The Battle To Integrate The Modern Mennonite Church Into The World & Divert Course From Theologically & Ethically Deviant Cultism (2025/06/10)

Originally written on 2025/06/10 in Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada.

(Warning: this paper discusses instances of sexual abuse by church and educational leaders).

Since I dropped out of the Computer Science and Business Administration double-degree program through University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University after 2 years in 2017 and decided instead to focus my studies on the humanities, social sciences, and the matters of religion, spirituality, and philosophy, I have been engaged in a very non-Mennonite-esque phenomenon: a war. Not a physically violent war, and not a constant war but a war consisting of many types of battles: intellectual, ideological, emotional, spiritual, political, and relational.

At times I have seen myself as a victim of harm in the Church, at other times a perpetrator, but the truth is, it has been a very messy combination of both. The absolutist, binary victim-perpetrator mindset itself is an ideology I have had to battle: the idea that certain people or groups of people are all either completely pure, holy, sinless victims or completely evil, guilty psychopathic predators - even if you are 95 years old and believe this, you are as narrow-minded as a toddler.

The fundamental tennant of Christianity is that all people sin, all people are separate from the ideal of being God’s image bearers but it’s through God’s grace we can live and strive to live productively despite this as a result of the sacrifice and the example of a life of sacrifice by Jesus Christ. The concept of an individual psyche’s “shadow” side or functions that need to be acknowledged and integrated has been taught by Carl G. Jung and others is just another way of communicating this. (These concepts certainly apply to myself and some of my own behaviour over the past year to be clear).

In recent times, at least from my own experience in the Modern Mennonite Church, pacifism and self-righteous thinking has been taken so far that the concept of sin has been completely ignored or continued to be applied only to certain people or groups of people who oppose the Church’s views. Not upsetting “the Community” seems to be worshipped above all along with making Church gatherings centered on the fun and entertainment of youth and kids so they aren’t bored and want to attend. Discussing the reality and truth of Sin in general and sins of each individual person seems to not matter when this is the case.

This absolutist, binary victim-perpetrator mindset though has been a fundamental ideology of the Mennonite/Anabaptist Church over history, given that “separation from the world” or in other words “true believers” are victims and the rest of the world is “evil”, was part of the Schleitheim Confession of 1527 in Schleitheim, Switzerland which initiated the Anabaptist movement as a reform to both the Catholic Church and Protestant groups such as the Lutherans.

Through my research in an Anabaptist Political Theology course at Canadian Mennonite University in Fall 2020, I also learned how this “holier-than-thou” mindset was what led to horrific behaviour being justified by ardent Anabaptists/Mennonites ranging from the Anabaptist Kingdom of Münster in Germany with its violent extremism in the name of “the New Jerusalem” to John Howard Yoder, professor at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana running “experiments” on physical intimacy with female students because as a baptized Anabaptist believer he was supposedly now in the “Kingdom of Heaven” and none of his behaviour could be considered sinful anymore. John Howard Yoder’s theological views continue to be taught and promoted today and there are many Mennonite scholars that ignore or deny anything he did or taught as wrong.

The main source of conflict though in my life is what seems to be a unique mindset of mine - at least compared to most of my family, influential people in Waterloo Region, and many people across industries and political parties in Canada - that although we need to hold onto fundamental ethical and philosophical values that have carried humanity and our civilization on throughout history, it does not simply make sense to carry on traditions and doing things “how it always has been” because that is a harmful way of going about things in a rapidly-changing world and it idolizes certain traditions above the highest principles of life and ultimately, God. As human beings, as admirers of Christ, and seekers of God, we need to be concerned with the future, what could be, how to make things better, rather than simply believing how things are and how things have been in our own personal pasts and traditions that we are familiar with, need to be upheld and carried on at all costs.

Because I have been so involved in the Mennonite/Anabaptist world (mostly involuntarily in my childhood and teenage years, moreso voluntarily in my young adult years) this is a larger Church, and Community, and corresponding theology and belief system, I have very strong emotional connection to and also very strong opinions about.

For context, I attended Mannheim Mennonite Church in Mannheim, Wilmot, Waterloo Region, Ontario with my family when I was aged 0 to 12 from 1997 to 2009, and Breslau Mennonite Church in Breslau, Woolwich, Waterloo Region when I was aged 12 in 2009 until I stopped attending last year in November 2024. I also attended Rockway Mennonite Collegiate in Kitchener, Waterloo Region for high school grades 9 to 12 from 2011 to 2015, I was a resident, associate, and student at Conrad Grebel University College over the years 2015 to 2020, and I did one term of Biblical and Theological Studies at Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg, Manitoba in the lockdown-ridden Fall 2020 term.

