01 July 2020

Anabaptist Storm Clouds on the Horizon (Part 4)


Returning to the conservative Mennonites, the legalism of the Amish seems to be diluted (though still present) and largely replaced with a spirit of capitulation. This is what I think of when I see conservative Mennonites inviting John Stonestreet to speak. Have things gone that badly in their community, with their youth that they're willing to hear a culture-sanctifying, worldly, compromised Evangelical leader who regularly promotes feminism to come and teach them about how to navigate the world of technology and the computer age?


Have they no leaders with any discernment? Are they just so floundering and desperate that they would turn to the likes of Stonestreet? The Sword and Trumpet website has articles critical of capital punishment and topics that deal with traditional Anabaptist thought. By all accounts it's a conservative group and so what might Stonestreet have to say to them?
I decided to write them:
22 Dec 2019
I have enjoyed reading the articles on your website but I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw that you are promoting a conference with John Stonestreet as your keynote speaker. Stonestreet represents the Dominionist Theology of Francis Schaeffer and Abraham Kuyper. This essentially Calvinist theology is rooted in a doctrine that defines the Kingdom as encompassing the culture in its entirety and thus they labour to transform and 'Christianize' the arts, politics and all of society. This is but a post-Revolutionary Protestant variety of the old Constantinianism that dominated the Middle Ages. It is a manifest rejection of the Two Kingdoms doctrine and as such these teachings are antithetical to what the Anabaptist movement has always been about.
I am genuinely shocked that you would invite the protégé of Charles Colson, the Evangelical leader who promoted war and Wall Street along with worldly and theological compromise. I understand the colloquy is about media issues but as one who has listened to Stonestreet's radio commentaries for years I can safely say he teaches a message of compromise and worldliness. I simply cannot grasp why your group would invite him to speak. Can someone please explain this to me? I am genuinely curious.
I was excited to discover the announcement of the colloquy and for a moment considered attending as I live in Pennsylvania but upon discovering that Stonestreet is to be the main speaker my vision blurred and my heart raced. You are literally inviting a wolf in sheep's clothing into your midst. What am I missing here?
Please, I sincerely hope for some response and interaction on this point.
Thank you,
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After receiving no response I tried again:
13 Jan 2020
Hello, I am writing as a follow up to the message I sent on 22 December 2019 regarding the 2020 Colloquy in which you have invited the Dominionist Two-Kingdom rejecting and warmonger John Stonestreet to speak at your event.
I have asked for clarification as his invite is tantamount to a U-Turn on the part of your organisation, a complete rejection of your values and historic doctrinal positions.
I have not received a response.
Have I understood you correctly? Are you indeed rejecting historic Anabaptism, the doctrine of Two Kingdoms and the principles of the Kingdom and non-resistance as outlined in the New Testament?
Is the wider Anabaptist community aware of your new position?
Are you going to repudiate or take down articles on your website that you seem to now reject (in principle) by allowing this man John Stonestreet to come and teach you?
I really would like some kind of response or interaction on this question. I am confused, concerned and I intend to pursue this.
Thank you,
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I eventually received a response but it was less than friendly. I was told to change my tone and informed that they invite a variety of speakers to address them. The Sword and Trumpet representative either didn't take me seriously or considered it beneath him to even construct a paragraph in explanation. I was summarily dismissed. I will admit I was a bit aggressive but I don't think I was one bit out of line given the gravity of the situation and its meaning. One would think he would have wanted to explain to me that I had misunderstood or perhaps pointed me toward something to read that might help explain how they've come to this position. But I guess that was asking too much.
The meetings were scheduled for early March 2020 and I believe they took place, occurring just before the full-fledged pandemic lockdown began. Since then the website has removed any reference to it.
I responded to his rather terse note with the following:
Thank you for getting back to me. I find your policy to be shocking and I think any Anabaptist-Kingdom minded person would be offended. Just this last week Stonestreet praised the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, with a political aim grossly misrepresented the situation in China, and argued for the legitimacy of 'cultural Christianity'.
The truth is and I would make the case for this in the strongest terms.... Stonestreet doesn't know what New Testament Christianity even is. He thinks godliness is gain, the Kingdom is power and that piety is the flowering of culture. He is a classic false teacher and the epitome of the type of theology that Kingdom Christians have opposed for centuries. Were he and his ilk to acquire power they would persecute us. They've done it before and woe unto us if our leaders have forgotten this reality.
He needs to be called to repentance and yet your organisation is calling him to come and teach you... as if he has something to say. I've listened to Stonestreet talk about media, smartphones and the like. I cannot fathom why you would think he has anything to offer. His world-friendly compromised Evangelicalism is bankrupt. This is so disturbing to me as I've seen a trend in recent years among Anabaptists.... a trend toward the embrace of Dominionist Theology and its assumptions. From Amish going to the ballot box to the sacralisation of work and finding Francis Schaeffer on the shelf in bookstores.... the Anabaptist testimony is in danger.
I will not bother you again as I know you don't want to hear from me. But I will not be silent. People need to know what's happening and I intend to publish this information online.
I urge your organisation to reconsider and cancel the Stonestreet colloquy.
In God's grace,
