “obedience to the Gospel.” Loewen, One Lord, One
Church, 166.
270
“Nature of Church: Pastoral Application,” in Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith, 72.
271
See “Christian Baptism,” in Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith, 88-96.
272
Al Dueck, J.B. Toews, and Abram G. Konrad, “Mennonite Brethren Church Membership
Profile, 1972-1982, Chapter 2,” Direction 14, no. 2 (Fall 1985):16.
84
faith and life.”273 This emphasis provides a helpful balance of individual and communal
commitment that carries forward the original Anabaptist vision for community.274 At the
confessional level, at least, there is not much difference in contemporary Mennonite
Brethren voluntaryism from the voluntaryism we surveyed in the early years of the
movement. Individualism develops, however, as their assimilation to modern culture
weakens the practice of this community emphasis.
The danger in modern culture, as James Reimer asserts, is that by making
personal commitment the main qualifying aspect of church membership, there is a risk of
“unadorned voluntaristic individualism—where human freedom and willing is grounded
in the individual subject herself.”275 While Mennonite Brethren theology stresses that the
human response to God’s grace must be followed by integration into a covenant
community, the realization of this integration in their North American context reveals a
shift in how people actually understand their personal commitment to the church. For
instance, we saw above that a voluntary commitment of faith was a radical move that
challenged the rigid community life of the Russian Mennonite colonies. The problem
now, unfortunately, is that personal choice regarding religious affiliation is no longer a
radical statement. Instead, it is expected as a named feature of modern life.276 In assessing

273
The Confession of Faith continues by asserting that “they love, care, and pray for each other,
share each other’s joys and burdens, admonish and correct one another.” “Nature of the Church,” in
Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith, 66.
274
Peter Hamm describes this balanced view of voluntaryism well, stating that “experiential faith
is begun through a conversion experience; voluntary association is publicly witnessed through believers’
baptism; continued membership requires active participation; and lapse of vitality or infidelity necessitates
the exercise of discipline, including excommunication, by the group.” Continuity and Change, 68.
275
James A. Reimer, Mennonites and Classical Theology (Kitchener, ON: Pandora Press, 2000),
524-25.
276
The danger, as Craig Gay comments, is that “the decision to believe has a way of eclipsing the
object of belief, and often seems to give way to subjectivism.” Way of the (Modern) World, 198. Referring
to the work of Peter Berger, Gay continues by stating that this “heresy—with its stress upon the subjective
will-to-believe—has become a kind of imperative for all contemporary religious affirmation.” See Peter
85
North American Christianity, C. Norman Krause comments that “the group has become
for us a collection of individuals created by individuals for their own individual
advantages.”277 Often referred to as the “privatization” of faith, people view the church
community as secondary to their own personal experience of faith, in which the church is
only considered valuable if it appeals to people’s taste.278 The problem, then, is not
Mennonite Brethren voluntaryism in general, as the call to “repent, and be baptized” is a
biblical admonition for the Christian life (Acts 2:38 NRSV). I am arguing, rather, that in a
culture that embraces the freedom to choose, the Mennonite Brethren stress on
voluntaryism needs to be accompanied by a stronger theology of community in order to
correct the noted imbalance between personal faith and the church community.
2. Soteriology: Personal Conversion
As we saw, the personal experience of salvation was paramount for Mennonite
Brethren in distinguishing themselves from the Russian Mennonite colonies. While
excessive emotionalism has typically been discouraged, the fact remains that an
experience of salvation is still prominent in Mennonite Brethren theology.279 The

Berger, The Heretical Imperative: Contemporary Possibilities of Religious Affirmation (Garden City, NY:
Anchor, 1979).
277
C. Norman Krause, The Community of the Spirit (Scottdale: PA: Herald Press, 1993), 32;
quoted in Mark Baker, Religious No More, 62.
278
For an account of privatization and religion in North American culture, see Os Guinness,
“Private-Zoo Factor,” in The Gravedigger File: Papers on the Subversion of the Modern Church (Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1983), 71-90. For a discussion from a Mennonite Brethren perspective on
consumerism and faith in a culture of privatized religion, see Jonathan Janzen and Ryan Dueck, “Buyer
Beware: Consumerism Contains Toxic Substances Harmful to Faith,” Mennonite Brethren Herald 47, no. 1
(January 2008): 8-11.
279
A contemporary example of curbing excessive emotionalism has been the Mennonite
relationship to the charismatic movement, a point of “concern among conference leadership” that has led to
“cautionary” resolutions against experiential extremes. Walter Unger, “Thinking Clearly About the Holy
Spirit: What Do Mennonite Brethren Believe?” Mennonite Brethren Herald 47, no. 3 (March 2008): 10. For
a discussion of Mennonite Brethren and the charismatic movement, see David Ewert, “The Current
Charismatic Movement,” in Finding Your Way: Confronting Issues in the Mennonite Brethren Church
86
Confession of Faith focuses on the “born again” experience of salvation that is a result
for “all who receive Christ.”280 In the process of salvation, an emphasis on the event of
experiencing conversion highlights the belief in people’s ability to clearly recognize
salvation through Christ in their lives. This recognition testifies to an individual’s genuine
faith. Out of the five major Mennonite groups evaluated by Kauffman and Driedger, the
Mennonite Brethren scored the highest in attesting to a specific conversion experience, as
95% of members in North America affirmed knowing the specific time of their initial
conversion.281
Coupled with the initial experience of conversion is a strong emphasis on the
individual’s “assurance of salvation,” understood as the “legitimate exploration into the
nature and foundation of the salvation experience.”282 Not only is the personal choice and
experience of salvation important at conversion, but it may also provide ongoing
assurance throughout people’s lives. The authenticity of this assurance will be reflected in
the life of discipleship— “a ‘working out’ of that salvation (Phil 2:12).”283 For Mennonite
Brethren believers, however, this “working out” of salvation is often viewed as the
interior feeling of assurance individuals have regarding their salvation, often at the
expense of emphasizing the moral transformation that should accompany discipleship. In
(Winnipeg, MB: D. Ewert, 1999), 19-32.
280
“Salvation” and “Salvation: Commentary,” in Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith, 55, 57.
It should be noted that there is the acknowledgement that the experience of conversion is not always
marked by one specific event, but can occur over time as well.
281
Kauffman and Driedger, Mennonite Mosaic, 75.
282
Salvation: Pastoral Application,” in Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith, 63-64.
283
“Salvation: Commentary,” in Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith, 57. This echoes the 1902
confession which states individuals are “awakened to sin” and live the life of “sanctification…a fruit and
result of saving faith in Jesus Christ.” Loewen, One Lord, One Church, 165.
87
examining Mennonite Brethren understanding of the continued experience of salvation,
Kauffman and Harder presented in their research a component called the “measures of
sanctification,” in which their questions related to people’s “experiences of a religious
nature.”284 The areas in which the Mennonite Brethren scored the highest were where
people possessed “a sense of being saved by Christ [and] loved by Christ.”285 The
personal feeling of salvation, that interior assurance or “sense,” is of utmost importance
in Mennonite Brethren belief and practice. Unfortunately, both of these Mennonite
Brethren soteriological emphases—personal experience and interior assurance—focus on
the individual’s experience while neglecting the implications of salvation for the
community of faith. The individual-communal imbalance, it appears, continues.
3. Ethics: Personal Morality
Along with individualism in Mennonite Brethren ecclesiology and soteriology
comes individualism in their ethics as well. In this regard, Peter Hamm poses some
challenging questions regarding Mennonite Brethren ethics:
Mennonite Brethren in particular have been known for their prescriptions and proscriptions.
Does a further analysis of how Mennonite Brethren make ethical decisions indicate a legalistic
moralism? Does the high priority for ethics on a personal level carry over to social ethics, or
are Mennonite Brethren to be grouped with those evangelicals who have been principally
concerned with individualistic salvation rather than (or even at the expense of) being
concerned with social injustices?286
As Hamm reflects, and which we saw above, Mennonite Brethren have historically
stressed the importance of personal morality in the life of discipleship in the church.
Personal issues such as drinking, smoking, dancing and even television watching have
284
J. Howard Kauffman and Leland Harder. Anabaptists Four Centuries Later: A Profile of Five
Mennonite and Brethren in Christ Denominations (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1975), 94.
286
285 Hamm,
Ibid. Continuity and Change, 71.
88
been prominent throughout the movement’s history.287 This emphasis is not surprising
considering Menno’s concern to maintain the purity of the church, expressed concretely
in the morality of individual church members. To their credit, this stress on individual
moral uprightness is coupled with a theological emphasis on the necessity for the
community as the context for personal morality. As the Confession of Faith illustrates,
“disciples delight to obey God” while at the same time “grow in maturity as they
demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit, use their spiritual gifts and practice mutual
accountability in the disciplines of the Christian life.”288 At the confessional level, then,
there is at least an attempt to balance the focus between the individual and community in
Christian living. When it comes to Mennonite Brethren ethics, however, the question is
whether or not this balance is articulated appropriately or realized in practice. In looking
at problem areas in Mennonite Brethren ethics, I will suggest the answer is no on both
accounts.
Neglect of social ethics
The Mennonite Brethren stress on personal morality, even within the context of
community, leads to an unbalanced ethical practice that neglects the social nature of the
Christian life. To be sure, I am not suggesting that the rigorous personal discipleship in
Mennonite Brethren theology and history is not warranted, as the stress on discipleship as
287
John A. Toews, Mennonite Brethren Church , 339-40, 371.
288
“Discipleship,” in Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith, 106. David Ewert echoes this
balance, stating that “although we become related to Christ alone (by personal commitment) we cannot be
in Christ alone. We are with other members of his Body as part of that Body. To be born of God means to
be born into the family of God, this new covenant people. And the most stringent demands placed upon us
by Christ and his apostles are exactly in the area of our relationships with our brothers and sisters. The
commandment to love one another, to be forgiving and kind, to bear each other’s loads, to be patient with
the weak, to esteem others higher than ourselves (and many more), are staggering in the light of our selfish
and sinful propensities. But these are the qualities that make community possible.” Ewert, “The Unique
Character of Christian Ethics,” Direction 2, no. 3 (July 1973): 68-69.
89
the necessary outworking of salvation is a biblical principle of utmost importance.289
Rather, I am merely stating that the focus on personal morality inclines the Mennonite
Brethren to neglect the ethical implications for the community, resulting in an
underdeveloped social ethics.
Significantly, the imbalance has already been addressed in contemporary
Mennonite Brethren theology, as the Confession of Faith clearly displays a balance in
understanding the life of discipleship to include “doing acts of love and compassion” for
others.290 To be fair, in some areas Mennonite Brethren do exhibit a genuine social
concern beyond a personal faith, with strong support of the Mennonite Central
Committee being one example.291 A problem, however, is an inconsistency between a
professed balance in ethical emphases and what is actually accepted by individual
members. Sociological analysis reveals that a balanced ethical concern is often an
exception to the rule as Mennonite Brethren members consistently rate high in a concern
for personal moral issues, whereas social concerns draw far less support.292 When it
comes to personal and social ethics, then, inconsistency between belief and practice is the
problem. There needs to be a way in which the balance exhibited in Mennonite Brethren
289
The Confession of Faith points to 1 John 2:4-6, where it states, “Whoever says, ‘I have come to
know him,’ but does not obey his commandments, is a liar, and in such a person the truth does not exist; but
whoever obeys his word, truly in this person the love of God has reached perfection. By this we may be
sure that we are in him: whoever says, ‘I abide in him,’ ought to walk just as he walked” (NRSV).
“Discipleship: Commentary,” in Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith, 107.
290
“Mission of the Church,” in Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith, 77. The pastoral
application of this article reiterates this point with the following statement: “We must without reservation
call people to repentance and reformation of life in Jesus. We must be clear and culturally accessible in this
proclamation and live out the social implications of the good news by caring for those in need and
proclaiming God’s peace and justice in the wider community.” “Mission of the Church: Pastoral
Application,” 85.
291
Kauffman and Driedger, Mennonite Mosaic, 177, 224-25.
292
Ibid., 171, 192. Similar to the discussion above on Mennonite Brethren assimilation, the authors
suggest Mennonite Brethren evangelical affiliation is one reason for this imbalance, as “discussion of social
ethics is muted” in the emphases of evangelicalism, 222-23.
90
theological ethics—the balance between individual discipleship and genuine social action
—can be translated into the experience of Mennonite Brethren individuals and
churches.293
Unbalanced Accountability
Beyond the inconsistency between personal and social ethics is an incomplete
understanding of the Mennonite Brethren theology of “covenant community in which
members are mutually accountable in matters of faith and life.”294 In particular,
Mennonite Brethren accountability is often limited to focusing on people’s external
behavior, placing too much emphasis on people’s ability to live christianly without a
corresponding account of the community’s role in preparing people to live such a life.295
In the past, Mennonite Brethren legalism displayed this limited view of ethics since
church discipline involved the examination of personal conduct as the primary way of
measuring people’s faith. As Walter Unger observes, “In actual practice there were times
when Mennonite Brethren lapsed into legalism, displayed self-righteousness, were
intolerant, and practiced harsh and unbiblical church discipline. This occurred both early
on in MB history and into the twentieth century.”296 We have already seen that monitoring
293
The danger, as we have seen, is to elevate one aspect (individual or social) over the other. John
A. Toews helpfully warns that “an over-emphasis on social concerns can lead to a shallow humanism. An
over-emphasis on personal salvation can lead to a barren fundamentalism.” “Past, Present, and Future,”
294
“Nature of the Church,” in Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith, 66. As J.B. Toews relates,
“Lost in [Mennonite Brethren] churches is the sense of a covenant community demanding obedience, self-
denial and sacrifice. They promote the benefits of salvation without its obligations.” Pilgrimage of Faith,
298.
295
Mennonite Brethren members rank moral transformation as less important than “explicit acts of
piety and belief,” which are considered essential for faithful Christian living. Kauffman and Harder,
Anabaptists Four Centuries Later, 302-03.
296
Unger, “The Church ‘Without Spot or Wrinkle,” 168. Tim Geddert elaborates well on the
ongoing challenge of legalism while also warning against the opposite extreme of complete tolerance:
91
observable behaviors such as smoking, drinking, and dancing has been common practice
in Mennonite Brethren ethics throughout their history.
While legalism has declined greatly, there is still an understanding that if
individuals fail to live up to the moral expectations of the religious community, discipline
and even excommunication are valid responses.297 In fact, sociological analysis reveals a
strong affirmation in Mennonite Brethren churches towards accepting the church’s role in
disciplining individuals as a necessary way of remaining accountable to community.298
On the one hand, the continued practice of church discipline can be lauded, evidence that
moral accountability remains a priority. One the other hand, making church discipline a
primary mode of accountability can also perpetuate an unbalanced ethics. By isolating
ethics to the observable moral acts of individuals, Mennonite Brethren accountability
neglects to consider the community’s responsibility to individuals not just in response to
people’s actions, but prior to them as well.299 Considering the moral ambiguity
“Throughout the centuries the spiritual descendants of these early radical reformers have sought to retain
and embody this ‘community-oriented’ understanding of church—sometimes with success, sometimes with
serious failures. At times it has degenerated into one of two extremes. On one side lies the practice of
heartless legalistic church discipline. On the other side, there is an attitude of unbounded tolerance, where
everyone can do as they please. Anabaptist and Mennonite churches, which have tried to follow the radical
reformation path, have found themselves at different times and in different places at every imaginable point
between these extremes.” Geddert, “Living Responsibly: When Christians Need to Decide,” 2005, TMs
(electronic document), 21, obtained via email from the author.
297
As Peter Hamm asserts, “Continued membership requires active participation; and lapse of
vitality or infidelity necessitates the exercise of discipline, including excommunication, by the group.”
Continuity and Change, 68. Similarly, Jost and Faber are unapologetic for this situation, arguing that “while
these rules may seem to border on legalism, they also serve as a reminder that the believer is not to conform
to the world.” Family Matters, 36. Positively, the Confession of Faith is very intentional towards rejecting
legalism, suggesting instead that any approach to church discipline be done in a “redemptive” manner.
“Nature of the Church,” in Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith, 66.
298
Kauffman and Driedger, Mennonite Mosaic, 70-71. The authors’ research reveals that the
religious structures of the Mennonite Brethren have curbed the acceptance of complete autonomy for the
individual in their beliefs, creating a context in which church discipline is upheld.
299
The Mennonite Brethren do show a concern for the community’s role in influencing the
formation of people’s moral values, revealing they are not concerned only with responding to behavior. For
example, the Confession of Faith explicitly states that the community “gives identity to the individual.”
“Nature of the Church: Commentary,” in Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith, 68. My contention, then,
is that in our North American culture, this theme needs to be more prominent in Mennonite Brethren belief
92
individuals confront, the expectation to remain accountable to the community’s standards
is a daunting perspective without the accompanying support of the church in the
process.300 Individuals need others to help comprehend what exactly constitutes faithful
Christian living. It would be helpful, then, if the Mennonite Brethren theology of
“covenant community” could be broadened beyond church discipline and consider the
responsibility of the community to helping people live as faithful disciples.
Lack of ethical consensus
Finally, individualism is also evident in the lack of consensus regarding essential
Mennonite Brethren beliefs on certain ethical issues. Because Mennonite Brethren are
part of a North American culture in which moral tolerance is the norm, consensus on
ethical issues is at times unpopular and often difficult to achieve.301 As a result, certain
tenets once considered fundamental to Mennonite Brethren identity have become ethical
matters in which personal opinion trumps communal agreement. The best example of this
is the decline in accepting nonviolence as a central belief in Mennonite Brethren ethics.
As Peter Hamm indicates, when it comes to nonviolence, there is “only partial
compliance to a doctrine or ethical position to which the church has continuously given
and practice than it presently is.
300
By ‘moral ambiguity,’ I am following Craig Gay’s comment that there is a high degree of
“uncertainty” in modern pluralistic culture, where “questions about the nature of the good…may
understandably be taken to be unanswerable and hence in a certain sense insignificant.” Way of the
(Modern) World, 186. For example, understanding human sexuality from a Christian perspective is no easy
task considering modern culture’s propensity to tolerate all forms of diversity at the expense any moral
guidelines. The church needs to practically address this issue by incorporating a healthy view of sexuality
into their community discipleship.
301
Stephan Ainlay describes this situation well: “As the hierarchical structure of society and
various relationships…has declined, so too has people’s willingness to grant relative authority to others or
even to the institutions they represent.…Individuals become ‘free from’ external control and constraint.”
Ainlay, “Communal Commitment and Individualism,” in Anabaptist-Mennonite Identities in Ferment, eds.
Leo Driedger and Leland Harder (Elkhart, IN: Institute of Mennonite Studies, 1990), 145.
93
lip service.”302 Again, there is an inconsistency between Mennonite Brethren belief and
practice, in this case highlighting how individual choice takes precedence over the
theology of the community.303A way is needed, then, in which the disagreements
individuals have with certain Mennonite Brethren distinctives (e.g. nonviolence) can be
sorted out in genuine dialogue with the community instead of simply allowing personal
opinion to create a situation in which theological consensus on key doctrines is an
unrealistic goal.
Conclusion
This chapter has surveyed how the emphasis on the individual experience of faith
throughout their history has perpetuated individualism in North American Mennonite
Brethren identity. And immersed in an individualistic culture that endorses the individual
freedom to pick and choose religious beliefs and practices, any attempts to balance
Mennonite Brethren identity become increasingly more difficult in the “theological
pluralism…of the Mennonite Mosaic.”304 A more balanced perspective and realization of
individual faith within a community, therefore, could go a long way towards providing a
clearer Mennonite Brethren identity—one in which the balance between individual and
302
Hamm, Continuity and Change, 75-77. Hamm reports that barely over 50% of Mennonite
Brethren believe nonparticipation in war is necessary and less than 50% believe the peace position should
be actively promoted.
303
Another example is the inconsistent acceptance of the Mennonite Brethren theology of church
membership—the belief that while conversion and baptism highlight individual choice, the choice is
intended to lead to identification with a community of faith. One theologian refers to the topic as a
“controversy” within the movement, as certain churches move away from connecting baptism with
identification with the local church while others maintain the practice. See Lynn Jost, “Mennonite Brethren
Theology of Baptism,” Direction 33, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 21.
304
Kauffman and Driedger, Mennonite Mosaic, 271. Speaking to the plurality of theological
influences on Mennonite Brethren identity, one commentator comically defines the group as “pietists,
immersionists, millennialists, Baptists, literalists, legalists, enthusiasts, fundamentalists, separatists,
conversionists, dogmatists, dispensationalists, individualists, revivalists, naïve Biblicists, experientialists,
evangelists, and conservatives.” Hiebert, “The Development of Mennonite Brethren Churches,” 111.
94
community aspects of faith are not just theological abstractions, but accepted beliefs that
are practiced by Mennonite Brethren individuals and churches. In light of this conclusion,
Mennonite Brethren individualism serves as an excellent case study for assessing the
applicability of Stanley Hauerwas’s theology and his demand that the Christian narrative
be concretely represented in the world by the church.