Over the years, I have attended almost every MCEC/Mennonite Church Canada conference church in Waterloo Region, some in Perth County, Niagara Region, Vancouver in BC, Winnipeg in Manitoba, Mennonite Church USA churches in Ohio, The Meeting House megachurch (Be in Christ Anabaptist branch) at its various sites before it was shut down, and I’ve been involved and attended events of Mennonite organizations such as Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA), Mennonite World Conference, and more.

Below I will outline the issues I see with the current Mennonite Church Canada denomination general individual church structure and culture for internal reasons and because of external societal factors.

I will then provide my ideas for how things could be structured differently because, despite my anger and my battling over the years, it is not simply coming from a place of spite and hurt, but a place of frustration for seeing how things could be better but not being allowed to share my insights and put my insights into practice very easily within the current structures, role designations, and complicated enmeshed relationships that are created in church communities.

Although there are a lot of Mennonite/Anabaptist theological beliefs and cultural practices I see as bad rather than good at this time, there is a lot of wisdom and tradition from this denomination over its history which ultimately come from Jesus Christ and the Bible - both Old and New Testament, that I think are quite valuable for not only people who identify as Mennonite and attend traditional churches but for every human being.

I am not claiming to be Jesus but I am trying to live out the same goal as him as stated in Matthew 5:17 (NRSV): “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill…”

It’s Not The 1970s/1980s/1990s/2000s/2010s Anymore

Career Path and Economic Differences

I played “The Game of Life” board game with family and friends many times as a kid and it seemed to convey the typical life of a North American human being at the time in the 2000-2010 decade I grew up in. Or at least the expectations of a life path one should strive to follow. We may still be living in the same bodies and lives as we were then, but the game is not the same and the rules have changed. If you have not recognized this and started to change how you live and think, there’s no time like the present.

If you’re age 60 or over currently, maybe you can expect to finish off this life path without much deviance from it by wrapping up your career which you likely spent at one organization, maybe even exclusively in one role, then live out a leisurely retirement without any necessary responsibility for your next 20 years (maybe 40 if medicine keeps advancing) using the pension you’ve accumulated.

That is not a certainty though, given the current political, economic, and technological climate our world is in. Even if it was certain, I have never understood how anyone could be satisfied to live that kind of lifestyle with no clear aim or purpose even if you think you “deserve it” after slaving away for 30+ years.

But for those 60 or under, there are very few, if any, who will get to live out this traditional retirement stage given how expensive it is imply to survive for the majority of people in North America. It’s very hard to put away money to save, or to buy any real estate to have as an asset, which is largely to do with the fact of older people continuing the “tradition” of holding onto their family-sized homes until they are physically unable to maintain them even though there are only 1 to 2 people in these homes, while young families are forced to pay more simply to get a mortgage for a condo of a fraction of the size. No wonder people are waiting longer to get married and have kids or deciding not to have kids at all. Ironically, this takes away from the main purpose of elderly people owning a larger home (grandkids visiting) and of having so much leisure time (spending time or taking care of grandkids).

Where this is directly an issue of the church is how employment in churches is a contributing factor: from having studied Mennonite history and learning from people older than me anecdotally, being a pastor used to be a volunteer position. It only became a traditional employee-modeled position with a salary because churches and pastors benefitted from stability and accountability - a change I think was good given the time period and culture of probably the 1970s to the 2010s.

But this change came with tradeoffs that I have not heard of or experienced being given much recognition: employee-pastors are disincentifized to challenge the status quo and are incentivized to conform to the norms of society to draw people in and keep their churches’ budget and own salary funded whether or not the norms of society are in line with Mennonite/Anabaptist theology, or Christian theology in general, or most importantly what is right/true/good/lifegiving. Basically, I believe that there is very little difference from a church with a salaried pastor as a corporation with a salaried CEO or a political party with a salaried leader, or a cult with a salaried cult-leader.

In the next sub-section, I will show how this has led to destructive beliefs in regards to families and intimate relationships both in the Mennonite/Anabaptist Church and in North American society as a whole.

Sexual Ethics and Workplace Differences

Another phenomenon that is not discussed enough or at least not looked at in the broader historical landscape enough is the fact that the Sexual Revolution of the 1950s to the 1970s (which non-coincidentally went along with the development of the second-wave feminist movement or “women’s liberation movement” which non-coincidentally followed two of the most monumental global catastrophes of human history in World War I and World War II) radically changed the sexual ethics of not only secular people but many Christians and Christian leaders even if not in their preaching and public life but in their private lives and subconscious.

