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3 responses so far ↓

• 1 melissa f-b // Sep 4, 2009 at 8:56 am

  Interesting response. While it seems like the debate on “sexual normalcy” has been targeted at gays and lesbians, I also wonder what this means in terms of people who are divorced and remarried in our congregations (the Bible is much more explicit about the problematic nature of these relationships). Or couples who are living together before their marriage before the church.

  Sounds like you’re disappointed with Nation’s dependence on “historical tradition” but don’t we depend on that a lot? Is it we pacifist Mennonites who get to decide that those coming home from war aren’t welcome at Eucharist? Seems so. What does the vulnerable receptivity you speak of actually look like? In congregations I’ve been in, it’s avoidance. For men and women who are gay, this feels like exclusion by silence. For those on the other side, it feels like a refusal to bind and loose.

  Are all my burning questions answered in the longer version?

• 2 isaac // Sep 15, 2009 at 6:08 am

  Melissa, thanks for reading my book review and thanks for the comments/questions.

  I think you’re right about the issue of divorce and remarriage, as well as co-habitation. Nation and Grimsrud talk about this set of issues as well. I think they are right to call us to think through sexuality as a whole, instead of focusing on homosexuality. There’s some kind of strange fascination with LGBT issues while other important areas about sexuality are dropped. That just goes to show that the whole homosexual exclusion stance is just as much a product of the cultural climate as anything else.

  Regarding “historical tradition”... It’s not so much that I think Nation is wrong to way to pay attention to history. I think that’s really important. If we call ourselves “Mennonite,” then we are already invested in history. Our denominational name is a claim on history; our worship is tied to a dead guy and his relationships. (By the way, that’s why I like the particularity of “Mennonite” as opposed to the “Anglican” or “Roman Catholic” or “Methodist.” Mennonites can’t help but talk about history and the dead—it’s part of our name.)

  Anyhow, the trouble with Nation’s argument about “historical tradition” is that he doesn’t have an argument. He simply asserts that the consensus of Christian thought backs up his point. He doesn’t which voices he is listening to and why those are the ones he wants to listen to. This is such a delicate issue that I would hope that people the people with intellectual power would be more careful with their claims. Nation’s presentation would be a whole lot more compelling if he was transparent about his reading of history. He needs to show us the history he is looking at and, more importantly, invite us into the interpretive task of listening to the past, discerning how the faithful dead lay claims on our faith and practice. I wish Nation would have practiced the patience of J.H. Yoder—methodological patience, historiographical patience.

  I don’t think my point has to do with what you call “vulnerable receptivity.” I think that move would be similar to what Grimsrud is advocating with his insistence on hospitality. For Grimsrud, God calls us to extend hospitality. Church is a place of welcome. Our holiness as God’s people is displayed through our constant invitation to the vulnerable and marginalized.

  My point is different. I think Grimsrud and Nation are two sides of the same coin. Both seem like expressions of establishment power. For Nation, there is a group of people who have a clear sense of their identity and have the responsibility (from God) to exclude particular people from membership due to their persistence in sin. The unrepentant are excluded from membership as an act of grace so that their sin may be made explicit. For Grimsrud, on the other hand, that same group of people should have a clear sense of their identity as people of hospitality. God has given this people the power to welcome the marginalized. But this is just the opposite side of Nation’s same coin. Both has a grasp on what the faithful identity of the church looks like and both want “us” to exercise this kind of power. Either way it sounds like power politics.

  I think the church should abandon this quest for establishmentarian power (or, as Yoder would call it, constantinian power). The establishment position from which Grimsrud and Nation seem to speak starts with this presumption: it’s about whether or not “we” should let these people in “our” churches or not. The whole problem is that they assume the voice of a “we” while never taking into account the formation of that “we” and why it’s a legitimate formation. It seems like they would need to say more about their ecclesiologies. What is more determinative than baptism? or Communion? And how exactly does it work to exclude someone who should be part of the consensus? That’s the rub. That’s where our church needs some careful thinking. Nation and Grimsrud seem to buy into the assumption that there is a “we” that can faithfully discern the voice of the Holy Spirit without “them.” I just don’t see how they got to that point. How exactly did we form this “we”? Who authorized it? and why? It seems to me that the problem with framing this whole issue in terms of hospitality is that it assumes that there’s a group of us who have legitimate authority to welcome or not, to include or exclude, to receive or deny. Who gave “us” that authority? It most certainly wasn’t “them.”

  The Apostle Paul says it best: “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you.’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!” (I Cor 12: 21).

• 3 Book review: Nation and Grimsrud // Feb 2, 2010 at 5:59 pm

  [...] unedited version of my review of Ted Grimsrud and Mark Thiessen Nation: Reasoning Together. In an earlier post I had asked people to email me if they wanted me to read the full book review, instead of the [...]

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