CHAPTER III
CORRECTING MENNONITE BRETHREN INDIVIDUALISM:
THE PERTINENCE OF STANLEY HAUERWAS’S THEOLOGY
Highly influenced by Mennonite theology himself, Stanley Hauerwas is more
than willing to return the favor and offer his own contributions to contemporary
Mennonite thought. In fact, Hauerwas claims that “there are few people to whom I owe
more than the Mennonites, so if my work can help you think through how you are to tell
your stories to be faithful as Mennonites, I will be particularly gratified.”305 So we will
proceed to explore whether or not Hauerwas’s theology can in fact provide such a
contribution towards correcting Mennonite Brethren individualism.
In this chapter I will argue that areas of Hauerwas’s work can help the Mennonite
Brethren find a balance between the individual and community, while other aspects of his
project are better avoided. We will see how the relevant criticism of Hauerwas forces me
to offer a mixed endorsement of his theology, as he only provides the Mennonite Brethren
situation with a partial solution for correcting their predicament. Along the way, I will
place my work in the context of recent Mennonite Brethren scholarship and discuss the
305
Stanley Hauerwas, “Storytelling: A Response to ‘Mennonites on Hauerwas,’” Conrad Grebel
Review 13 (Spring 1995): 166.
95
96
valuable contributions others have already made in the area of Mennonite Brethren
identity.306
In the previous chapter we saw that individualism creates problems for Mennonite
Brethren theology and practice, evident in their understanding of both individual and
corporate identity. In terms of individual identity, Mennonite Brethren individualism was
evident in their overemphasis on the personal experience of faith in soteriology,
ecclesiology, and ethics, placing too much onus on people’s own ability to live christianly
and neglecting a definition of the community’s role in people’s lives beyond responding
to behavior. Individualism affected Mennonite Brethren corporate identity as well, as the
role of community in faithfully representing the Christian faith was neglected. This trend
was apparent in their assimilation to modern North American culture, in which their
urbanization, shift away from ethnic identification, increased denominationalism, and
affinity with evangelicalism contributed to the absence of a clear Mennonite Brethren
corporate identity today—a corporate identity that could serve as an alternative to
individualized conceptions of Mennonite Brethren faith. In this chapter, I will suggest
that by utilizing the category of narrative as Hauerwas proposes, his emphasis on
character ethics and ecclesiology can help reorient the Mennonite Brethren away from
individualism by addressing their identity at both an individual and corporate level. As
mentioned, however, I will show how Hauerwas’s project has limitations in application to
the Mennonite Brethren situation.
306
One source that has been particularly useful for my project has been the Mennonite Brethren
periodical, Direction, an accessible academic resource published in partnership with Mennonite Brethren
academic institutions. Direction has proven to be an invaluable resource, as it provides a rich combination
of academic and pastoral commentary on current Mennonite Brethren issues.
97
I. Stanley Hauerwas and Mennonite Brethren
Individual Identity
My first task is to apply Hauerwas’s emphasis on narrative and character ethics to
the Mennonite Brethren understanding of individual identity in the Christian faith. I will
argue that (a) an application of Hauerwas’s use of narrative can balance Mennonite
Brethren individualism by revealing the external factors that contribute to individual
identity beyond individual choice; and (b) by adopting Hauerwas’s character ethics,
individualism in Mennonite Brethren personal morality can be corrected by
acknowledging that ethics incorporates character formation in the context of community,
not just an examination of external behaviors.
A. Narrative Identity and the Individual
We saw in the previous chapter that individualism is present in Mennonite
Brethren theology and practice in their overemphasis on the individual experience of the
Christian faith. Additionally, in North America the Mennonite Brethren are immersed in a
culture that celebrates individual autonomy, often at the expense of commitment and
accountability to others. As a result, Mennonite Brethren individuals are prone to
adopting a consumeristic approach to Christian identity—an approach in which
individual choice is the sole guide in identity formation. We also saw that a contributing
factor in Mennonite Brethren individualism was their overemphasis on the personal
experience of salvation both in conversion and the subsequent assurance of that salvation.
And while a commitment to the church is not ignored, it has been greatly understated in
both their belief and practice. The individual remains primary in defining faith. The
98
Mennonite Brethren, therefore, need to see that their understanding of individual identity
lacks an acknowledgment of how that identity is shaped beyond individual choice. The
question is can Hauerwas help the situation and aid in better defining Mennonite Brethren
individual identity?
To be sure, I am not calling for a complete reversal of the situation—the loss of
the individual emphasis altogether. My intention is to restore the balance as to how
individuals understand their identity as Mennonite Brethren and the role community
plays in that, exploring how Hauerwas can help them be more faithful to the biblical
example and their Anabaptist heritage.307 I believe Hauerwas’s emphasis on narrative can
at least help towards restoring some of this balance.
One way to envision a new understanding of Mennonite Brethren individual
identity is to accept that individual identity is in part formed by external factors.
Essentially, people participate in a complex narrative consisting of many factors—events
in the past, present, and future that combine to influence the formation of individual
identity. This formation, Hauerwas insists, includes the narrative of the communities in
which people participate.308 I want to focus here, then, on how a renewed understanding
of the Mennonite Brethren narrative can counter their individualism, recognizing how the
tradition has and continues to shape people’s identity.309 So when the Mennonite Brethren
307
In making my intention clear to restore balance and not remove the individual emphasis
altogether, I am following the approach of Mark Baker. Baker states that countering individualism does not
mean we “simply talk a little more about community and a little less about individuals. A qualitative, not
just quantitative, change is needed.” Religious No More: Building Communities of Grace and Freedom
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999; reprint, Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2005), 152.
In this section, then, I am exploring how Hauerwas offers a “qualitative” shift in the Mennonite Brethren
method for defining individual identity.
308
Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), 28.
309
There is an abundance of accessible resources that churches and individuals can access in order
to gain a better understanding of the Mennonite Brethren story. For a recent account of Mennonite Brethren
99
profess that “in the New Testament the whole is always prior to the individual and gives
identity to the individual,” this emphasis should not only represent people’s relationships
in the local church, but their relationship with the Mennonite Brethren historical narrative
as well.310
Accepting Hauerwas’s proposal to incorporate narrative in defining Mennonite
Brethren individual identity will inevitably be a complex project. The process of
engaging the Mennonite Brethren narrative will be affected by the context in which it is
undertaken. For instance, individuals who have grown up in the Mennonite Brethren
tradition will need to examine how that tradition has been an influential factor throughout
their whole lives, assessing how their distinct family history and personal faith journey
has shaped who they are today. At the same time, however, people who identify with the
Mennonite Brethren tradition later in life will have to take a much different approach.
They will have the difficult task of not only understanding their own narrative history, but
then relating that history to the Mennonite Brethren tradition and analyzing how the
various narratives relate and integrate to form their identity now as Mennonite Brethren.
It is clear that a narrative understanding of individual identity is not a uniform project, as
each situation presents its own array of challenges. In terms of Hauerwas’s project, this
variety affirms his belief that there is no universal or ahistorical form for defining
Christian identity. So for the Mennonite Brethren to develop a stronger foundation for
distinctives that includes a brief historical account of the movement, see Lynn Jost and Connie Faber,
Family Matters: Discovering the Mennonite Brethren (Winnipeg, MB: Kindred Production, 2002).
Additionally, the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches publishes a pamphlet series that
presents a balanced perspective on Mennonite Brethren theology and contemporary issues. See Board of
Faith and Life, eds., Mennonite Brethren Faith and Life Pamphlet Series (Winnipeg, MB: Canadian
Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches, n.d.).
310
“Nature of the Church: Commentary,” in Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith:
Commentary and Pastoral Application (Winnipeg: Kindred Productions, 2000), 68.
100
individual identity, accepting the difficulty involved with identity formation is a
necessary step towards countering individualism. It prepares people for the lifelong task
of continually defining their identity in relation to the several narratives in which their
individual story unfolds.
Aspects of Hauerwas’s theology can help in an assessment of the Mennonite
Brethren narrative and individual identity. One aspect of individualism in the Mennonite
Brethren narrative that Hauerwas’s theology can help correct is their soteriology. We saw
that the Mennonite Brethren displayed an overemphasis on individual conversion and the
assurance of salvation. One asset from Hauerwas’s project towards responding to these
problems is his understanding of salvation and Christian freedom. As opposed to
Christian freedom mirroring the individual autonomy proposed by modern culture—an
approach to personhood that disavows reliance on others—we recall that Hauerwas
defines freedom differently. Freedom, according to Hauerwas, is not people’s detachment
from all external ties, but the opportunity for them to embrace their identity as Christians.
Choice refers to people’s acceptance that God is the source of identity, not the ability to
autonomously choose how they will define themselves. Christians are not only free from
something, therefore, but are free to be something. And for Hauerwas the freedom
individuals receive allows them to live as God intends them to live—as disciples of
Christ in the community of faith, living out God’s mission in the world.311 Rather than
primarily emphasizing the individual benefits of salvation as the Mennonite Brethren are
prone to doing, Hauerwas’s definition of freedom challenges their individualistic
311
Hauerwas argues that “salvation cannot be limited to changed self-understanding or to ensuring
meaningful existence for the individual. Salvation is God’s creation of a new society that invites each
person to become part of a time that the nations cannot provide.” “The Church as God’s New Language,” in
The Hauerwas Reader, eds., John Berkman and Michael Cartwright (Durham, NC: Duke University Press,
2001), 144.
101
soteriology by stressing that the gift of salvation is the identity people receive from God
that encompasses their whole lives, not just their conversion experience or feeling of
assurance.
Hauerwas’s view of freedom also tests Mennonite Brethren voluntaryist
ecclesiology—a theology which we know can be individualistic by giving too much
attention to people’s choice of faith, a process highlighted by the profession of Christ
followed by baptism. Hauerwas is actually quite critical of the emphasis on individual
choice in Anabaptist ecclesiology, especially as it relates to community membership of
those who are unable to consciously choose their faith, such as the mentally disabled.312
His contention is that emphasizing individual choice can detract from the reality that our
identity is foremost from God, creating a situation in which individuals are the primary
subject of faith. In contrast, Hauerwas’s view of freedom implies a re-ordering of the
Christian experience, one in which the choice of faith itself does not supersede the
product of what people are choosing, namely, the church community. Freedom, therefore,
is the gift we receive as we are possessed by our faith and incorporated into the
community representing it. Or as Mark Baker reminds us, Christian freedom implies “an
increased level of Christian commitment; it is freedom for community.”313 So instead of
individualism pervading their voluntaryism, Hauerwas’s definition of freedom balances

