Mennonite World Review

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• In the 19th century, for reasons that John Ruth can explain, Germantown Mennonite Church was part of a small Mennonite-Reformed denomination. Led by the Hunsicker brothers, it was an amalgam of Mennonite and German Reformed folks who were interested in higher education and justice issues. They founded what became Ursinus College. When the larger Mennonite Church caught up with them, Germantown Mennonite came back to the fold as a General Conference congregation. Will that happen again? We certainly need an Anabaptist movement that is broader than any denominational structure.

  - Richard K. MacMaster (oct 8 at 1:29 p.m.)

• I would recommend reading, Chapter 6 of the book "Jesus in Back Alleys" by Hubert Schwartzentruber if you are interested reading more about the Germantown story.
  

  - Marta Castillo (oct 8 at 3:52 p.m.)

• As a member of Germantown's Vision Team when David Weaver asked us to consider recognizing his call to ministry, I remember our discussions regarding whether we should do this. David had been working as a hospice chaplain for several years by this point, had a seminary degree and had demonstrated his gifts in ministry within our congregation for several years. Denying him the public recognition of his call to ministry would only have been on the basis of discrimination against his sexual identity and in order to placate other Mennonites who had not been exposed to God's work among men and women with same sex orientations.

  At the same time, it was clear that Eastern District Conference was chomping at the bit to kick us out. Under the old rules of Eastern District and General Conference no congregation could be expelled. It was only because of this that we continued to remain members. Under the new rules of the MC USA, this was going to change. Despite reassurances from National GC leaders that we would not be expelled, it was clear from conversations with EDC that expulsion was inevitable on the basis of our acceptance of gay and lesbian members. Interestingly, like with our expulsion from Franconia Conference (Franconia conducted an unprecedented mail in vote on this issue, one that was not endorsed by its charter), EDC broke it's own rules in order to complete our expulsion while conservative congregations planning to leave once the MC USA merger was complete could still vote. So the vote to expel was held before the merger under a charter that did not permit votes to expel. These issues have not been reported in the Mennonite Press. Germantown could, on the basis of these technicalities, claim that we have never been properly expelled. (As a reflection of the graciousness of this group of people, I'm the only one that ever brings this up.)

  Under these conditions, what was our incentive to compromise on what God had placed in front of our eyes? Why would we ask a beloved brother to wait for the validation of ordination until the eyes of a sufficient majority of Mennonites where open to allow us to recognize him with their blessing?

  This last Sunday at Germantown the communion serving set given to us as a legacy by the first Gay man brave enough to ask us for membership was used to serve communion, as they are on the first Sunday of every month. As a member of the congregation I was part of that discussion too and remember saying in a members meeting that it is incumbent on us to follow the leading of the Spirit without regard for the denominational consequences. There was considerable distress about the potential for losing our connections to the larger Mennonite world, but in the end the congregation could not deny recognition of the membership of a man who was truly our brother.

  But it was more than a decade before the tacit agreement that was reached with Franconia Conference leadership that permitted us to continue to include gay and lesbian members became sufficiently public (and forgotten by changing leadership) that the issue was addressed in open forums and our expulsion from Franconia Conference was considered. Historians can quibble about dates.

  It is with great admiration and respect that I continue to participate monthly with the thriving group that is Germantown Mennonite Church, a group that includes so many people who would not have been welcome in the Mennonite Church of my distant youth, only a few of them for reasons of sexual orientation. Indeed, it is only because Germantown Mennonite exists that I can continue to express my strong Anabaptist beliefs in a community of believers who share them.
  

  - J. Lamar Freed (oct 8 at 6:14 p.m.)

• I was a pastor at Germantown when the congregation was excommunicated from both the Franconia and Eastern District Conferences. I’d like to make two small corrections in the reported story.

  FIRST, the article says, “Not being part of wider activities was painful at first, and the congregation avoided involvement in church-group engagements for a number of years.”
  

  The pain is quite accurate, the remainder is inaccurate. With the encouragement of both lay leaders at Germantown and the Franconia overseer, Hubert Schwartzentruber, I continued active and regular participation in the urban cluster group of Franconia congregations. In fact, with the dismissal of Germantown from the Conference, as with other losses, Franconia did NOT provide an overseer for us any longer. However, the Germantown congregation “re-hired” Schwartzentruber, both as a way to retain some relationship with the Conference, and to also provide a wider frame of reference for my own work in the congregation. That was only the most formal “involvement” among other more informal and situational relationships.

  Further, with the separation from Eastern District in 2001, the formal agreement voted on by that conference provided for two Germantown persons to continue to represent the congregation in E.D. Conference sessions. This was simply one part of the arrangement by a joint committee of conference and congregational representatives, providing for a greater degree of mutuality between the two groups than was experienced in 1997 with Franconia. To be sure, in both instances, the excommunication of Germantown was already a fait accompli in our negotiations.

