Looking for a Third Way in PA (part 2)

A month ago, the Bishop for the Lancaster City District, Bishop Linford King, made a formal request to have Kathy Keener Shantz's ordination in the Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference transferred, not to Lancaster Mennonite Conference, but to him directly. Two problems exist with this strategy. First, ministerial credentials in Mennonite Church USA are held on an electronic database. To transfer them is not the same as mailing off a piece of paper. Second, ministerial credentials are held by the area conference. To be precise, there is no such thing as ordination in Mennonite Church USA. There is only ordination in any one of the twenty-one area conferences in Mennonite Church USA. Thus, Bishop King's request placed the Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference in a bit of a jam. It is neither practical, nor consistent to transfer ministerial credentials from an area conference to a Bishop with oversight of a district within another area conference.

Some of my readers (assuming I have any readers!) might conclude that this is an esoteric and narrow-minded debate. Once again enters the Third Way. In the Anabaptist movement in general and Mennonite Church USA in particular, we believe the congregation is God's missionary agency. Jesus promises to build the church as a discerning, missional body as the direct consequence of Peter's confession. The book of Acts describes the formation and life of congregations -- in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and everywhere. The letters of the New Testament are letters to congregations or their leadership. The church is God's new, transcultural vehicle to carry all of the Jesus story to everyone, everywhere.

But that means congregations cannot afford the luxury of being lone rangers. Just like the Christian faith is impossible to live without community, so Christian mission as the essential purpose of the congregation cannot be done as a solo act. Congregations need other congregations. That is one reason we have so many different denominations. Denominationalism is not a failure of the Body of Christ per se. Denominationalism is an expression of the inherent diversity within the Body of Christ. This means that as a practical strategy, clusters of congregations can effectively resource each other in common vision, goals, and strategy. Such clusters need common bindings -- geography, tradition, ethnicity, theology.

In Mennonite Church USA, it is the area conference that serves as this clustering modality, uniting and focusing congregations to be more effective in their witness. In fact, we value this understanding so much that the membership of Mennonite Church USA is 21. Area conferences are the sole members of Mennonite Church USA -- even if denominational agencies want to bypass area conferences to get to donors -- a subject for a future post.

So it means something to be part of Lancaster and it means something to be part of Pacific Southwest. The challenge is to respect each other when we disagree, as Lancaster disagrees with Pacific Southwest on the ordination of women. Unless Mennonite Church USA is willing to authorize the formation of the theology and polity police (fat chance!!), it falls to the area conferences to work out their differences in a spirit of voluntary, mutual support of each other's practice, placing full faith and credit in each other's application of polity.

This is what I wished would have happened at James Street -- a Third Way Polity. As a Bishop in the Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference, I may want Lancaster to ordain women to ministry in their congregations, but ultimately, unless I move to Lancaster and start agitating for change, that is not my call (again, fat chance -- not the agitation, but the move to Lancaster). However, Kathy was ordained in the Pacific Southwest, and one does not get re-ordained (actually, I was ordained twice, but that's a long story for another posting). I would wish that Lancaster could simply recognize, as a start, that to be in Mennonite Church USA means there are different practices on this issue, and that if a sister conference has seen the call of God anoint a woman for the ordained ministry in another conference in Mennonite Church USA, that Lancaster should place its full faith and credit (the phrase is borrowed from the American constitutional tradition) in the action of the Pacific Southwest and Kathy's previous ordination be affirmed by Lancaster, even if it is outside the norm of existing practice.


So I attended the ordination, and got quoted in the Mennonite church press in a way that made me look like a co-conspirator (Memo to self -- four things can happen when you get quoted in the press...and three of them are bad). Now, Elizabeth is ordained, but Lancaster is not prepared to recognize it. Kathy's previous ordination has been electronically transferred to Lancaster, where it remains electronically "pending" as of June 28, 2007. Likely, the status of the ordination of women will not be reviewed by Lancaster for the foreseeable future. So, what has been accomplished by this action? Simply this, how we relate to one another as member area conferences in Mennonite Church USA is now on the table. We need a Third Way Polity, which grows out of our Third Way Christology...

Sunday evening, I had dinner with a table full of young adults, reminding me that I am now 47, and getting older, and that God is raising up young adults to step up with a desire to be serving leaders. After dinner, I went on with Steve Kriss to go back to Philly and prepare to meet with the Franconia Mennonite Conference Board to report on a consulting engagement, leading a task force to align vision and financial practices in this large and very wealthy part of Mennonite Church USA.