312
Hauerwas comments that “believers’ baptism invites presumptions that the baptized must
‘know what they are doing,’ which in modernity makes the agent of this act the one being baptized rather
than God. My problem with believers’ baptism has always been what it does for those we unhappily call the
‘mentally handicapped.’ If the issue, as Yoder argues, is the question of the baptized being accountable to
the church, I do not see why the profoundly mentally handicapped cannot be baptized and held accountable
in using their gifts on behalf of the church. The body into which we are baptized is not the individualized
body we think of as ‘ours,’ but rather Christ's body.” “Confessions of a Mennonite Camp Follower,”
Mennonite Quarterly Review 74, no. 4 (Oct 2000): 521.
313
Baker, Religious No More, 159 (emphasis mine). Elsewhere, Baker comments that salvation is
not solely an individual matter, as “to be justified is to be placed in proper relationship to God, to be made a
full participant in the community of God’s people. The individualistic image of a heavenly ledger book is
incorrect,” 102.
102
Mennonite Brethren ecclesiology by pushing them to accept that the primary subject in
defining church membership is not the individual but the church. In these terms,
voluntary choice is recognition of identity as God intends it to be—the recognition that
God has formed individuals to be in community.
B. Character Ethics and Mennonite Brethren Personal Morality
Hauerwas’s proposal for individual identity being formed by people’s narratives
and communities also has specific implications for individualism in Mennonite Brethren
ethics. As we saw in the previous chapter, the Mennonite Brethren have traditionally
emphasized the importance of personal morality, focusing in particular on the observable
behavior of individuals. As a result, too much emphasis is placed on people’s own ability
to navigate the moral challenges of modern North American culture, and the community’s
role is limited to responding to behavior via church discipline. Hauerwas, as we saw,
presents an alternative approach to ethics with his emphasis on character—an approach to
morality that notes the importance of seeking the intelligibility of moral actions in the
context of narrative and community. Hauerwas’s ethics challenges the Mennonite
Brethren to balance the importance of consistent Christian behavior with a valuing of
character formation in the community of faith.
We recall from Hauerwas that a major component to assessing the intelligibility of
people’s ethics is the community’s role in helping them interpret the relationship between
their identity and their actions. We know that individuals must accept their development
in the context of narrative and community, but the flipside is that the community should
103
also accept responsibility for being that context—the privilege of being “co-authors” of
individual identity.314
While Hauerwas would do well to specify more clearly how character formation
is applied, a look at the Mennonite Brethren can provide insight into what an application
of his character ethics may entail. We recall that the Mennonite Brethren have “defined
sin very often in terms of acts rather than in terms of attitudes and disposition,” failing to
clarify the community’s role in equipping people to live morally and thus revealing a
“lopsided…ethical emphasis.”315 Traditionally focused on responding to people’s actions,
Hauerwas challenges Mennonite Brethren accountability to broaden to include character
formation. Quite simply, accountability for actions is mutual; people are responsible to
act in accordance with their character as a disciple, while the community of faith is
responsible to form that character in individual’s lives.
Now, to be sure, the practice of church discipline as a response to people’s sin can
still remain integral to Mennonite Brethren ethics and the community’s responsibility to
individuals. In fact, considering the individualistic trend away from any moral
accountability, a belief and practice in “redemptive church discipline” can help people
recognize that Christian morality is anything but a matter of individual practice.316 For as
Walter Unger comments, “church discipline, although weakened in practice, still remains
a part of [Mennonite Brethren] understanding of church membership. Further
retrenchment on this matter will have deleterious effects. Surely past abuses, as painful as
314
Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 3d ed., (Notre Dame: University of
Notre Dame Press, 2007), 213.
315
John A. Toews, “Past, Present, and Future,” 173-74.
316
“Nature of the Church,” in Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith, 66.
104
they were, do not mean that we replace bad church discipline with no church
discipline.”317 At the same time, however, a renewal in the practice of church discipline is
no easy task, especially when legalism has left an unfortunate legacy in the lives of many
Mennonite Brethren individuals in which the thought of accountability to the church
brings back bitter memories.318 It is appropriate, therefore, to take seriously how
accountability may be recovered in Mennonite Brethren churches in a way that
acknowledges past failures, but does not drop accountability all together. The challenge
for applying moral accountability, as Unger implores his fellow Mennonite Brethren to
consider, is “How might we recover this dimension in our churches in our individualistic
age?”319 By introducing Hauerwas’s character ethics, I am suggesting that the Mennonite
Brethren adopt a more holistic understanding of moral accountability that actively seeks
ways to incorporate the community in the formation of individual’s identity.
One way the Mennonite Brethren could be more explicit in incorporating
Hauerwas’s emphasis on character formation is to follow the suggestion of Mark Baker,
who proposes a shift for evaluating people’s morality within the church. Baker rejects a
“bounded” view of community affiliation in which behaviors define people’s membership
in the group—a practice we saw the Mennonite Brethren fall prey to in their legalism.320
317
Walter Unger, “The Church ‘Without Spot or Wrinkle’: Testing the Tradition,” Direction 33, no.
1 (Spring 2004): 43.
318
Tim Geddert reflects on the difficult nature of applying church discipline in Anabaptist
churches who recall the abuses that have occurred in the past. He comments that in the area of Anabaptist
ethics, there is “a legacy of strict legalism and harsh church discipline. Some of us have experienced it,
others have only heard about it with horror. We’ve become allergic to anything that resembles that. ‘Never
again!’ we say with emphasis. And so we fellowship together, but carefully avoid any comments on what
might be right or wrong for other people, regardless of how diverse our views and our lifestyles may be.
And now someone thinks we should be discerning together which ethical guidelines we are going to live
by? No thanks!” “Living Responsibly: When Christians Need to Decide,” 2005, TMs (electronic
document), 21, obtained via email from the author.
319
Unger, “The Church ‘Without Spot or Wrinkle,’” 44.
320
Baker, Religious No More 188-89.
105
The alternative is a “centered” evaluation of people’s morality, considering how the
complexity of their whole lives is directed towards God—the center from which all
people find life.321 The shift in Baker’s proposal is away from determining group
membership solely on the basis of observable behavior towards acknowledging that it is
foremost our identity from God—identity directed towards Jesus as the center—that
defines individual identity in the community of faith. Accountability for behavior,
therefore, occurs with the community’s examination of how people’s actions reflect their
own narrative, and in particular, their narrative as Christians. Behavior, then, is assessed
in relation to people’s direction towards the “center.” For example, responding to the
problem of alcoholism, while including an exhortation against the behavior itself, would
focus on how that behavior is inconsistent with a life directed towards Jesus. By
encouraging Christians to consider the ramifications of alcohol abuse beyond just the
morality of the behavior itself, the process of accountability pushes them to consider how
their behavior is unfaithful to Christian identity. A refusal to recognize this connection
and take necessary steps towards recovery would then precipitate an employment of
church discipline, but only after the community has exercised its role in pointing out the
connection between behavior and identity. Accountability, therefore, involves the process
of developing in people the ability to view their actions in relation to God’s narrative in
their lives.
We see, then, that the Mennonite Brethren provide a practical example for testing
the applicability of Hauerwas’s character ethics, an area lacking in his own work.
Considering Hauerwas’s hesitance to provide universal strategies for churches to employ,
321
Ibid.
106
his project would be more viable if he himself would engage examples of what his
character formation specifically looks like, instead of leaving the task up to others as I
have explored here with the Mennonite Brethren.
Overall, I submit that Hauerwas’s character ethics can aid in revising Mennonite
Brethren views on individual identity, even if his own application of such a construct is
currently absent. In a North American Mennonite Brethren situation where legalism is the
legacy and moral laxity a growing trend, we have seen that Hauerwas’s character ethics
balances Mennonite Brethren emphases in highlighting how the community plays an
integral role both in people’s identity formation and in their moral living. Stating the
importance of Mennonite Brethren individuals finding their identity from community,
however, addresses only the individual within the community. To balance the individual-
community scale, therefore, the rest of the chapter will discuss how Mennonite Brethren
corporate identity can also serve as an example for testing the implications of Hauerwas’s
work.
II. Stanley Hauerwas and Mennonite Brethren
Corporate Identity
With Hauerwas’s insistence that Christian ethics be considered in the context of
particular communities, an examination of the Mennonite Brethren community can serve
as a fitting example for assessing the viability of his project. Hauerwas’s insistence that
the church is the primary context for understanding the Christian faith can motivate the
Mennonite Brethren to develop a stronger corporate identity to accompany their emphasis
on the individual, creating a more balanced view of Christian identity. When it comes to
107
responding to Mennonite Brethren individualism, a strong corporate identity challenges
members to recognize that the role of community is a necessary accompaniment to a
vibrant personal faith. In this section, I will argue that an application of Hauerwas’s
ecclesiology only goes so far to correcting Mennonite Brethren individualism. I will
show that (a) a narrative approach to Hauerwas’s ecclesiology can help the Mennonite
Brethren aim towards achieving an individual-community balance by solidifying their
corporate identity; and (b) that Hauerwas’s polarizing church-world distinction and lack
of practical application leads to a conception of the church’s engagement that the
Mennonite Brethren are better off without. And again, while Hauerwas’s concepts are
helpful, the application is notably absent.
A. Narrative and the Mennonite Brethren Community
We know from Hauerwas that churches find their identity in the biblical narrative
and must constantly remind themselves what it means to be faithful to that narrative. But
for the Mennonite Brethren a clear corporate identity has been difficult to maintain,
evident in their ongoing “identity crisis” as a movement.322 Immersed in a pluralistic
culture of competing religions and moralities, the Mennonite Brethren have not avoided
their own form of pluralism. Whether it is the lack of consensus on key aspects of
Anabaptist theology or the confusion over their relationship to mainstream
evangelicalism, the Mennonite Brethren have struggled in their North American context
to maintain a distinct corporate identity that combines the plurality of influences that
have formed who they are. One result of the absent corporate identity, as we know, is that
322
Peter Hamm, “Assimilation and Identity Crisis,” in Continuity and Change—Among Canadian
Mennonite Brethren (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1987), 226-43.
108
the individual experience of faith is unhealthily overemphasized, resulting in a high
degree of individualism—the personal experience of faith is the primary expression of the
Christian life. In light of the confused and unbalanced corporate identity, the movement
needs to clarify its corporate identity so as to restore the individual-community balance,
to which project I propose Hauerwas can be of some assistance.
Just as Hauerwas challenges individuals to engage their narratives as a way of
refining their identity, his project also insists that communities assess the historical
narrative from which their specific values and beliefs are formed. And considering the
absence of a clear corporate Mennonite Brethren identity, Hauerwas’s insistence on
engaging narrative is a timely reminder towards correcting their problem. Again, we
know that Hauerwas argues that identity—in this case the identity of whole community—
is historically rooted and is represented by the complex historical narratives everyone
finds themselves in. Additionally, Hauerwas contends that in order to develop a faithful
Christian corporate identity, the biblical narrative must be the norm through which groups
assess their own historical narrative and how it is faithfully represented presently. For the
Mennonite Brethren, they must acknowledge, in the words of Hauerwas, that their
“tradition is not a ‘deposit’ of unchanging moral ‘truth,’ but is made up of the lives of
men and women who are constantly testing and developing that tradition through their
own struggle to live it.”323 The value of Hauerwas’s contribution to helping develop a
clearer Mennonite Brethren corporate identity, therefore, is in motivating them to take
their distinct narrative more seriously. In doing this narrative assessment, the Mennonite
Brethren can evaluate whether or not their history and present situation faithfully reflect
God’s call for them. Such an assessment of Mennonite Brethren history means specific
323
Hauerwas, “On Keeping Theological Ethics Theological,” in The Hauerwas Reader, 71.
109
areas of their complex past will need to be judged as a way of clarifying their corporate
identity now.
Mennonite Brethren history has included a broad range of formative influences,
ranging from the dedication of the early reformers in their Anabaptist roots to the impact
of Pietists and Baptists in their Russian origins, and continuing with the effects of their
North American assimilation as they are influenced by forces of modernization along
with other groups such as evangelicals. Engaging these aspects of the Mennonite
Brethren narrative helps reveal whether their present identity is faithful to both the
biblical narrative and their Anabaptist heritage, as it exposes certain patterns that have
formed who they are today. What is needed, then, is a balanced approach to
understanding Mennonite Brethren history, theology, and ethics—an approach that can
highlight the positive aspects of Mennonite Brethren identity while revealing the areas
that need correction, all as a way of moving towards a clearer definition of the Mennonite
Brethren community as a way of providing balance to their individual emphases.324
Hauerwas does not provide a specific model for how communities can assess their
own history. Like other areas of his work, he suggests a change is needed, but neglects to
show how such a change may be accomplished. I want to propose, however, that the type
of narrative engagement that Hauerwas encourages is already evident in the Mennonite
Brethren community, from which I would like to focus on the work of Bruce Guenther.325
324
As Jim Westgate proposes, we must learn to “exegete the church” by examining its history and
complex relationship to the surrounding world. “The Challenge of Being a Community Church in a
Commuter Culture,” in Out of the Strange Silence: The Challenge of Being Christian in the 21st Century,
ed. Brad Thiessen (Winnipeg: MB Biblical Seminary and Kindred Productions, 2005), 156-57.
325
Dr. Bruce L. Guenther is Associate Professor of Church History and Mennonite Studies at
ACTS Seminaries, Langley, B.C., Canada. In addition to teaching Mennonite Brethren seminarians,
Guenther continuously offers his expertise in the specific area of Mennonite Brethren history, theology and
culture, both through the publication of various essays and regular speaking engagements across North
America. Besides Guenther, other contemporary scholars of Mennonite Brethren identity are Paul Toews
and Richard Kyle. See Paul Toews, ed., Bridging Troubled Waters: The Mennonite Brethren at Mid-
110
In a recent essay, Guenther helpfully summarizes various approaches to historical
scholarship in defining Mennonite Brethren corporate identity, and suggests his own
proposal for the task.326 I find his proposal for navigating Mennonite Brethren identity in
the twenty-first century to be a fine example of engaging the narrative of tradition in a
manner consistent with Hauerwas’s project. Guenther’s approach is particularly relevant,
I believe, in rejecting what he terms the “heresy of contemporaneity,” which is the
acceptance of a generic ahistorical interpretation of the Christian faith that ignores the
complexities of the historical context from which any given theology arises.327 For the
Mennonite Brethren, the temptation, as we have already seen, is to uncritically align
themselves with certain “heresies” in modern North American culture that betray both
their Anabaptist roots and their biblical foundations, accepting instead a generic approach
to Christian identity that elevates personal experience at the expense of community
commitment. Instead of attempting to provide a general, ahistorical definition of
Mennonite Brethren corporate identity, Guenther’s approach insists on engaging their
historical narrative as a necessary component to defining the movement today.
Methodologically, Guenther proposes the use of “polygenesis historiography,” an
approach to history that acknowledges the plurality of situations, ideas and values from
which a group’s present identity arises.328 Recognizing such a diverse background in their
own history forces the Mennonite Brethren community to acknowledge that corporate
Century (Winnipeg: Kindred Productions, 1995); ed., Pilgrims and Strangers : Essays in Mennonite
Brethren History (Fresno: Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies, 1977); and Richard G. Kyle, From Sect
to Denomination: Church Types and their Implications for Mennonite Brethren History (Hillsboro, KS:
Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies, 1985).
326
Bruce L. Guenther, “Rediscovering the Value of History and Tradition,” in Out of the Strange
Silence, 185-200.
327
Ibid., 186.
328
Ibid., 195.
111
identity cannot simply be left to chance lest problems such as individualism become
accepted. Rather, examining their history in the manner that Guenther proposes should
involve the intentional process of wrestling with how their diverse background forms
their self-understanding today. Guenther’s concluding comments helpfully summarize the
importance of such an approach to contemporary Mennonite Brethren identity:
If Mennonite Brethren leaders are interested in giving credibility to their claim to be, among
other things, Anabaptist, they will need to wrestle more substantively with the implications of
polygenesis historiography. In addition to giving direction and meaning to the internal
discussions about an evangelical-Anabaptist identity, particularly in view of the theological
diversity that exists within the denomination, a more careful consideration of a polygenesis
historiography will also lay a foundation for a more constructive dialogue with other traditions
that have descended from the Anabaptist movement.329
One can hope that the Mennonite Brethren community will heed Guenther’s call for such
a critical engagement, recognizing that the diversity in their history can guide them
towards developing a clearer corporate identity. If we return to individualism, the issue
must be addressed in all of its complexity, recognizing the positive aspects of individual
faith in Mennonite Brethren history as well as the negative factors that contributed to
individualism. Such an approach could help correct Mennonite Brethren individualism by
seeking a response to each particular challenge associated with it. Ideally, an appreciation
of how the Mennonite Brethren narrative shapes their beliefs today will provide “an asset
for building unified and committed communities,” countering the movement’s prevailing
individualism.330
One addendum to emphasizing the narrative approach to understanding
Mennonite Brethren corporate identity is to recognize the danger of becoming a
329
Ibid.
330
Eliza Mok, “A Direction Lens on the Mennonite Brethren,” Direction 31, no. 2 (Fall 2002):
221.
112
withdrawn community in the process of introspection, particularly when we consider the
critiques of Hauerwas from chapter one. In order to avoid adopting an isolated self-
understanding by engaging only their own community’s narrative, the Mennonite
Brethren should also engage the alternative traditions of the surrounding culture.
When it comes to Mennonite Brethren engaging narratives beyond their own,
Alasdair MacIntyre is able to save Hauerwas’s project from becoming overly isolated. We
know that MacIntyre demands that traditions critique themselves not only in relation to
their own narrative, but also in relation to the other traditions they find themselves
alongside.331 Recognizing that the Mennonite Brethren have a history of interacting with
