MENNONOT: Issue #1Published: October, 1993 [Back to Mennonot Home Page] [Editorial] [Interview] [Forum] [Humor] Editorial: The Story of MennonotSheri Hostetler Some snippets: ...I found myself in that crevice between worlds I've fallen into many a time since leaving home 10 years ago. I sometimes felt that I'd taken the Mennonite dictum to "be in the world but be not of it" one better: I was living in two worlds and wasn't a part of either of them... I knew a lot of Mennonites like me... friends I had kept in touch with were having the same feelings of in-betweeness as I had. We had similar questions about faith and church, the same anger and bitterness about close-minded Mennonite communities. The things we talked about weren't things I ever saw in the Gospel Herald or The Mennonite. ...How nice it would be to have a publication where we could talk... How good to have a publication that brought those two worlds together. ...THAT'S THE STORY of how Mennonot came to be. Steve Mullet and I are hoping that Mennonot can be a forum for art, satire and honest discussion about those things you can't generally read about in the mainstream Mennonite media, topics that include "unorthodox" political and religious beliefs and "alternative" ideas about spirituality and sexuality. ...We're hoping Mennonot can bring together those of us who have, at one time or another, felt on the margins of the Mennonite church -- whether because you're an outspoken woman or gay, lesbian or bisexual; or because you're not an ethnic Mennonite; or because you don't necessarily believe Jesus' last name is Christ and know for certain Buddhists don't worship Satan; or because you write decidedly non-inspirational poetry and like to dance; or because you can recommend a good dark ale.
Interview: poet Patrick FriesenSome snippets: U.S. Mennonites not familiar with Canadian culture (roughly 99.5% of us) may be surprised to know that for the past several years Mennonite writers have been creating a stir on the Canadian literary scene. As in the U.S., writers from minority-culture communities have gained increasingly more attention in Canada, and Mennonites have become one of the most visible of those communities. Of the Mennonite poets in Canada, Patrick Friesen is probably the best known and the one who has recieved the most critical attention -- both from inside and outside Menno circles -- for his six books of poetry, radio dramas and, more recently, his collaborations with dancers. Mennonot: In a letter to me you said that it's difficult for you to conceive of artists from Menno backgrounds not being from the margins or beyond. Could you comment a bit more on that? Friesen: Mennoism insists, generally, on theological correctness. My experience tells me Mennos, as a church, are not flexible on spiritual matters. There is wrong, and there is right. Black and white. Not much room for grey. I believe artists live in the grey area most of the time. They work in the grey area where there is a lot of ambiguity, neither here nor there, and they are comfortable with this, deal with it constantly in their work. And they must be true to their world. Not to theology. For an artist to try to be an obedient member of a Menno community would tend to mean an abandonment of the ambiguity of the grey area, an abandonment of artistic integrity and the courage to remain in ambiguity. So, if an artist really wants to be a member of a Menno community, he or she must learn to live at the edge, remaining a community member and yet creating out of, and within, ambiguity. One foot in, one foot out. A kind of deception, a constant balancing act. Accepting the lie.
Forum: LiberalismSome snippets: Steve Mullet: A friend of mine put it quite well recently in saying that the problem with liberalism is that once it informs us we're free to be all that we can be, that's where it ends. Liberalism tells us that individual fulfillment is our utmost goal, but fails to give any hint as to what may fulfill us -- a void our consumerist culture exploits quite adeptly. Society is filled with autonomous, disconnected individuals running around trying to find meaning and fulfillment. I'm convinced that liberalism, for all that it pretends to do for the individual, is really more like a hallucinogenic drug. Once you ingest it, you may feel good for a spell, but you basically lose contact with the reality that surrounds you. Here we meet liberalism's catch-22. What if we were to discover, in our free, individualistic quests, that meaning and fulfillment is primarily found in our relationships with others? What if interconnectedness, dependency and vulnerability with those around us turned out to be what makes us feel whole? Then we are faced with the strange situation of coming into conflict with the values and ideas that sent us searching in the first place. Ted Koontz: Liberalism has given us a precious gift in helping us see that individual persons have worth and are not to be sacrificed on the alter of some coercive vision of "the good" imposed by a dominant group. In reacting against the shortcomings of liberalism, it is important not to become repressive neo-conservatives. Yet it is crucial to move beyond liberalism, to become not simply a liberal, but a liberal has-been. I am not sure what that means politically, how to move beyond liberalism in a whole society, without it becoming oppressive. In fact, I doubt that it is possible. For this reason, I have advocated "liberalism for the state." For the church, though, moving beyond liberalism means creating an alternative vision for a common life, a vision centered around the way of Jesus, a vision that people are free to accept or to reject, a vision that is backed by no mechanisms to force compliance, but a vision that is not embarrassed to say "This is the way to life," not "Do your own thing." Steve Nolt: The irony is, of course, that for all our emphasis on individual rights, few of us really exercise any substantive choices. We've gained an enormous amount of freedom of choice, but it's turned out to be a choice between this new brand name and that new label. We can choose between this domestic car and that import. We can watch this violence-promoting TV show or see that female-bashing box office hit. The dozens of choices we make every day turn out to be largely trivial. When we allow ourselves, we realize that real choices of any substance are made for us in Washington/Ottawa, on Madison Avenue and in Hollywood. We accept their decisions fatalistically. SEVERAL HUNDRED YEARS ago during the Renaissance, Europeans began to throw off the yoke of fatalism. They no longer accepted so meekly the forces of nature, tradition and creed, which for so long had controlled their lives. They began to make real choices. They became "modern" people. Now during the late 20th century, we have come full circle. In reality, few modern people are left in western society. We have succumbed to a new fatalism. We have fatalistically accepted society's notions regarding the preeminent place of the individual, the meaning and necessity of material things, and the values of appropriate career plans, income levels and upward mobility. We've fooled ourselves into thinking that we still exercise modern choices, when really we've become entrapped in a fatalism as deadly as its medieval precursor.
Humor (some snippets)Church forms listening committee for stubborn sonsTop 10 reasons for being glad you're a Mennonite |
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