{"id":2860,"date":"2010-07-02T10:06:35","date_gmt":"2010-07-02T15:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=2860"},"modified":"2010-12-20T23:49:32","modified_gmt":"2010-12-21T05:49:32","slug":"a-mennonite-the-missal-and-mutual-understanding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2010\/07\/02\/a-mennonite-the-missal-and-mutual-understanding\/","title":{"rendered":"A Mennonite, the Missal, and Mutual Understanding"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hymn writer Adam Tice is Associate Pastor of Hyattsville Mennonite Church in Hyattsville, Maryland. His MA in Christian Formation with an emphasis on worship is from the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary. He serves on the Executive Committee of The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada.<\/em><\/p>\n

.<\/em>
\nDuring pre-marital counseling, our pastor impressed my wife and me with the dictum \u201cdon’t air your dirty laundry.\u201d\u00a0 Anyone who has been the third party to a spousal spat can appreciate the value of that guideline\u2014it is never attractive to witness that type of interaction.\u00a0 And yet, in the arena of church politics, I keep finding myself eavesdropping on the internal squabbles of the Catholic world.<\/p>\n

This ecclesial voyeurism began innocently enough.\u00a0 My hymn texts are published through GIA, and so I began to take notice of their preparations for new hymnals.\u00a0 The underlying reason for the new editions\u2014a new missal translation\u2014was foreign to my Mennonite sensibilities.\u00a0 While readers here could with fair accuracy understand my tradition as being \u201cnon-liturgical\u201d I prefer to think of us as \u201ccongregationally liturgical\u201d–that is, each local church develops its own customs and habits over time that make up a localized (often implicit) liturgy.\u00a0 The idea of words and orders for worship being prescribed from thousands of miles away doesn’t fit with our view of authority\u2014one that attempts to take very seriously the \u201cpriesthood of all believers\u201d and rejects strong, centralized hierarchies.\u00a0 This initial fascination led me to follow this new blog\u00a0moderated by my friend, Fr. Ruff.<\/p>\n

I had seen glimpses of the worst of the Catholic internet before\u2014in particular, vitriolic attacks on certain musical styles and individuals associated with those styles.\u00a0 The congregation that I serve as associate pastor can happily sing \u201cGather us in\u201d and Gregorian chant in the same service, so the rancorous attacks were baffling to me.\u00a0 Having tasted some of that bitterness, I was grateful for the more generous tone of PrayTell<\/em>.\u00a0 And yet, even here the debates and discussions around the impending arrival of the new translation raise ire and frustration.<\/p>\n

I have come to realize that part of my fascination with following these squabbles is because of the internal conflicts within my own denomination.\u00a0 Without revealing too much of my own ecclesiological dirty laundry, I can say that I am entrenched on one side of a long-running debate.\u00a0 We’ve had churches placed under \u201cdiscipline\u201d or kicked out of the denomination; pastors have lost their ordinations; resolutions have been passed and teaching positions have been drafted.\u00a0 Power has become increasingly centralized.\u00a0 The blogosphere burns.\u00a0 Loud voices trumpet doctrines, and real people are hurt.<\/p>\n

None of this is new for us\u2014Mennonites are historically quite good at starting internal conflicts, but habitually bad at ending them.\u00a0 There are dozens of separate denominations that have grown from our divisions.\u00a0 (Before any reader points out that this is the curse of Protestantism, might I gently point out how many denominations were born of splits from Catholicism?)\u00a0 Rather than deal with conflict constructively, our non-resistant ideology reveals its worst tendency\u2014that of non-engagement and avoidance.\u00a0 And so over the years we have argued about such things as what type of clothes to wear, what type of transportation to use, whether women should keep their heads covered, whether to allow divorce and remarriage, and whether to allow women in leadership.\u00a0 Eventually the heat of these questions dissipates, but the lasting impact of church splits and individuals excommunicated continues to damage the body of Christ.<\/p>\n

Having confessed to my tradition’s inadequacy in dealing with conflict, what could I possibly have to offer regarding Catholic infighting over the Missal translation process?\u00a0 Perhaps it is worth a reminder that nearly 500 years ago Catholics were systematically hunting, arresting, torturing and killing my spiritual ancestors.\u00a0 Anabaptism was considered a serious threat to Church structure and teaching.\u00a0 Remarkably, Anabaptism survived and thrived through the persecution; Catholicism survived and thrived despite the perceived threat of Anabaptism.\u00a0 But of course it has taken half a millennium for genuine discourse to resume between the two traditions.<\/p>\n

What I observe in church conflicts (my own and yours) is the gradual erosion in ability to perceive the \u201cother side\u201d as brothers and sisters in Christ\u2014members of Christ’s body, and bearers of the divine image.\u00a0 In short, our conflicts lead us to dehumanize the \u201cother.\u201d\u00a0 In the 16th century, that dehumanization led to mass martyrdoms and irrevocable rifts in the Church.\u00a0 While no inquisitions seem imminent in the missal debates, I do observe that both sides treat the other as though it is unreasonable, unintelligent, disingenuous, and perhaps worst of all, unfaithful.\u00a0 I recognize the tendency to ascribe those characteristics.\u00a0 I have had them applied to me, and I have applied them to others.<\/p>\n

I have found blogs to be a difficult medium for dialog.\u00a0 It is all to easy to view a pseudonym attached to a terse rant as a set of pixels on a screen rather than a person.\u00a0 I usually have no relationship, obligation, or interest in the person hidden behind the comment.\u00a0 I have entirely given up in participation on Mennonite blogs.\u00a0 They bring out the worst side of me.\u00a0 The internet allows us to all-too-easily disembody the Body of Christ.\u00a0 It turns human relationships into something of ether rather than substance.<\/p>\n

What if, instead of the dehumanization that follows mistrust, we engaged those with whom we disagree as though they are as reasonable, intelligent, honest, and faithful as us?\u00a0 At the very least, that would prompt us towards greater grace towards shortcomings.\u00a0 At the best, we could approach disagreements and debates as learning opportunities rather than a chance to seek out and destroy opposition to our cherished ideals.\u00a0 I’ve seen such generosity at work on PrayTell, but I worry that it is gradually eroding.\u00a0 As the new missal translation arrives, I hope that this can continue to be a forum of genuine discussion and debate rather than an arena of battle.<\/p>\n

It is central to Mennonite belief that God is working through the body of Christ (the church) by the power of the Holy Spirit to restore peace to the universe.\u00a0 Who will serve as as peacemakers for the internet?\u00a0 Surely God is at work even here.<\/p>\n

Adam M. L. Tice<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who will serve as as peacemakers for the internet? Surely God is at work even here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[24],"tags":[844,703,295,811],"class_list":["post-2860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-translation-new-missal","tag-adam-tice","tag-ecclesiology","tag-mennonite","tag-peace"],"yoast_head":"\nA Mennonite, the Missal, and Mutual Understanding - Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2010\/07\/02\/a-mennonite-the-missal-and-mutual-understanding\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Mennonite, the Missal, and Mutual Understanding - Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Who will serve as as peacemakers for the internet? 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