other traditions, MacIntyre’s approach is quite appropriate for their situation. To begin,
MacIntyre’s framework actually encourages the Mennonite Brethren to continue what
they have already been doing—interacting with other traditions in defining their identity.
At the same time, however, MacIntyre’s project pushes the Mennonite Brethren to take
their interaction with outsiders seriously, analyzing what areas are positive and what
should be rejected. Instead of simply accepting the influence of other traditions,
MacIntyre’s proposal challenges the Mennonite Brethren to avoid accepting aspects of
alternative traditions that are unfaithful to God’s intention for them as a community. In
sum, MacIntyre’s work in the area of competing traditions serves to affirm the pluralistic
reality of Mennonite Brethren identity, while at the same time encouraging the
movement, as we also saw in Guenther, to critically examine how their diverse
background has formed who they are now.
331
Alasdair MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1988), 326-403.
113
Central to continually assessing a community’s narrative, as well as competing
ones, is to constantly be reminded of the ultimate source of a Christian community’s
identity—God’s narrative as revealed in scripture and exemplified by Christ. In
particular, Hauerwas’s theology of worship is one area in which his project helps the
Mennonite Brethren understand how they are shaped by God’s narrative.
As you will recall, according to Hauerwas, corporate worship is a reminder of
what it means for individuals and the gathered community to participate in God’s
narrative—the story of God’s kingdom in the world. We also remember that Hauerwas is
open about his indebtedness to Mennonite theology in many regards. Their approach to
corporate worship, however, is one exception to Hauerwas’s appreciation. In fact,
Hauerwas makes the following critique: “If I were forced to name any aspect of
Mennonite life that I find problematic, it would be how Mennonites worship. Mennonite
hymnody is obviously a great resource, but I have found Mennonite liturgy generally to
be rationalistic and aesthetically thin.”332 Hauerwas sees a lack of theological depth in
Mennonite worship in their failure to direct the community’s worship towards Christ,
evident in the infrequent practice of the Eucharist. Thus, he claims, “Mennonites need to
consider, in a manner faithful to Mennonite life, why Word and Table cannot be
separated.”333 For Hauerwas, the worship gathering must include a liturgy that reflects
who the church is—a community called by Christ being the focal point of that identity.
332
Hauerwas, “Confessions of a Mennonite Camp Follower,” 521.
333
Ibid., 521-22. Hauerwas continues to discuss the Eucharist, stating that “I also think that the
Mennonite practice—or the absence of the practice—threatens to makes Mennonites' lives unintelligible.
The Eucharist is not the sacrifice we make to an eternally angry God to try to buy ourselves some time;
rather, the Eucharist is the good news that God would have us included in Christ's sacrifice for the world so
that the world may have an alternative to pointless and endless sacrifice.”
114
The worship gathering is the community’s chance to “attune themselves” to God’s
narrative in order to be able to live out their identity faithfully.334
While Mennonite Brethren worship has traditionally focused on biblical
preaching and the individual’s personal response to it, interestingly, there has recently
been a trend towards adopting a more intentional liturgy in a manner similar to
Hauerwas’s prescription. For instance, at least one Mennonite Brethren church is
experimenting with the practice of “Anabaptist liturgical spirituality,” where there is
renewal in directing the worship gathering towards the Lord’s Table more regularly, with
a particular insistence on “a genuine focus on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus,
and the gift of the Spirit, to and for the Church, in communion with God and one
another.”335 An Anabaptist liturgy provides the format for Mennonite Brethren
congregations to be reminded of their identity, both in their relation to God’s mission as
revealed in the biblical narrative and to their Anabaptist heritage. As Hauerwas would
say, Mennonite Brethren liturgical worship is the context in which they can begin
“performing the faith”—practicing how it looks to faithfully reflect the story of God.336
The value of intentionally utilizing worship as the time to remind the Mennonite Brethren
community of its identity is that “crafting liturgy appropriate for the Anabaptist vision of
334
Stanley Hauerwas and James Foder, “Performing Faith: The Peaceable Rhetoric of God’s
Church,” in Performing the Faith: Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence (Grand Rapids: Brazos
Press, 2004), 97-98. The authors use the analogy of performance in relation to time as a way of illustrating
the role of worship. It is in the experience of the liturgy “where Christians most learn about the movements
of God’s time”—a chance to reorient themselves towards “God’s eschatological horizon.”
335
Gay Lynn Voth, “Anabaptist Liturgical Spirituality and the Supper of Christ,” Direction 34,
no.1 (Spring 2005), http://www.directionjournal.org/article/?1373 (accessed May 2, 2008). The basis for
this article is Voth’s positive experience participating in the formation of a liturgical worship service at
Bakerview Mennonite Brethren Church, Abbotsford, B.C.
336
This is the title of Hauerwas’s recent publication, Performing the Faith. Here he comments,
along with James Foder, that “the regular, continual pattern of gathering for worship may be viewed as the
church’s rehearsal. Worship thus becomes the performance before the performance, a preparation
beforehand for whatever witness the church might be called upon to give,” (“Performing Faith,” 98).
115
church necessitates an exploration of how to embody the story we want to tell as
Anabaptists.”337 Countering an individualistic approach to worship in which each person
is a consumer of the religious services provided by their local church, the recent shift
towards Mennonite Brethren liturgical worship places the emphasis on beginning to
understand what it means to be faithful to God’s story as a community.338 Such a shift can
restore a sense of Mennonite Brethren corporate identity by reorienting them towards
what it means to be faithful both to their own narrative and to God’s.339
B. Mennonite Brethren Theology of Culture
Simply assessing the Mennonite Brethren narrative and asserting a more
intentional integration of the biblical narrative, however, is not adequate by itself for
developing a corporate identity. We know from Hauerwas that the church’s identity must
be embodied in the world, as its faithfulness hinges on concretely representing God’s
kingdom, not just understanding it. Hauerwas’s work is evidence that an ongoing critique
of the church’s relationship to the surrounding culture must always accompany any
question of Christian identity, because while it is the biblical narrative from which the
church draws its ideal, it can never fully escape its presence in the narrative of society as
337
Michelle Ferguson, “Anabaptist Liturgy: An Oxymoron?” Direction 36, no.1 (Spring 2007),
http://www.directionjournal.org/article/?1461 (accessed April 25, 2008). See her companion article,
“Anabaptist Liturgy: Sacramental Theology,” Direction 36, no. 2 (Fall 2007): 247-57.
338
Jonathan Janzen and Ryan Dueck summarize the problem of a consumer approach to church,
stating that “surrounded by choices everywhere, when deciding which church to attend, we apply roughly
the same criteria we use when picking a movie at Blockbuster: What do I want? Will it meet my need for
excitement, entertainment, escape?” “Buyer Beware: Consumerism Contains Toxic Substances Harmful to
Faith,” Mennonite Brethren Herald 47, no. 1 (Jan 2008): 10.
339
In my opinion, unlike past attempts to define Mennonite Brethren worship, the trend towards
Anabaptist liturgy directs the focus away from musical style. Instead, pursuing faithful worship is
dependent on whatever style is appropriate for each particular congregation as they seek through the use of
liturgy to direct the focus of their gatherings towards Christ.
116
well. And as we saw from Hauerwas, the church’s presence in society necessitates a
critical assessment of how Christianity and modern culture are related. A major task for
the Mennonite Brethren, then, is to assess how they have related and continue to relate to
the North American culture in which they find themselves. Basically, the Mennonite
Brethren need to develop a theology of culture: “a comprehensive theological
understanding of the world and the Christian role in it.”340
Although Hauerwas does not explicitly refer to his project as a theology of
culture, his critique of culture and exposition on the church’s role in culture is exactly
that. I will argue, then, that Hauerwas’s theology of culture is both helpful and unhelpful
when considering Mennonite Brethren cultural engagement. On the one hand,
Hauerwas’s view of the church’s role in the world helps remind the Mennonite Brethren
that their primary allegiance should be to God’s call for them as a community,
challenging them to examine areas where they have perhaps been unfaithful in their
cultural engagement. On the other hand, however, Hauerwas’s unwillingness to engage in
practical solutions for how the church should exist within modern culture proves quite
unhelpful for developing a culturally-engaged Mennonite Brethren theology of culture.
And his dogmatic church-world distinction only hinders this application, failing to
340
John G. Stackhouse Jr., Making the Best of It: Following Christ in the Real World (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2008), 4. Amidst the Mennonite Brethren identity issues has been the absence of a
working theology of culture. The closest thing to a distinct summary of a Mennonite Brethren theology of
culture is in their confession of faith, but is directed primarily to the church’s relationship to government.
See “Society and State,” Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith, 131. On a pastoral level, the conference
pamphlets address specific cultural issues from a Mennonite Brethren perspective, but none are presenting
a conclusive framework for a theology of culture. See Mennonite Brethren Faith and Life Pamphlet Series.
Additionally, John H. Redekop has published his own thoughts on the topic of Christianity and politics, but
by no means does his work represent a united Mennonite Brethren theology of culture. See Politics Under
God (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 2007). More recently there has been an attempt to address the topic of a
Mennonite Brethren theology of culture through a denominational study-conference, “Culture, Gospel, and
Church,” 11-13 October 2007, Abbotsford, B.C. For an overview of the conference, see Barrie McMaster,
“Study Conference Begins Conversation,” Mennonite Brethren Herald 46, no. 12 (December 2007): 16. All
of these examples reveal that discussion about a Mennonite Brethren theology of culture is ongoing, but has
yet to coalesce into a more comprehensive approach that would be representative of the whole Mennonite
Brethren community.
117
acknowledge God’s work outside of the church and leading to a culturally-withdrawn
vision for the church that the Mennonite Brethren are better off without. It is these two
aspects of applying Hauerwas to a Mennonite Brethren theology of culture that I will now
discuss.
1. Faithfulness of the church
We recall that for Hauerwas the church’s primary task is not cultural relevance,
but faithful representation of God’s narrative as revealed in Jesus Christ through
scripture, an aspect of his ecclesiology I referred to as the church “as itself.” A major
focus in Hauerwas’s theology of culture is his insistence on the church’s faithfulness
amidst a sinful world, a situation in which he states, “The church’s main task is to be
what we are—God’s salvation.”341 If we consider that a major factor in the absence of a
clear Mennonite Brethren corporate identity is the challenge of assimilation to North
American culture, then Hauerwas’s demand to place faithfulness at the forefront of
cultural engagement encourages the Mennonite Brethren to evaluate the degree to which
they should accept their assimilation. In particular, it is especially important to assess
how Mennonite Brethren faithfulness is affected by their denominationalism and
evangelical affiliation, as both these aspects of modern North American culture have
perpetuated the individualism I am addressing.
When it comes to evaluating Mennonite Brethren denominationalism, we know
that while certain benefits should not be discounted, one problem has been the decline in
lay participation that has accompanied the professionalization of ministry. The danger, as
341
Stanley Hauerwas, After Christendom? How the Church is to Behave if Freedom, Justice, and a
Christian Nation are Bad Ideas (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991), 44.
118
we saw, is that faith becomes a private matter—an experience no longer shared in the life
of the church. This problem is especially important to address considering the Mennonite
Brethren theology that affirms the “priesthood of all believers”—a theology that is clearly
not always practiced as the decline in lay participation reveals.342 This assessment
exposes an incongruent relationship between Mennonite Brethren ecclesiology and what
they actually practice in their churches.
Now, towards evaluating the problem of inconsistency in their theology and
practice that results from the professionalization of ministry, I suggest that one area of
controversy is the Mennonite Brethren use of church growth strategies. Like many
denominations, the Mennonite Brethren were greatly influenced by church growth
movements in the latter part of the twentieth century.343 The church growth movement
emphasizes that churches apply the tools of successful business strategies to their own
ministries as a way of achieving success. It is assumed, however, that business strategies
can easily translate into the ministries of the church. And while certain aspects of those
strategies have proven quite useful towards faithfully living out God’s call in specific
situations, the challenge comes when the church’s faithfulness is confused with success
from a business standard.344 Just because a church experiences numerical growth or is
deemed “popular” in a certain community does not automatically ensure their
342
Richard G. Kyle, From Sect to Denomination: Church Types and their Implications for
Mennonite Brethren History (Hillsboro, KS: Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies, 1985), 133.
343
For a discussion of the Mennonite Brethren and the popular church growth movement of the
late twentieth century, see Herb Kopp, “Biblical Perspectives of Church Growth which Mennonite Brethren
Should Embrace,” Direction 20, no. 2 (Fall 1991): 50-65.
344
When I refer to the usefulness of business strategies for specific churches, I am thinking
especially of the stress to analyze the “target market” for any church ministry. Although I would prefer a
better term that recognizes the aims of ministry beyond abstract “targets,” the sociological tools provided
by business strategies in assessing the demographics in particular situations can prove quite useful in
achieving a familiarity with the surrounding culture and in meeting the needs of that specific context.
119
faithfulness, as it may be that the church had to circumvent aspects of God’s call for them
in order to achieve a certain level of success. Achieving growth at the expense of meeting
pertinent social needs in the community would be one example of neglecting faithfulness
at the expense of church growth. If Hauerwas’s demand for faithfulness directing cultural
interaction was adopted, then each church would be forced to critically evaluate their use
of church growth strategies, taking seriously whether or not specific areas of their
mission would be compromised in the quest for popularity or numerical success.
Hauerwas’s emphasis on faithfulness reminds the Mennonite Brethren, then, that the
faithfulness of the church will not always reflect the expected measures of success that
church growth strategies assume.345
As I mentioned, Hauerwas’s call for the church to assess its faithfulness amidst
the surrounding culture also forces the Mennonite Brethren to critically examine their
affiliation with North American evangelicalism. Essentially, what areas of the Mennonite
Brethren-evangelical relationship are problematic and which aspects of the relationship
can be supported?346 In some instances, this assessment will be quite negative, as my
discussion in chapter two revealed. Or as Richard Kyle criticizes, too “many Mennonite
Brethren have bought into values so prevalent in contemporary evangelicalism:
subjectivity, personal feelings, self-improvement, pragmatism, materialism, and rampant
individualism.”347 While I think Kyle’s comment caricatures evangelicalism, his concerns
345
Writing to a Mennonite Brethren audience, Jim Westgate discusses the difficulty in assessing
the church’s faithfulness in culture, asserting cultural engagement “is not just about creating some new
program but it is creating a new corporate culture or a ‘new think’ for the church.” “The Challenge of Being
a Community Church in a Commuter Culture,” in Out of the Strange Silence, 163.
346
See Bruce L. Guenther, “Evangelicalism in Mennonite Historiography: The Decline of
Anabaptism or a Path Towards Dynamic Ecumenism?” Journal of Mennonite Studies 24 (2006): 35-53.
347
Richard G. Kyle, “The Mennonite Brethren and American Evangelicalism: An Ambivalent
Relationship,” Direction 20, no.1 (Spring 1991): 34.
120
are still a good example of the type of critique necessary to assess how Mennonite
Brethren should approach their evangelical affiliation. If individualism is indeed a
characteristic of mainstream evangelicalism as I previously noted, then aspects of
evangelicalism that promote Mennonite Brethren individualism should be disregarded. At
the same time, however, Mennonite Brethren affiliation with evangelicals can also be
positive. In fact, the close relationship between the two movements leads one historian to
argue that it would be ignorant of anyone to deny that “the term Evangelical–Anabaptist
is an accurate historical and theological description”—the historical reality of Mennonite
Brethren “dual identity.”348 Recognizing the affiliation between the two movements can
help the Mennonite Brethren acknowledge their participation in a culture beyond
themselves, supporting areas of evangelicalism that make a positive and faithful
contribution to God’s mission in the world.349 In sum, Mennonite Brethren interaction
with evangelicalism produces a mixed-reaction of both rejection and acceptance,
requiring an ongoing assessment of how evangelicalism contributes or detracts from a
faithful Mennonite Brethren corporate identity.
Another area where the call to faithfulness is particularly relevant for the
Mennonite Brethren is in responding to their neglect of social ethics. With an
348
Bruce L Guenther, “MB History Tour: A Global Multicultural Community of Faith,” Mennonite
Brethren Herald 44, no. 9 (July 1, 2005), http://www.mbherald.com/44/09/historytour.en.html (accessed Jul
2, 2008). Continuing on the value of the evangelical-Anabaptist identity of the Mennonite Brethren,
Guenther comments that “our dual identity provides a vantage point from which to critique both (or more)
traditions that contribute to our sense of identity. It serves as a useful lens through which to see how
different cultures have shaped our theological traditions. It places us in a unique position to respond to post-
Christian, postmodern culture.”
349
Ibid. An example of where Mennonite Brethren and evangelicalism combine to faithfully
contribute to God’s mission in the world is in their strong impetus for global mission. Mennonite Brethren
history reveals that their affiliation with evangelical groups in global outreach has left a legacy beyond their
North American context with the largest Mennonite Brethren populace actually existing in India and
Congo.
121
overemphasis on personal morality and the assimilation to an individualistic North
American culture, the Mennonite Brethren have found themselves at times neglecting
their social responsibility as a Christian community. In particular, their theology professes
the social role of the church in the world, but their practices do not always reflect this
belief. In particular, we recall that the Mennonite Brethren theology of nonviolence
reveals a discrepancy between belief and practice. It should concern people that the
theology of nonviolence in many cases has become more of an abstract idea than a
theology embodied by the church. What is missing, quite simply, is the concrete
representation of the Anabaptist theological belief in nonviolence in the social life of
Mennonite Brethren churches.
To begin addressing the absence of a social embodiment of their theology, the
challenge is to recognize, to paraphrase Hauerwas’s concept of an enacted narrative, that
the Mennonite Brethren do not merely have a theology, but rather are a theology. In order
to be faithful as a community, Mennonite Brethren corporate identity must be reflected in
their practices—their social responsibility to concretely represent God’s mission in the
world.350 Reflecting on the Mennonite Brethren community and their role in the world,
Delbert Wiens makes the following comment: “I do not think that there is much reason
for us to exist except as a people which continues to build concrete godliness into both
our individual lives and into a coherent community.”351 Hauerwas, then, pushes the
Mennonite Brethren not just to analyze their relationship to culture, but to actually be a
presence in culture as well. The challenge, as we will see below, is whether Hauerwas’s
350
Harry Huebner states, “When we confess our redemption through Jesus Christ we commit
ourselves to a concrete social embodiment of the gospel.” “How to Do Things with Confessions,”