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Separatism when wed to Dominionist theology is no longer separatism or it won't be for long. When the Magisterial Reformation doctrine of Vocation is embraced and work is sanctified, when building a business and seeking profit is confused with ministry and Kingdom building – the spirit of accommodation will soon come to dominate. The separatist Two-Kingdom embracing bodies of the Anabaptist world are in grave danger. Some have already fallen into apostasy.
Others are rapidly becoming indistinguishable from the world, fooling themselves that they are somehow maintaining a straight and narrow path even while they are compromising the full spectrum of ethics. Others are on a path to becoming a mild and less-militant form of Evangelicalism and yet that position won't hold and within a generation or so they will have abandoned any pretense of Two Kingdom theology, non-resistance or any of the other distinctives that used to mark them out from the wider Christian community and the world.
Money is a powerful corrupter and across the board it seems to be playing a role. The lessons regarding Sodom in Ezekiel 16 come to mind. Decadence and abomination are born of affluence and the self-deception and restless gluttony that come with it. The Evangelical world in selling itself out to mammon – to American middle class values – it sowed the seeds in abundance and now it is reaping the harvest. It's hard to watch others – people who ought to know better – naively embark on that same path. They too will reap the harvest in a generation or two if not sooner.
Others have allowed worldly theologians to delineate them – they too reacted to the catastrophic world wars but let themselves be defined by events, categories and assumptions to which they should have never given any standing. As a consequence there's a kind of worldliness-creep at work.
Others such as the Amish are simply floundering, making fools of themselves and in some cases destroying their testimony in the process. For the Amish, the gospel is their community Ordnung or order, the rules they follow to remain in good standing. This is the path to salvation and yet when they spend half their time circumventing it, one has to wonder.††
Money is always corrupting but when you embrace a theology that sanctifies it and when you pursue a doctrine that confuses faithfulness with worldly success then you're on a dangerous path. When profit (which is legitimate in and of itself to a point) is confused with ministry and blessing, then you've crossed an ethical line.
I am fully convinced of Two Kingdom theology, Kingdom ethics and that these realities put the Church into a place of antithesis. I don't believe Amish pseudo-separatism is the answer as it is but an empty form and is not Scripturally faithful.
I envy the community aspect of Amish and Mennonite life and yet at the same time their insularity has apparently blinded them and while some groups have embraced education they have instead (seemingly) embraced the world's paradigms without deeply reflecting on the fact that to remain faithful especially in light of modern industrialisation is to be counter-cultural and to face a necessary reduction in income and lifestyle. The Mennonites have not done this as growing numbers embrace feminism, career women and even women in authority.
Therefore it's no real surprise that as they embrace these generalised concepts they begin to feel the pressures of modern life, technology and the stresses these things place on one's time and the family. And so who do they turn to? Their leaders don't have the answers and they're akin to fish out of water. And yet the Evangelical community has been answering these questions for decades – not with Biblical answers or solutions but with an endless series of compromises that allow them to retain their standing in the world even as they pursue (largely by means of economics and politics) the transformation of culture. And so these erroneous voices are granted some degree of standing.
Is it possible that in another generation we may see the Anabaptist witness reduced to compromised and worldly Amish and Mennonites on the one hand and a mere remnant of those whose religion is little more than an agrarian life? I hope not but that's where things seemed to be headed. Maybe things are further along than I realise. I hope someone is paying attention and that leaders will rise up and shepherd their communities to a better place.
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†† I know of Amish who own forbidden tools and other implements and hide them in their English neighbour's basements. I went into one man's basement and he showed me where different Amish had their respective 'stashes'.
Another Amish man grew weary of his beard which (as a married man) is required by his group's Ordnung. He would on a daily basis thin it out by plucking hairs. When an English-man (my friend) asked him if that wasn't a violation of the rule, he responded that the rule says they can't cut or shave it, but it doesn't say anything about plucking.
Others secretly own vehicles and pay drivers but hide their vehicle ownership from the elders. Additionally among their communities some have become rather wealthy and yet hide their wealth as it generates controversy.
While I don't smoke, I have no real (in principle) opposition to it – other than the fact that it's stupid and unhealthy and leads to reduced capacity for physical activity. It's foolish but I won't say it's sinful unless someone is addicted to it which of course is the case when it comes to most cigarette smokers. Anyway, if you want to know how silly the Amish appear to outsiders, I've talked to several people who have ventured into the aforementioned Chautauqua Institute in Western New York. The Amish have several nearby communities and are often hired by the cottage owners to do housecleaning. Numerous parties have reported driving through and seeing clusters of Amish women standing outside (in full garb of course) having a group smoke-break. This just makes people howl with laughter but of course when the Amish van pulls up and one of the men pulls out the ashtray and unceremoniously dumps the smoldering mass of butts and ashes in the parking lot as they drive away – those same folks aren't laughing. While I am not a prude, the Amish are pretty offensive to a lot of folks. The heart of manners is the consideration of others and of what is right. The Amish continually come across as self-obsessed, self-serving, crude and sometimes downright rude.