  With the formal and many undocumented informal contacts with Franconia and Eastern District, one cannot say, the “congregation avoided involvement in church-group engagements.” Did many members resist these formal and informal involvements? To be sure! But that is part of the ethos at Germantown, and one of the congregation’s greatest strengths – to be able to maintain a cohesive community without demanding homogeneity. Throughout these years, one of the flaws in the wider church’s views of Germantown is the mistake of regarding Germantown as homogenous, perhaps [with my tongue firmly in cheek] confusing homogenous with homosexual.

  SECOND, the article reports, “At one point the congregation discussed the possibility of joining another tradition, like the United Church of Christ, but Yoder McGloughlin said that only lasted about a minute. . . . people said, ‘We’re Germantown Mennonite, we’re the first Mennonite church, it’s part of our identity,’ ” she said. “ ‘Germantown UCC’ — that doesn’t feel like us. Plus, the UCC doesn’t sing like us.”

  This is essentially true, except the congregation as a whole never discussed anything of the sort, that is, beyond a conversation within a small group of leaders. I, for one, felt the congregation needed additional organic connection with the wider church. An “independent Mennonite congregation,” let’s face it, is an oxymoron, in many ways, like another oxymoron, of being “alone together.” Is being an “independent Mennonite church” more risk-free than having a relationship with the UCCs?

  In accordance with UCC polity, the proposal actually was -- “GERMANTOWN MENNONITE CHURCH – A United Church of Christ congregation.” The option was researched with UCC district officials, and briefly [perhaps it was two minutes!] discussed among Germantown leaders, but just as quickly rejected.

  - Richard J Lichty (oct 9 at 11:20 a.m.)

• Richard, Thank you for your input. We have made some modifications based upon it.

  - Tim Huber (oct 9 at 2:58 p.m.)

• “EDC broke it's own rules in order to complete our expulsion while conservative congregations planning to leave once the MC USA merger” This is an issue with which I have never been party to. However I find it strange that conservative congregations would think all of us members of the GLBTI community are any less conservative than they. Quite a number of us still believe in the literal understanding of God’s Word, the Bible. Many of us believe in a literal global flood, Noah’s ark, miracles, and the literal raising of Jesus the Christ from the dead. When a person labels us as one thing or another that is the only time we are regarded as being anything other than your average normal person. I could see how a congregation would be expelled if members of a congregation did not have fidelity to a marriage partner, or were pedophiles, sexual predators, corrupt business persons, or discriminated against others. If conferences are going to expel congregations merely for having members who are ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ then they should be prepared to expel congregations who are harboring other ‘sinners’. Have they not heard, ‘for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God’? (Romans 3:23). However, when I read my Bible I see that God called sinners to the Table of the Lord, not the righteous. After all, the righteous have no need of a physician, which is Jesus Christ. On this basis those who do the expelling are outside of God’s Kingdom. – ‘They have a form of Godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away’ (2Tim 3:5). To my way of thinking, when conferences expel congregations they are really expelling themselves from God’s Kingdom and the expelled congregation is probably better off. God’s Word calls us to avoid such people who have a form of Godliness but are really impostors. You can spot the impostors as they are the ones expelling others while being sinners themselves.

  - Erika Fels (oct 10 at 5:02 p.m.)

• John 8:1 Jesus went unto the mount of Olives. 2 And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them. 3 And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, 4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. 5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? 6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. 7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. 8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. 9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. 10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? 11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

  - Phil sawatsky (oct 11 at 8:04 p.m.)

• “But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”(Romans 8: 23 – 24) “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of god; nut with the flesh the law of sin” (v 23) Paul recognises the perpetually of sin and the need to rely on God’s grace and the need for perpetual confession. There are those things which can be controlled and person chooses not to control them. Then there are those things are part of our nature which struggle against the law of God as Paul pointed out. Gender variance is part of human nature that Paul had to deal with as do we.

  - Erika Fels (oct 13 at 3:44 p.m.)

• “But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”(Romans 8: 23 – 24) “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of god; but with the flesh the law of sin” (v 23) Paul recognises the perpetually of sin and the need to rely on God’s grace and the need for perpetual confession.

  There are those things which can be controlled and a person chooses not to control them. Then there are those things which are part of our human nature which struggles against the law of God as Paul pointed out. Gender variance is part of human nature which Paul had to deal with as do we. Being Human is not a sin. As Jesus pointed out “Why callest me good? None is good, save one, that is, God” (Luke 18: 19).

  - Erika Fels (oct 13 at 3:56 p.m.)

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