Direction 27, no. 1 (Spring 1998): 49.
351
Delbert L. Wiens, “Theological Response to Ethnicity in the Modern World,” Direction 17, no.
1 (Spring 1998): 113.
122
social ethics can move beyond abstract encouragement and be applied practically to the
Mennonite Brethren.
In certain regards, Hauerwas serves as a valuable partner for affirming and
sharpening existent areas in Mennonite Brethren theology of culture, particularly their
social ethics. For instance, we know that for Hauerwas Jesus’ life serves as the norm for
the church’s social ethics—“a ‘morality’ for the formation of the Christian community
and character.”352 Similarly, the Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith refers to the
church as the “body of Christ,” whose task is to make “Christ visible to the world.”353 On
one level, Hauerwas’s reference to Christ’s example for the church affirms the Mennonite
Brethren theology that has the same emphasis. On another level, however, by
emphasizing the moral obligations of the whole community, Hauerwas pushes the
Mennonite Brethren to be more explicit in the communal implications for what it means
to “follow Christ”—a corporate commitment of the entire community, not just the
decision of individuals.354 So when the Mennonite Brethren profess that disciples are
“united in a distinct community,” a community in which “members grow in maturity as
they demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit, use their spiritual gifts and practice mutual
accountability in the disciplines of the Christian life,” Hauerwas’s ecclesiology demands
that this confession must be visible in the church’s practices.355 Such a demand poses a
poignant challenge to the absence of such a social ethic in the Mennonite Brethren
situation.
352
353
“Nature of the Church,” Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith, 66.
354
Ibid. The Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith states that “church members commit
themselves to follow Christ in a life and discipleship witness,” but neglects to state explicitly the same role
for the church community.
355
“Discipleship,” in Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith, 106.
123
As an example for an application of Hauerwas’s social ethics we return to the
inconsistency between belief and practice in the Mennonite Brethren theology of
nonviolence. But turning to Hauerwas’s proposal for application of the church’s
nonviolent social ethics actually proves unhelpful for correcting their situation. Because
of his stress on the relative nature of the church’s response to violence—the particularity
of each context requiring its own appropriate response—he does not provide a practical
framework for the church’s peaceableness, rendering nonviolence a mere abstraction. In
contrast, the Mennonite Brethren theology of nonviolence is actually more practical than
Hauerwas, at least on a confessional level. Contrary to Hauerwas’s idealism, Mennonite
Brethren nonviolence emphasizes active “Christian Peacemaking” in which “alleviating
suffering, reducing strife, and promoting justice are ways of demonstrating Christ’s
love.”356 These comments reveal a more intentional emphasis towards actively pursuing
peace nonviolently compared to Hauerwas merely calling for the church’s abstract
faithfulness in a violent world. Unfortunately, we know that the acceptance of the
Mennonite Brethren peace theology is not characteristic of the majority. But because
Hauerwas’s pervasive idealism does not offer a practical way to bring consensus, his
approach must be left aside when it comes to Mennonite Brethren nonviolence.
Instead of Hauerwas, the theology of “Just Peacemaking” is a far more
appropriate guide towards providing practical solutions for the Mennonite Brethren to
address their theology of nonviolence.357 Just Peacemaking presents a practical approach
to the church’s social responsibility for seeking peace in a violent world, refusing to
polarize the issue between pacifism and just war, instead suggesting a “Peace-making
356
“Love and Nonresistence,” in Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith, 143.
357
See Glen H. Stassen, ed., Just Peacemaking (Ohio: The Pilgrim Press, 1998).
124
Theory” that seeks practical initiatives that can apply to society in a manner that attempts
to navigate the church’s tension of living peaceably in a violent world.358 Such an
approach could provide the Mennonite Brethren with specific ways in which they could
practice their nonviolence, and perhaps even lead towards a consensus on the issue in the
Mennonite Brethren community. Ideally, the Mennonite Brethren, as they have already
displayed to a degree, will continue to assess how faithfulness to God’s call for them can
be the guiding criterion for continuing to develop their theology of culture.
2. Cultural Engagement
Although I have argued that Hauerwas’s call to evaluate the church’s faithfulness
in relating to the surrounding culture contributes to developing a Mennonite Brethren
theology of culture, his proposal for the church’s cultural engagement is neither
convincing nor valuable when considering an appropriate practical response to
Mennonite Brethren individualism. Quite simply, Hauerwas is unable to address the
challenges associated with the Mennonite Brethren community living faithfully in the
twenty-first century, promoting an ecclesiology that leads to the church’s separation from
culture instead of practical engagement with it, even if that is not his intention.359
358
Glen H. Stassen, “Resource Section on Just Peacemaking Theory,” Journal of the Society of
Christian Ethics 23, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2003): 170. There are ten strategies for practically
implementing peace in the “Peace-making Theory”: 1. Nonviolent direct action; 2. Take independent
initiatives to reduce threat; 3. Use cooperative conflict resolution; 4. Acknowledge responsibility for
conflict and injustice; seek repentance and forgiveness; 5. Promote democracy, human rights and religious
freedom; 6. Foster just and sustainable economic development; 7. Work with the cooperative forces in the
international organizations; 8. Strengthen the United Nations and international organizations; 9. Reduce
offensive weapons and weapons trade; 10. Encourage grassroots peacemaking groups and other voluntary
associations.
359
We recall that Hauerwas rejects the sectarian accusation, refusing to allow relevance to
determine the church’s relationship to the world. Yet he also refuses to supply specific strategies for
applying his theology, thus remaining vulnerable to the charge that he does advocate a major withdrawal
from key centers of cultural power.
125
As I mentioned in chapter one, Hauerwas’s church-world dichotomy can lead to a
withdrawn and impractical definition of the church’s cultural engagement.360 Hauerwas’s
emphasis on defining the church in opposition to the world based on the measure of
allegiance to Christ is too polarized, failing to recognize that God’s reign, although
represented by the church, is also present in areas of culture outside of the church.361
Another problem is that Hauerwas’s church-world dualism influences his critique of
modern culture, a critique that while accurate in many regards, is overly negative, making
it hard to imagine any sort of positive cultural engagement for the church. Considering
Mennonite Brethren assimilation to North American culture, the idea of rejecting all
aspects of cultural formation based on Hauerwas’s dichotomy would force them to reject
nearly their entire history—a history of cultural interaction that I have shown, while
containing obvious faults, is a foundational part of their story and not one of steady
capitulation to worldliness. So in order to avoid discounting all previous Mennonite
Brethren cultural interaction that has taken place, a more balanced view of culture is
needed, one that recognizes the positive aspects of the world, not just the negative ones.
Guenther is right, then, to suggest that
the reminder that there is no cultureless gospel, that the church is always culturally embedded,
and that the conflict is not with culture per se, is often still necessary for those Christians who
360
My critique of Hauerwas is also relevant for Anabaptist theology, as Hauerwas’s church-world
dichotomy is actually quite similar to the traditional Anabaptist church-world dualism, often referred to as a
two-level or two-kingdom ethic in which the church has a distinct ethic separate from the world. See Duane
K. Friesen, “A Critical Analysis of Narrative Ethics,” in The Church as Theological Community, ed. Harry
Heubner (Winnipeg: CMBC Publications, 1990), 244. Both Hauerwas and Anabaptist dualism make the
actual application of the church’s cultural engagement abstract and difficult to imagine practically. If a
church-world dualism is to be maintained, the practical implications will have to be taken more seriously if
Hauerwas or Anabaptists want to provide credibility to their argument.
361
John Stackhouse makes a similar critique of Hauerwas as I do here. In opposition to what
appears like Hauerwas’s isolation of a theology of culture being “confined to the church,” Stackhouse
retorts that “Christian theology addresses the politics of everyone in a positive way via the creation
commandments, and in a negative way via the doctrine of sin.” Making the Best of It, 208, n. 34.
126
have been influenced by Anabaptism and North American Evangelicalism, traditions that have
practiced their faith within distinctive and marginalized subcultures, and have therefore been
tempted to see their practice of faith as somehow above or outside of “culture.”362
Unfortunately, Hauerwas is so against modern culture, that he falls prey to the very
temptation Guenther suggests—promoting a cultureless church that fails to acknowledge
areas in which the faithfulness of the church can be achieved alongside cultural
interaction.363
An alternative view of cultural engagement to Hauerwas’s polarizing approach,
however, would be to acknowledge that God’s kingdom, while revealed fully in Christ
and represented primarily by the church’s faithfulness, is also present in God’s unfinished
redemption of the world, including the various cultures the church finds itself in. The
implication is that while the church still attempts to represent God’s kingdom faithfully, it
realizes that it exists “in-between the times,” so to speak, forced to live amidst the
sinfulness of the world knowing that God has not yet finished his salvation project. This
alternative—wrestling with culture as opposed to rejecting it—is by no means an easy
approach to Mennonite Brethren cultural engagement. In a North American culture that
combines its Judeo-Christian background with modern and postmodern worldviews to
form a complex society of competing ideologies and moralities and espousing tolerance
as a primary virtue, evaluating the church’s engagement with culture is no easy task.364
362
Bruce L. Guenther, “The ‘Enduring Problem’ of Christ and Culture,” Direction 34, no. 2 (Fall,
2005): http://www.directionjournal.org/article/?1401 (accessed July 2, 2008).
363
I recognize that Hauerwas would likely deny my assessment of his project as “cultureless,” as
he is quite adamant that “the church is not out of the world. There is no other place for the church to be than
here.” Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony (Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1989), 43. When I label Hauerwas’s engagement “cultureless,” therefore, I am not denying
the presence of the church in the world. Rather, I am referring to the withdrawn presence of the church in
the world that results from the polarizing church-world dichotomy and absence of practical solutions in
Hauerwas’s theology of culture. In a way, Hauerwas is cultureless within the culture in that he makes no
room for the surrounding culture in the life of the church.
364
Ryan Schellenberg and Tim Geddert illustrate this challenge of considering the church’s
approach to relating to a culture that encourages tolerance from all inhabitants. They encourage the church
127
For example, the Confession of Faith explicitly rejects the “idolatrous temptation to give
to the state the devotion that is owed to God,” while at the same time acknowledging the
difficultly in determining precisely what is “idolatrous.”365 Therefore, an ongoing
assessment of the world is required, an attempt to discern the complex nature in which
society both reflects and rejects God’s kingdom. A Mennonite Brethren theology of
culture along these lines distances itself from accepting the outright dualism of both
Hauerwas and historical Anabaptism, providing instead a framework for cultural
engagement that wrestles with participating in the reality of God’s kingdom both in and
outside of the church.
Considering the difficult task of determining how to approach the church-world
tension, the Mennonite Brethren need to continually “discern the times” regarding their
cultural engagement.366 Or as Guenther states, “the challenge is to find incarnational ways
to live and articulate a vision of life that discerns how to be appropriately influential and
transformational.”367 The Mennonite Brethren task, then, rather than simply providing a
to “embrace the biblical vision of tolerance toward diversity, remarkable willingness to forgive, and
persistent opposition to and intolerance of injustice.” But they also recognize that tolerance will not always
be possible. For example, they suggest “the intolerant moralism to which Mennonites have often been
susceptible or the ethical relativism of late modern liberalism and emerging postmodernity” are
unacceptable modes of cultural engagement, concluding that the church must not “tolerate the religiosity
that subverts us from our high calling. Yes, we want to be tolerant, but we dare not tolerate that which
prevents us from living out our true identity as the just, merciful, and faithful people of God.” “Phinehas
and the Pharisees: Identity and Tolerance in Biblical Perspective,” Direction 34, no. 2 (Fall 2005):
http://www.directionjournal.org/article/?1398 (accessed April 25, 2008).
365
“Society and State,” in Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith, 131. The commentary on this
article states that “the church will always live in tension between the demands of the state and those of the
kingdom of God, between the values of the culture in which it lives and the teachings of Jesus and the
apostles.” “Society and State: Commentary,” Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith, 133.
366
Delbert Wiens, “Deconstructing the Draft Revision of the MB Confession of Faith,” Direction
27, no.1 (Spring 1998): 10.
367
Guenther, “Enduring Problem.” Duane Friesen makes a similar assessment as Guenther,
asserting that “we must enter into dialogue with other descriptions of the world in order to discern how the
narrative can be applied in such a way as to intelligibly interpret the world. Only then is it possible to be a
witness in the world, offering models and creative alternatives to the ruts in which the world is stuck.” “A
Critical Analysis,” 246.
128
scathing critique of the church-world relationship as Hauerwas so forcefully displays, is
to develop a way in which the church can discern the appropriate cultural engagement.
In terms of defining Mennonite Brethren cultural discernment, Hauerwas at least
provides some help, even if only partial. For instance, his insistence on imagination and
patience rightly acknowledges the difficulty the church faces when addressing a variety
of cultural situations and the countless options it has for responding. Complicated issues
will require imaginative responses by the Mennonite Brethren if they wish to offer
something of interest to a culture that continues to immerse itself in violence both
domestically and internationally. And in most cases, patience will be essential to
recognizing that God’s timing is not always going to align with the church’s expectations
as to when particular cultural struggles should be resolved. Unfortunately, as we have
seen, Hauerwas stops at suggesting imagination and patience without actually providing
practical ways in which the two characteristics of cultural engagement may be applied.
Although the Mennonite Brethren have shown a commitment to addressing the issue of
cultural engagement, their recent attempts to consider the issue, much like Hauerwas,
have also erred towards abstraction and impracticality.368 The Mennonite Brethren need a
theology of culture, therefore, that will address their presence amidst the complexities of
modern culture. Countering their individualism, developing such a theology of culture
will provide a stronger vision for engaging the world as a community, not just as
368
For example, reflecting on her own experience and comments from other forum participants,
Laura Kalmar openly shares her disappointment with the Mennonite Brethren study conference, “Culture,
Gospel, and Church,” in which the topic of a Mennonite Brethren theology of culture was discussed. She
comments, “The focus of the event remained on the church. Attendees were hoping for some practical
engagement on how to deal with culture and how to develop discernment. They wanted to discuss the
challenges of Canadian society—such as materialism, individualism, First Nations issues—but were left
wanting. In the future, let’s cast our gaze outside our church walls and truly grapple with the practical
questions of culture.” “Sorry is a Good Place to Start,” Mennonite Brethren Herald 46, no. 12 (December
2007): 3.
129
individual Christians and thus creating a more balanced approach to what it means to live
faithfully as Mennonite Brethren in the world.
Conclusion
We have seen that an application of Stanley Hauerwas’s theology to the task of
helping correct Mennonite Brethren individualism and the problems associated with it
brings a mixed acceptance of his project. After defining individualism as problematic for
a holistic understanding of the Christian faith, I provided a survey of Hauerwas’s
theology in order to evaluate how he proposes Christians should understand the
relationship between the individual and the community. In the process of my survey,
while supporting many of Hauerwas’s theological emphases, my analysis of his work
took note of several problems with his project. I concluded that although Hauerwas’s
emphasis on narrative, character, and the community of faith begins to address how the
modern church can counter individualism, his neglect in providing a clear concept or
clear application for the church’s cultural engagement prevents me from fully endorsing
his theology. He simply remains too abstract and impractical.
My mixed support of Hauerwas’s project was reflected in my application of his
work to the Mennonite Brethren here in chapter three. Positively, Hauerwas proves quite
useful in pointing the way towards creating a balance between the individual and
community in defining Mennonite Brethren identity. We saw that an emphasis on
character formation occurring in the context of community can help balance
individualism by helping individuals realize that their Christian identity is shaped not
only by their own voluntary choice, but by the narrative in which they find themselves as
130
Mennonite Brethren. Additionally, Hauerwas’s theology of community, I suggested, aids
in the task of clarifying a Mennonite Brethren corporate identity. A clear corporate
identity offers a theological balance to the extant emphasis on individual experience of
faith. To recap, then, Mennonite Brethren individualism begins to be corrected by
Hauerwas as he helps reconceptualize the Mennonite Brethren emphasis on the individual
and promotes a focus on strong corporate identity being necessary for the church’s
faithfulness. At the same time, however, my critique of Hauerwas’s proposal for the
church’s cultural engagement limited my endorsement of his project. While he helps in
the area of defining Mennonite Brethren individual and corporate identity, I reject his
approach for the actual application of that identity in his theology of culture.
Unfortunately, due to his polarizing church-world dichotomy and the absence of practical
strategies, I can give only partial support to Hauerwas’s contribution to responding to
Mennonite Brethren individualism. The problem, as Stephen Webb summarizes well, is
Hauerwas is so persuasive that his theology sounds too good to be true. That’s because it is.
Such rhetoric sounds good to those of us who believe that the Church has lost much of its
integrity in the modern world. Precisely because it is so pleasing to the quasi-evangelical ear,
this rhetoric can become a substitute for thinking through the hard decisions that the modern
world forces upon Christians. It is easy to see the world through Hauerwas’ eyes while
forgetting the fact that he describes a Church that does not exist and a world whose existence
cannot be so easily denied.369
Stanley Hauerwas has made a considerable contribution to the conversation of the
church in modern culture. Thus he can help us understand better the narrative of the
Mennonite Brethren—the people with whom I share my faith—and how Christians can
better understand their role in the world both as individuals and as parts of larger
communities. Despite Hauerwas’s shortcomings and Mennonite Brethren individualism,
both his theology and that tradition prompt us continually to question how to faithfully
369
Stephen H. Webb, “The Very American Stanley Hauerwas,” First Things 124 (June/July 2002):
13.
131
live out the mission of God in the world. My desire for the Mennonite Brethren
community is that we will constantly evaluate how we define ourselves as Christians and
as Mennonite Brethren, living by “the truth about the way things are now that God is with
us through the life, cross, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.”370
370
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adrian, Victor. “The Mennonite Brethren Church: Born of Anabaptism and Pietism.”
Insert in the Mennonite Brethren Herald 4, no. 12 (26 March 1965).
Albrecht, Gloria H. “Myself and Other Characters: A Feminist Liberationist Critique of

