Bridgefolk participant Julia Smucker recently published a letter to the editor in The Mennonite (Oct. 6 issue, p. 4). Since her letter needed to be shortened, she asked to share the original letter here:
Four pieces of my recent reading material are currently milling about in my mind:
1) the 2003 document Called Together to be Peacemakers, the fruit of much Mennonite-Catholic dialogue, which presents the most balanced view of Church history I’ve seen.
2) the news item in the July 21 issue of The Mennonite that mentions Lutheran involvement in interchurch relations at convention in Columbus, which brought to mind a related seminar I attended there as well as my prior encounter with the Augsburg Confession alongside a Lutheran friend;
3) the recently published Missio Dei entitled What is an Anabaptist Christian?, which reflects a popular Mennonite view of Church history portraying Catholic and Lutheran understandings of the Christian life in a very negative light;
4) Gerald Schlabach’s explanation in Commonweal of some “non-Roman reasons” for becoming what he calls a “Mennonite Catholic.”
One of Schlabach’s points that I found most compelling was his citation of the Lord’s Prayer: “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us,” which he applies to a context of interchurch reconciliation and healing from past persecution. He adds the disclaimer that he is not calling for a mass conversion to Catholicism, and neither am I. But what I would like to call for is an end to frameworks of Mennonite identity that demonize our brothers and sisters in Christ’s body.
When Catholics and Lutherans request forgiveness for a history of persecution and/or condemnation of Anabaptists, it is our Christian duty to offer that forgiveness, perhaps by letting go of the collective martyr complex that has long been a major component of our self-perception as Mennonites. I believe that doing so would strengthen, not compromise, our Mennonite heritage, because to act consistently with our much-proclaimed values means accepting the hands of reconciliation that have been extended to us. Only then can we truly be a peace church.