Community, self-governance, free church polity & this forum

[Crazy Liz]

ZiSunka started a thread in one of the Support forums that has led me to think about opening a discussion here on community and self-governance. I hope that's OK. It may be appropriate to lift some quotes from that thread and examine them more closely here where the topic does not have to be limited to CF policy, but we can talk about the policy implications as part of a wider discussion.

I'll start out by quoting what I posted there this morning & ask for a deeper discussion:

I think a small Congregation at CF might be the place to demonstrate to CF as a whole the possibility of self-governance. It is built into the DNA of Anabaptists and Quakers through the kind of polity our churches practice. The history of our forum ironically mimics the history of our churches, having been persecuted and marginalized by other Christians who chose to align with the power of the state.

We have, historically, modeled self-governance while living under oppressive regimes.

We have, historically, spoken truth to power.

We have also experienced the fragmentation that can result from an over-insistence on purity within the group. Church splits over arcane disagreements evidence the dark side of self-governance, and these have historically become rampant within some of the Free Churches over the last few centuries.

I have mixed feelings seeing this dark side of our history playing out again in the 21st century on an internet forum whose mission is to unite all Christians. I personally have vacillated between the positions represented by seebs and ZiSunka on this issue. I do not think asking the powers that be to police Anabaptist icons is in any way consistent with the historical ways of Anabaptists and Quakers. Whether we can demonstrate a different model from the confines of our ghetto is a question I can't answer at the moment. Somedays I think we could, other days I think refusing to submit to the ghetto is the way to speak truth to power in this time and place.

Please add and critique as you see fit.

[ZiSunka]

We have also experienced the fragmentation that can result from an over-insistence on purity within the group.


I believe this is exactly true.

This forum was born out of one man's desire to be freed from the Baptist/Anabaptist forum. He desired a more pure form of Anabaptist faith, one that eliminated just about every anabaptist except him and a few of his friends. It was the drive for purity that drove away the very people who should have been here, and allowed only the people who, while pretending to be the real anabaptists, had no connection with Anabaptist or Quaker practice at all.

A person who once drove through a Hutterite community is NOT by definition a practicing anabaptist, nor is a person who by choice attends a baptist church but longs to be orthodox, nor is a man who spent a couple months with a plain family who formed a church around their own personal beliefs but have no affiliation with any anabaptist group. Such people should NOT dominate the anabaptist forum, tossing out the real anabaptists and quakers for the sake of creating a "pure" society of imitation Anabaptists.

I'm in favor of a "less pure" expression of Anabaptist faith, a more real expression, demonstrating the true width and depth of Anabaptist and Quaker practice and glorifying the Lord whom we follow.

I would hope that all the real anabaptists and quakers would come to call this forum their own. I hope we will populate it. If we leave it empty, we are making it available to the wannabes, the pretenders and the neo-anabaptists who once read a book about the Amish and now think they are the keepers of all righteous knowledge about the anabaptist faith.

Please, everyone who was turned away or alienated by the "purists" please come back to your forum!

[ZiSunka]

Should we ask the powers that be to eliminate this forum?

It was created against our will, hijacked by people who weren't even anabaptist or quaker, and is now largely unpopulated, possibly due to hurt feelings from things done by the hijackers and possibly due to the fact that anabaptists enjoy meeting together but don't like being segregated into ghettos.

Who would be in favor of asking for this forum to be permanently closed and deleted?

[Joykins]

Maybe we should propose what you say in the Support forum, ZiSunka, but I think we should also include a proposal for a home forum for those who were displaced by the B/A forum split--which if this forum is deleted will include all Anabaptists and Quakers as well as small denominations like my own which were formerly in B/A.

[ZiSunka]

How about something like "The Dispersed" which could include everyone thrown out of the B/A forum?

[Joykins]

Diasporadoes? ;)

[Crazy Liz]

Diasporadoes? ;)
Joykins just made up a word. ^_^

I like it.

I was once part of a group that called ourselves The Diaspora. We were a group of families who had developed very close fellowship together in a church, but then the church went through some changes & we felt unwanted by the larger church. We thought of migrating as a group, but ended up migrating separately, mostly to 3 or 4 other churches. But we still got together socially because we had formed bonds with these people that were very deep. In the last 10 years, several of us have moved hundreds of miles away, but we still feel connected to each other more than to any other group outside our own families. I wish I'd thought of the name "diasporadoes" back then. :)

[Crazy Liz]

This forum was born out of one man's desire to be freed from the Baptist/Anabaptist forum. He desired a more pure form of Anabaptist faith, one that eliminated just about every anabaptist except him and a few of his friends.
I don't think I agree with you about this. I think this forum was built as a ghetto for people a group of Baptists wanted to get rid of. Yes, one or two Anabaptists wanted their own place, but most of us didn't.

But I do like ZiSunka's contrast between "real" and "pure." In fact, it's something I want to ponder a while. It has massive implications for how we do community, here at CF and everywhere.

For myself, the ore narrow the CF Congregations become, the less interest I have in them. I didn't like splitting up P/R/E into half a dozen denominational forums, but over time I came to see that B/A had enough diversity for interesting dialogue. I came to CF for the experiment of "Uniting all Christians as one body" through grassroots dialogue among Christians of diverse traditions. The numerous forums and subforums we have now make that very difficult, and I prefer to spend my online time in more diverse settings.

Even this thread is an example. If it had been posted in a more diverse forum, someone from another background would have posted, "What do you mean by Free Church polity?" and we'd be off on a discussion where people with different experiences in free churches would explain their POV to people who were really interested. It would have been a richer conversation.

I plan to look in here from time to time, but I seldom see discussions here that seem really interesting to me. I hope no one is offended by that. I'd like to talk about "the sense of the meeting," and about self-governance under oppressive regimes. But if this thread is any example, it took more than a week before anyone responded to my OP. Maybe the conversation will happen now, maybe not. If it does I'll hang around for it, but it can't be forced. I think probably this forum doesn't have the critical mass of members for sustained community.

[CelticRose]

I think you are right about numbers, Liz. I like discussion but dislike rows & have grown wary of on~line 'discussions' as all too often they seem to disintergrate into slanging matches. I enjoy diversity & I believe self-governence is really only possible when each member waits on the Lord so theat the group comes into unity. This requires more patience than many people have.

[vespasia]

I did not even know there WERE people on this forum who had heard let alone knew about the open brethren until this folder appeared.
[Yes I am a member and hold good standing in my fellowship]

So I missed all the led up to the creation of this particular folder.
Perhaps a subgroup within baptists MIGHT work if people cann accept that anabaptists love Christ before they are anabaptists. Hope that makes sense.

Okay so I have not meet any other UK anabaptists who are Open Brthren but then as has been said they tend to be more pasionate about Christ than denominations.

[Joykins]

FWIW, my perception of the forum split is that it was a combination of ZiSunka's and Crazy Liz's perceived reasons.

[ZiSunka]

Liz, I think we could handle and even relish deeper and more meaningful discussions. I think it would even attract back people who have left the forum because we couldn't have deep discussions.

Don't shun us just because we're uneducated and sometimes confused. We're feeling our way around here in this new world where we aren't being dominated by people who don't represent us as a body and don't understand or accept what we believe.

[Crazy Liz]

I won't shun you. I check here frequently. :D