Hauerwas's Ethics of Christian Character.” Annual of the Society of Christian
Ethics (1992): 97-114.
Baker, Mark, D. Religious No More: Building Communities of Grace and Freedom.

Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999; reprint, Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock
Publishers, 2005.
Bekker, Jacob. Origin of the Mennonite Brethren Church. Translated by D. E. Pauls and
A. E. Janzen. Hillsboro, KS: The Mennonite Brethren Historical Society, 1973.
Bellah, Robert N., Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M.
Tipton. Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life.
Updated Edition. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996.
Berger, Peter. The Heretical Imperative: Contemporary Possibilities of Religious

Affirmation. Garden City, NY: Anchor, 1979.
. The Sacred Canopy. New York: Anchor Books, 1967.
Board of Faith and Life, eds. Mennonite Brethren Faith and Life Pamphlet Series.
Winnipeg, MB: Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches, n.d.
Brackney, William H. ed. The Believer’s Church: A Voluntary Church. Kitchener, ON:
Pandora Press, 1998.
Byassee, Jason. “On Becoming Church.” Christian Century 121, no. 18 (7 September
2004): 32-36, 38-39, 41.
Carter, Kenneth H. Jr. “The Theological Ethics of Stanley Hauerwas: Christian Ethics and
the Community of the Church.” Quarterly Review 6, no. 4 (Winter 1986): 64-74.
132
133
Chase, Kenneth R., and Alan Jacobs, eds. Must Christianity be Violent? Grand Rapids,
MI: Brazos Press, 2003.
Driedger, Leo. Mennonites in the Global Village. Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
2000.
. Mennonite Identity in Conflict. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1988.
Driedger, Leo, and Leland Harder, eds. Anabaptist-Mennonite Identities in Ferment.

