{"id":8816,"date":"2012-07-02T15:45:05","date_gmt":"2012-07-02T19:45:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=8816"},"modified":"2012-07-02T15:45:05","modified_gmt":"2012-07-02T19:45:05","slug":"mennonite-marriage-tinky-winky-and-a-slew-of-droves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/07\/02\/mennonite-marriage-tinky-winky-and-a-slew-of-droves\/","title":{"rendered":"Mennonite marriage, Tinky Winky and a slew of droves"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

What do you do when you\u2019re in a tsk-tsk-ing tizzy about same-sex marriage, but you\u2019re part of a denomination that holds a core doctrine of individual liberty?<\/p>\n

Ann at The Revealer<\/a> finds the answer in a recent statement, from the executive committee of the Mennonite church, which says:<\/p>\n

The board owns the understanding of our confession of faith that sexual union is to happen between one man and one woman who are committed to each other for life in holy marriage.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But then, remembering that they\u2019re Anabaptists with no popes or bishops, the statement concludes:<\/p>\n

The national church does not have the authority to control the discussion or decisions at [congregation and area conference] levels. \u2026 Congregations decide on their members and conferences decide on member congregations. Ministerial credentials are held at the conference level and thus minister\u2019s accountability is to the area conference rather than the national conference. We are aware that our polity creates some differences in the practice of church discipline from conference to conference.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The promising news<\/a> that sparked this awkward exercise in magisterium-envy was this:<\/p>\n

In 2011, Western District Conference pastor Joanna Harader performed a same-sex covenanting ceremony. Since Illinois made same-sex unions legal on July 1, 2011, Central District pastor Megan Ramer has performed three such ceremonies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

* * * * * * * * *<\/p>\n

Scott Paeth discusses Nick Vadala\u2019s theory that the exodus of the younger generation from the church began with Jerry Falwell\u2019s attack on Tinky Winky<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Paeth is reluctant to pinpoint a single moment as quite so significant, but if the Tinky Winky Incident wasn\u2019t actually a watershed moment in the cultural history of the church, it was at least an outstanding example of many of the things that have gone awry in American Christianity:<\/p>\n

Jerry Falwell\u2019s Teletubby stupidity was simply an example of the way in which these trends began to coalesce in a particularly toxic way over the last decade or so. There had certainly been precurors \u2014 the rise of the religious right in the 1980s, the emergent barbarism of the 1990s era Republican congress, the personal and political corruption of Bill Clinton and his followers, the 2000 election. But for any who had begun to become political aware in the period from about 1995 on, there were too many examples of the absurdity of essentially any institution or ideology you could point to to make any of them credible on the surface as viable methods of organizing one\u2019s life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

* * * * * * * * *<\/p>\n

That study of religious doubts expressed by members of the Millennial generation has produced a slew of articles describing how younger people are leaving the church \u201cin droves.\u201d<\/p>\n

So I thought this might be useful: The Word Detective on \u201cin droves.\u201d<\/a> (The noun \u201cslew\u201d<\/a> above, btw, comes from the Irish sluagh, meaning \u201ca host, crowd, multitude.\u201d)<\/p>\n

* * * * * * * * *<\/p>\n

One in<\/a>. One out<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* * * * * * * * *<\/p>\n

In Baghdad, a performance of Shakespeare\u2019s <\/a>Romeo and Juliet<\/a> <\/em>in which the Montagues and Capulets are Shiite and Sunni.<\/p>\n

More than 20 years ago, on a student trip to Israel and the West Bank, I wound up late one night at the American Colony in Jerusalem, talking Shakespeare with a teacher from one of the underground schools of the first Intifada. His dream was a production of Romeo and Juliet,<\/em> with a Palestinian Romeo and a Jewish Juliet.<\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t a new idea then, and it isn\u2019t a new idea now, but it\u2019s still a good<\/em> idea.<\/p>\n

Wherever there is ethnic or religious conflict, wherever civil blood makes civil hands unclean, that play should be performed, over and over.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What do you do when you\u2019re in a tsk-tsk-ing tizzy about same-sex marriage, but you\u2019re part of a denomination that holds a core doctrine of individual liberty? Ann at The Revealer finds the answer in a recent statement, from the executive committee of the Mennonite church, which says: The board owns the understanding of our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nMennonite marriage, Tinky Winky and a slew of droves<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What do you do when you're in a tsk-tsk-ing tizzy about same-sex marriage, but you're part of a denomination that holds a core doctrine of individual\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/07\/02\/mennonite-marriage-tinky-winky-and-a-slew-of-droves\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mennonite marriage, Tinky Winky and a slew of droves\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What do you do when you're in a tsk-tsk-ing tizzy about same-sex marriage, but you're part of a denomination that holds a core doctrine of individual\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/07\/02\/mennonite-marriage-tinky-winky-and-a-slew-of-droves\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-07-02T19:45:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/07\/02\/mennonite-marriage-tinky-winky-and-a-slew-of-droves\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/07\/02\/mennonite-marriage-tinky-winky-and-a-slew-of-droves\/\",\"name\":\"Mennonite marriage, Tinky Winky and a slew of droves\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-07-02T19:45:05+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-07-02T19:45:05+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"What do you do when you're in a tsk-tsk-ing tizzy about same-sex marriage, but you're part of a denomination that holds a core doctrine of individual\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/07\/02\/mennonite-marriage-tinky-winky-and-a-slew-of-droves\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/07\/02\/mennonite-marriage-tinky-winky-and-a-slew-of-droves\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/07\/02\/mennonite-marriage-tinky-winky-and-a-slew-of-droves\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Mennonite marriage, Tinky Winky and a slew of droves\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\",\"name\":\"slacktivist\",\"description\":\""Test everything; 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Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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