Elkhart, IN: Institute of Mennonite Studies, 1990.
Dueck, Abe J. “Church and State: Developments in Mennonite Brethren in Canada Since
WWII.” Direction 10, no. 3 (July 1981): 30-47.
Dueck, Al, J.B. Toews, and Abram G. Konrad, eds. “Mennonite Brethren Church
Membership Profile, 1972-1982.” Direction 14, no.2 (Fall 1985): 2-89.
Dueck, Dora. “Strategic Planning Survey Results.” Mennonite Brethren Herald 44, no. 4
(18 March 2005): http://www.mbherald.com/44/04/survey.en.html.
Dyck, Cornelius J. An Introduction to Mennonite History. 3d ed. Scottdale, PA: Herald

Press, 1993.
Ediger, Gerald C. Crossing the Divide: Language Transition Among Canadian

Mennonite Brethren 1940-1970. Winnipeg, MB: Centre for Mennonite Brethren
Studies, 2001.
Estep, William R. The Anabaptist Story. 3d ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996.
Ewert, David. Finding Your Way: Confronting Issues in the Mennonite Brethren Church.
Winnipeg, MB: D. Ewert, 1999.
. “The Unique Character of Christian Ethics.” Direction 2, no. 3 [July 1973]: 66-
70.
Ferguson, Michelle. “Anabaptist Liturgy: An Oxymoron?” Direction 36, no.1 (Spring

2007): 5-19.
. “Anabaptist Liturgy: Sacramental Theology.” Direction 36, no. 2 (Fall 2007):

247-57.
Friesen, Peter M. The Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia. Translated by J. B. Toews, et al.

Fresno, CA: General Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches, 1978.
Gay, Craig M. The Way of the (Modern) World: Or Why It’s Tempting to Live as if God
Didn’t Exist. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998.
134
Geddert, Tim. “Living Responsibly: When Christians Need to Decide.” September, 2005.
TMs (electronic document) Obtained via email from the author.
Guenther, Bruce L. “Evangelicalism in Mennonite Historiography: The Decline of

Anabaptism or a Path Towards Dynamic Ecumenism?” Journal of Mennonite
Studies 24 (2006): 35-53.
. “The ‘Enduring Problem’ of Christ and Culture.” Direction 34, no. 2 (Fall,
2005): 215-27.
. “MB History Tour: A Global Multicultural Community of Faith.” MB Herald 44,

no. 9 (July 1, 2005): http://www.mbherald.com/44/09/historytour.en.html.
. “MB History Tour: Mennonite Brethren in North America.” MB Herald 44, no. 8
(10 June 2005): http://www.mbherald.com/44/08/historytour.en.html.
. “MB History Tour: The Russian Experience.” MB Herald 44, no. 7 (20 May
2005): http://www.mbherald.com/44/07/historytour.en.html.
. “MB History Tour: The 16th Century Radical Reformation.” MB Herald 44, no.
6 (29 April 2005): http://www.mbherald.com/44/06/historytour.en.html.
Guinness, Os. The Gravedigger File: Papers on the Subversion of the Modern Church.
Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity, 1983.
Gustafson, James. “The Sectarian Temptation: Reflections on Theology, the Church, and
the University.” Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society 40 (1985): 83-
94.
Hallie, Philip. Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed: The Story of the Village of Le Chambon and
How Goodness Happened There. New York: Harper and Row, 1979.
Hamm, Peter M. Continuity and Change: Among Canadian Mennonite Brethren.

Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1987.
Hastings, Ross. “Just War—Pacifist Dialogue.” Lecture Notes. Vancouver: Regent

College, December 2007.
Hiebert, Paul G. “Planting Churches in North America Today.” Direction 20, no. 2 (Fall
1991): 6-14.
Hollinger, Dennis. Choosing the Good: Christian Ethics in a Complex World. Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002.
135
Hauerwas, Stanley. “The Virtues of Alasdair MacIntyre.” First Things 176 (October
2007): 35-40.
. Disrupting Time: Sermons, Prayers, and Sundries. Eugene, OR: Cascade

Books, 2004.
. Performing the Faith: Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence. Grand

Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2004.
. “Faculty Forum with Stanley Hauerwas.” Conrad Grebel Review 20, no. 3 (Fall
2002): 69-80.
. The Hauerwas Reader. Edited by John Berkman and Michael Cartwright.

Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001.
. With the Grain of the Universe: the Church's Witness and Natural Theology.
Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2001.
. A Better Hope: Resources for a Church Confronting Capitalism, Democracy,

and Postmodernity. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2000.
. “Confessions of a Mennonite Camp Follower.” Mennonite Quarterly Review 74,

no. 4 (October 2000): 511-522.
. Sanctify Them in the Truth: Holiness Exemplified. Nashville: Abingdon Press,

1998.
. Wilderness Wanderings: Probing Twentieth-century Theology and Philosophy

Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997.
. In Good Company: the Church as Polis. Notre Dame: University of Notre

Dame Press, 1997.
. “Truthful Difference.” Stimulus 4, no. 2 (May 1996): 20-22.
. “Storytelling: A Response to ‘Mennonites on Hauerwas.’” Conrad Grebel

Review 13, no. 2 (Spring 1995): 169.
. Dispatches from the Front: Theological Engagements with the Secular.

Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994.
. Unleashing the Scripture: Freeing the Bible from Captivity to America.

Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993.
. “When the Politics of Jesus Makes a Difference.” Christian Century 110, no. 28
(October 1993): 982-987.
136
. After Christendom? How the Church is to Behave if Freedom, Justice, and a

Christian Nation are Bad Ideas. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991.
. “The Testament of Friends: How My Mind Has Changed.” Christian Century

107, no. 7 (28 February 1990): 212-216.
. Christian Existence Today. Durham, NC: Labyrinth Press, 1988.
. “Will the Real Sectarian Please Stand Up?” Theology Today 44, no. 1 (April
1987): 87-94.
. Suffering Presence: Theological Reflections on Medicine, the Mentally

Handicapped, and the Church. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,
1986.
. “Some Theological Reflections on Guttiérrez’s Use of ‘Liberation’ as a

Theological Concept.” Modern Theology 3, no. 1 (1986): 67-76.
. Against the Nations: War and Survival in a Liberal Society. Minneapolis, MN:
Winston Press, 1985.
. The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics. Notre Dame: University

of Notre Dame Press, 1983.
. A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic.

Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981.
. Vision and Virtue: Essays in Christian Ethical Reflection. Notre Dame: Fides
Publishers, 1974. Reprint, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981.
. Character and the Christian Life: A Study in Theological Ethics. San Antonio,
TX: Trinity University Press, 1975.
Hauerwas, Stanley, and Alasdair MacIntyre. eds. Revisions: Changing Perspectives in

Moral Philosophy. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983.
Hauerwas, Stanley, and Charles Pinches. Christians Among the Virtues: Theological
Conversations with Ancient and Modern Ethics. Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1997.
Hauerwas, Stanley, and L. Gregory Jones. Why Narrative: Readings in Narrative

Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989.
137
Hauerwas, Stanley, Nancey Murphy, Mark Nation, eds. Theology Without Foundations:
Religious Practice and the Future of Theological Truth. Nashville: Abingdon
Press, 1994.
Hauerwas, Stanley, Richard Bondi, and David B. Burrell. Truthfulness and Tragedy:
Further Investigations in Christian Ethics. Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1977.
Hauerwas, Stanley, and William H. Willimon. The Truth about God: The Ten
Commandments in Christian Life. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999.
. Where Resident Aliens Live: Exercises for Christian Practice. Nashville:

Abingdon Press, 1996.
. Resident Aliens. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989.
Holland, Scott. “Mennonites on Hauerwas: Hauerwas on Mennonites.” Conrad Grebel

Review 13 no. 2 (Spring 1995): 142-51.
Hollinger, Dennis. Choosing the Good: Christian Ethics in a Complex World. Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002.
Huebner, Chris K. A Precarious Peace: Yoderian Explorations on Theology, Knowledge,

and Identity. Waterloo, ON: Herald Press, 2006.
. “Mennonites and Narrative Theology: The Case of John Howard Yoder.”

Conrad Grebel Review 16, no. 2 (Spring 1998): 15-38.
Huebner, Harry. “How to Do Things with Confessions.” Direction 27, no. 1 (Spring
1998): 41-52.
. “Within the Limits of Story Alone?” Conrad Grebel Review 13 (Spring 1995):
157-61.
, ed. The Church as Theological Community. Winnipeg, MB: CMBC

Publications, 1990.
Jantz, Harold. “Pietism's Gift to Russian Mennonites.” Direction 36, no. 1 (Spring 2007):
58-73.
Janzen, A.E. Mennonite Brethren Distinctives. Hillsboro, KS: Mennonite Brethren

Publishing House, 1966.
138
Janzen, Jonathan, and Ryan Dueck. “Buyer Beware: Consumerism Contains Toxic
Substances Harmful to Faith.” Mennonite Brethren Herald 47, no. 1 (January
2008): 8-11.
Jones, Gregory L., Reinhard Hütter, and C. Rosalee Velloso Ewell, eds., God, Truth, and
Witness: Engaging Stanley Hauerwas. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2005.
Jost, Lynn, and Connie Faber. Family Matters: Discovering the Mennonite Brethren.
Winnipeg, MB: Kindred Press, 2002.
Kalmar, Laura. “Sorry is a Good Place to Start.” Mennonite Brethren Herald 46, no. 12
(December 2007): 3.
Kasdorf, Hans. “Pietist Roots of Early Mennonite Brethren Spirituality.” Direction 13,
no. 3 (July 1984): 44-55.
Katongole, Emmanuel. Beyond Universal Reason: The Relation Between Religion and
Ethics in the Work of Stanley Hauerwas. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press, 2000.
Kauffman, J. Howard, and Leo Driedger. The Mennonite Mosaic: Identity and
Modernization. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1991.
Kaufman, J. Howard, and Leland Harder. Anabaptists Four Centuries Later: A Profile of
Five Mennonite and Brethren in Christ Denominations. Scottdale, PA: Herald
Press, 1975.
Kopp, Herb. “Biblical Perspectives of Church Growth which Mennonite Brethren Should
Embrace.” Direction 20, no. 2 (Fall 1991): 50-65.
Kyle, Richard G. “The Mennonite Brethren and American Evangelicalism: An

Ambivalent Relationship.” Direction 20, no. 1 (Spring 1991): 26-37.
. “The Mennonite Brethren and the Denominational Model of the Church.”

Mennonite Life 2, no. 3 (Summer 1987): 30-36.
. From Sect to Denomination: Church Types and their Implications for Mennonite
Brethren History. Hillsboro, KS: Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies, 1985.
. “The Concept and Practice of Separation from the World in Mennonite Brethren
History.” Direction 13, no. 1 (January 1984): 33-43.
Lauritzen, Paul. “Is ‘Narrative’ really a Panacea? the use of ‘Narrative’ in the Work of
Metz and Hauerwas.” Journal of Religion 67, no. 3 (July 1987): 322-339.
139
Loewen, Howard John. One Lord, One Church, One Hope, and One God:
Mennonite Confessions of Faith. Elkhart, IN: Institute of Mennonite
Studies, 1985.
Loewen, Patricia Janzen. “Embracing Evangelicalism and Anabaptism: The Mennonite

Brethren in Canada in the Late Twentieth Century.” M.A. Thesis, University of
Manitoba, 2000.
Lohrenz, J.H. The Mennonite Brethren Church. Hillsboro, KS: Mennonite Brethren
Publishing House, 1950.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. 3d ed. Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 2007.
. Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame

Press, 1988.
. “The Intelligibility of Action,” in Rationality, Relativism, and the Human

Sciences. Edited by J. Margolis, M. Krausz, and R.M. Burian, 63-80. Boston: M.
Nijhoff, 1986.
Marsden, George M. Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism. Grand Rapids,

MI: Eerdmans, 1991.
Martens, Elmer A., ed. “The Mennonite Brethren Ethos.” Direction 23, no. 2 (Fall 1994):
3-87.
, ed. “Mennonite Brethren and Evangelicalism.” Direction 20, no. 1 (Spring

1991): 3-86.
McCarthy, Colman. "'I'm a Pacifist because I'm a Violent Son of a Bitch.' A Profile of
Stanley Hauerwas." The Progressive 67, no. 4 (April 2003):
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1295/is_4_67/ai_99818481/print.
McClendon, James Wm. Jr. Ethics: Systematic Theology, Volume One. Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 2002.
. “Narrative Ethics and Christian Ethics.” Faith and Philosophy 3, no. 4 (10
1986): 383-396.
McGrath, Alister. Christian Theology: An Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell

Publishing, 2001.
McMaster, Barrie. “Study Conference Begins Conversation.” Mennonite Brethren Herald

46, no. 12 (December 2007): 16.
140
Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith: Commentary and Pastoral Application.

Winnipeg, MB: Kindred Press, 2000.
Miscamble, Wilson D. “Sectarian Passivism?” Theology Today 44, no. 1 (April 1987):
69-77.
Murphy, Nancey, Brad J. Kallenberg, and Mark Thiessen Nation, eds. Virtues &
Practices in the Christian Tradition: Christian Ethics after MacIntyre. Harrisburg,
PA: Trinity Press International, 1997.
O'Donovan, Oliver. The Just War Revisited. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 2003.
. Resurrection and the Moral Order. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1986.
. In Pursuit of a Christian View of War. Bramcote, UK: Grove Books, 1977.
Quirk, Michael J. “Beyond Sectarianism?” Theology Today 44, no.1 (April 1987): 78-86.
Rasmusson, Arne. The Church as Polis: From Political Theology to Theological Politics
as Exemplified by Jürgen Moltmann and Stanley Hauerwas. Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1995.
Redekop, Calvin W., and Samuel J. Steiner. Mennonite Identity: Historical and
Contemporary Perspectives. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1988.
Redekop, John H. Politics Under God. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 2007.
. A People Apart: Ethnicity and the Mennonite Brethren. Winnipeg, MB: Kindred
Press, 1987.
Reimer, James A. “Hauerwas: Why I'm a Reluctant Convert to His Theology.” Conrad
Grebel Review 20, no. 3 (Fall 2002): 5-16.
. Mennonites and Classical Theology. Kitchener, ON: Pandora Press, 2000.
Reynolds, Terrence. “A Conversation Worth Having: Hauerwas and Gustafson on

Substance in Theological Ethics.” Journal of Religious Ethics 28, no. 3 (Fall
2000): 395-421.
Roberts, Tyler T. “Theology and the Ascetic Imperative: Narrative and Renunciation in
Taylor and Hauerwas.” Modern Theology 9, no. 2 (April 1993): 181-200.
Schellenberg, Ryan, and Tim Geddert. “Phinehas and the Pharisees: Identity and
Tolerance in Biblical Perspective.” Direction 34, no. 2 (Fall 2005): 170-80.
141
Schrag, Dale, and James Juhnke, eds. Anabaptist Visions for the New Millennium: A
search for identity. Kitchener, ON: Pandora Press, 2000.
Simons, Menno. The Complete Writings of Menno Simons: c.1496-1561. Translated by

Leonard Verduin. Edited by J. C. Wenger. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1986.
Snyder, Arnold. “Dialogue with Stanley Hauerwas.” Conrad Grebel Review 13 (Spring
1995): 133-173.
Stackhouse, John G. Jr. Making the Best of It: Following Christ in the Real World. New
York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Stassen, Glen H. “Resource Section on Just Peacemaking Theory.” Journal of the Society
of Christian Ethics 23, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2003): 169-70.
, ed. Just Peacemaking: Ten Practices for Abolishing War. Cleveland, OH: The
Pilgrim Press, 1998.
Stassen, Glen H., and David P. Gushie. Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in
Contemporary Context. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003.
Thiessen, Brad, ed. Out of the Strange Silence: The Challenge of Being Christian in the
21st Century. Winnipeg, MB: MB Biblical Seminary and Kindred Productions,
2005.
Thiessen Nation, Mark, and Samuel Wells, eds. Faithfulness and Fortitude: In
Conversation with the Theological Ethics of Stanley Hauerwas. Edinburgh, UK:
T. & T. Clark, 2000.
Thomson, John B. The Ecclesiology of Stanley Hauerwas: A Christian Theology of

Liberation. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003.
Toews, John A. A History of the Mennonite Brethren Church. Fresno, CA: General
Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches, 1975.
Toews, J. B. Pilgrimage of Faith: The Mennonite Brethren Church 1860-1990. Winnipeg,

MB: Kindred Press, 1993.
Toews, John B. “Revival and Mission in Early Communist Russia (1917—1927).”

Direction 31, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 206-219.
. “The Mennonite Brethren in Russia during the 1890’s.” Direction 30, no. 2 (Fall
2001): 139-52.
142
. Perilous Journey: The Mennonite Brethren in Russia 1860-1910. Winnipeg, MB:

Kindred Press, 1988.
Toews, Paul. Mennonites in American Society, 1930-1970: Modernity and the

Persistence of Religious Community. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1996.
. ed. Bridging Troubled Waters: The Mennonite Brethren at Mid-Century.

Winnipeg, MB: Kindred Productions, 1995.
. ed. Mennonites and Baptists: A Continuing Conversation. Winnipeg, MB:

Kindred Press, 1993.
. “Recent Interpretations of Evangelical Pluralism.” Direction 20, no. 1 (Spring

1991): 18-25.
. “Faith in Culture and Culture in Faith: Mennonite Brethren Entertaining

Expansive, Separative and Assimilative Views About the Relationship.” Paper
presented to the Symposium: “Dynamics of Faith and Culture in Mennonite
Brethren History.” Winnipeg, MB, 14-15 November 1986. Columbia Bible
College Library, Abbotsford B.C.
. ed. Pilgrims and Strangers: Essays in Mennonite Brethren History. Fresno, CA:
Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies, 1977.
Unger, Walter. “Thinking Clearly About the Holy Spirit: What Do Mennonite Brethren
Believe?” Mennonite Brethren Herald 47, no. 3 (March 2008): 10-11.
. “The Church ‘Without Spot or Wrinkle’: Testing the Tradition.” Direction 33,
no. 1 (Spring 2004): 33-47.
Voth, Gay Lynn. “Anabaptist Liturgical Spirituality and the Supper of Christ.” Direction
34, no.1 (Spring 2005): 3-14.
Wardin, Albert W. “Baptist Influences on Mennonite Brethren with an Emphasis on the

Practice of Immersion.” Direction 8, no. 4 (October 1979): 33-38.
Warkentin, David M. “Should Christians Own Sport Utility Vehicles.” Mennonite

Brethren Herald 47, no. 2 (February 2008): 14.
Webb, Stephen H. “The Very American Stanley Hauerwas.” First Things 124 (June/July
2002): 12-14.
Wells, Samuel. Transforming Fate into Destiny: The Theological Ethics of Stanley
Hauerwas. Carlisle, UK: Paternoster Press, 1998.
143
Whitmore, Todd. “Beyond Liberalism and Communitarianism in Christian Ethics: A

Critique of Stanley Hauerwas.” Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics (1989):
207-225.
Wiebe, Katie Funk. Who are the Mennonite Brethren? Winnipeg, MB: Kindred Press,
1984
Wiens, Delbert L. “Deconstructing the Draft Revision of the MB Confession of Faith.”

Direction 27, no.1 (Spring 1998): 4-13.
. “Theological Response to Ethnicity in the Modern World.” Direction 17, no. 1

(Spring 1998): 103-17.
. “Mennonite Brethren: Neither Liberal nor Evangelical.” Direction 20, no. 1

(Spring 1991): 38-63.
. “From the Village to the City: (a Grammar for the Languages We Are).”
Direction 2, no. 4 (1974): 98-149.
. New Wineskins for Old Wine: A Study of the Mennonite Brethren Church.
Hillsboro, KS: Mennonite Brethren Publishing House, 1965.
Yandell, Keith E. ed., Faith and Narrative. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Yoder, John Howard. The Politics of Jesus. 2d ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994.
. The Royal Priesthood: Essays Ecclesiological and Ecumenical. Edited by

Michael G. Cartwright. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994.
. Body Politics: Five Practices of the Christian Community before the Watching
World. Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 1992.
. The Priestly Kingdom: Social Ethics as Gospel. Notre Dame: University of

Notre Dame Press, 1985.
. When War is Unjust. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1984.
. Christian Attitudes to War, Peace, and Revolution. Elkhart, IN: Goshen Biblical
Seminary, 1983.
. The Original Revolution. Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 1971.

VITA
David Warkentin grew up in Abbotsford, B.C. He graduated from Columbia Bible
College in 2005 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in biblical studies, with a focus on church
ministries. Coinciding with his studies at Regent College, David has been a pastoral
intern in the area of young adult ministries and worship leading at Bakerview Mennonite
Brethren Church in Abbotsford. He is married to Julie and they are awaiting the birth of
their first child in September, 2008. David plans to enter to the pastorate in the near
future.

MCS Thesis - David Warkentin

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

MCS Thesis - David Warkentin

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

CORRECTING MENNONITE BRETHREN INDIVIDUALISM:

THE PERTINENCE OF STANLEY HAUERWAS’S THEOLOGY

DAVID MARK WARKENTIN

B.A., Columbia Bible College, 2005

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF

THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF CHRISTIAN STUDIES

CHRISTIANITY AND CULTURE

In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirement for an

it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that

permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes

may be permitted by the Librarian. It is understood that copying or

Individualism is a pervasive problem in Christian faith and practice in the twenty-

the community-implications of Christian identity. Stanley Hauerwas, prominent Christian

frustrating, offering an inspiring argument for the centrality of community in the

A contemporary North American denomination susceptible to individualism is the

Mennonite Brethren. By emphasizing the individual nature of the Christian experience,

the Mennonite Brethren movement has demonstrated a propensity towards individualistic

assimilation. Considering their individualism, the Mennonite Brethren are an appropriate

case study for assessing the applicability of Hauerwas’s theology.

This thesis examines the applicability of Stanley Hauerwas’s theology for

responding to Mennonite Brethren individualism. Hauerwas’s project helps Mennonite

individualism and towards a more community-oriented faith. Unfortunately, Hauerwas

community in the twenty-first century. Ultimately, Hauerwas’s project is only partially

valuable towards correcting Mennonite Brethren individualism.

THE THEOLOGY OF STANLEY HAUERWAS......................................................................................6

I. Individual Identity: Character Ethics.......................................................................................................7

and the Category of Narrative.......................................................................................................................7

II. Corporate Identity: The Church’s Social Ethics..................................................................................16

INDIVIDUALISM AND THE MENNONITE BRETHREN...................................................................51

I. Mennonite Brethren Origins....................................................................................................................52

II. Individualism in North American Mennonite Brethren .....................................................................70

CORRECTING MENNONITE BRETHREN INDIVIDUALISM: .......................................................95

THE PERTINENCE OF STANLEY HAUERWAS’S THEOLOGY.......................................................95

I. Stanley Hauerwas and Mennonite Brethren .........................................................................................97

me to retain a passion for the church in an age of ecclesial indifference—your

perseverance is admirable and contagious! In particular, Dr. John Stackhouse, I am

to my Mennonite Brethren tradition and in particular my church family, Bakerview M.B.

been truly immeasurable!

A particular challenge facing North American Christianity in the twenty-first

century is the pervasive force of individualism. Individualism emphasizes that the

autonomous individual, separated from the resources and accountability of community,

The problem with individualism is that it promotes an imbalance, if not an

practice. Instead of affirming the biblical admonition for personal transformation

community—the church—in determining what it means to be a faithful Christian.

One person who addresses the problem of individualism is prominent theologian

Stanley Hauerwas. A vocal critic of Christianity in America, Hauerwas provides a

poignant response to what he claims is a church compromised to the whims of

individualism and neglecting the community-aspects of Christian faithfulness. Hauerwas

context. Of particular interest here, then, is to examine the validity of Hauerwas’s

proposal, testing whether or not it is an adequate response to individualism.

My assessment will involve examining the applicability of Hauerwas’s project to

a specific instance of individualism. As a case study for Hauerwas’s project, therefore, I

denomination. Considering their Anabaptist heritage—one that typically endorses a

community-oriented faith—it is troubling that their history reveals a tendency towards

Considering the broad nature of my project—the combination of Hauerwas’s

theology with an examination of individualism in Mennonite Brethren history—the

method of my analysis will be interdisciplinary. Discussion of Hauerwas will focus on his

theology and ethics, while my summary of Mennonite Brethren individualism will

consideration in assessing the application of Hauerwas’s work to the Mennonite Brethren

situation. To be clear, I will not be presenting either a comprehensive summary of

Hauerwas’s theology or a complete account of the Mennonite Brethren story. My analysis

responding to the question of individualism.