I believe this could be explanation why there have been so many influential Mennonite/Anabaptist leaders who so strongly advocate for traditional heterosexual marriages and to not do anything sexually with people outside of these two-person unions but then it is discovered while they are still in ministry or after that they have had affairs with other people, or worse had affairs with their adult parishioners, or even worse have done sexual acts non-consensually with adult parishioners they have power over, or even worse done sexual acts with children they have power over (which is always non-consensual). (See the following resources and records for further information about this: Anabaptist/Mennonite Church sexual misconduct cases - Wikipedia, Mennonite Abuse Prevention, The Meeting House Sexual Abuse Civil Claims Update - Jellinek Ellis Gluckstein Lawyers)

It’s also possible this has always gone on as long as institutional churches have existed but there has just been more awareness of this immorality and more protection of victims to allow them to speak out about past injustices against them in the last decade or two.

A point that the famous Canadian (now also American) professor and psychologist, and more recently media-entrepreneur, theologian, and political commentator Dr. Jordan B. Peterson tried to question in an interview with the media organization VICE in 2017 (watch here: https://youtu.be/S9dZSlUjVls?si=NUOJ1wothi0d7FKh) was that there is nothing unnatural or difficult about men and women working or studying together as peers.

His points have been mis-framed as advocating that women are less than men, and that women are responsible for men being attracted to them and making unwanted sexual advances towards them (i.e. blaming victims of the #MeToo movement) but this is not what he was implying at all: Peterson was simply playing “devil’s advocate” (or rather “angel’s advocate” in my opinion) to the commonly-held belief that in professional or educational or any non-explicitly romantic or sexual settings that men and women can easily treat each other as peers or friends as if they were of their same sex. It is simply a fact of biology, that when males and females interact with each other regularly their bodies and minds can become sexually and romantically aroused - that is a good thing because it what facilitates marriages that are the basis for families. So Peterson was questioning why we have set up society in a way in the last 60-70 years in that men and women interact with people of the opposite sex as much or more with at work and socially as they do with their own spouses or partners they are dating. And he was opposing the idea that if people are put in these non-explicitly romantic or sexual settings and they have romantic feelings or sexual urges that they are a bad person who should be shamed and punished.

Of course I believe that when people take action on these romantic or sexual urges physically, emotionally or verbally, in these settings in a way that abuses the power dynamics, creates harmful situations for workplace culture or productivity, is non-consensual, or betrays the commitment to one or both people’s spouse or future spouse, than there should be some sort of discipline. But I agree that people today don’t consider enough that the systems and workplaces and role structures and relationship structures and gender dynamics that everyone sees as “normal” or “natural” are not so, and have only been this way since the 1960s or so.

To make this stance practical, I think men and women need to be separated as much as possible again when it comes to education and work and religious/spiritual life and discussion.

Many opportunities should still be provided for men and women to interact socially and romantically, and it doesn’t have to be as authoritarianly enforced as it was in the past in the Mennonite Church, but separating men and women in most settings and having a more clearly socially-defined courting and dating process did seem to lead to more people going on to live happy, fulfilling marriages and to keep their commitments to their marriages than many marriages nowadays.

I am also not advocating that one sex/gender is or should be treated as better than the other but it just makes everyone more comfortable and prevents regretful impulsive emotional or sexual behaviour from interfering with vocation and intellectual and spiritual development if roles or at least certain institutions are separated by sex/gender.

(For further insight on this topic, I recommend reading The Case Against The Sexual Revolution (2022) by Louise Perry, and watching episodes of the podcast by British host Chris Williamson called Modern Wisdom such as this one: DEBATE: Why Do Gen Z Women Hate Men So Much?)

Information Availability and Technology Differences

Another monumental difference between today’s world and the world of the pre-2000 or so, is the internet, the access to the internet, and the amount of information, resources, and conversations that are available on the internet.

I will not dwell on this point long because it is a pretty prevalent difference between today’s world and the past and often-discussed, but I believe it is impossible for pastors and educational or seminary institutions to stay as informed on current mainstream political discussions (since they are often global international discussions now), local and world events, and social trends to competently lead people in navigating the world through a Christian morality the way their role is set up now.

To lead people in morality, theology, daily-living, and life-trajectory-orienting effectively in 2025 and going forward, one must be able to communicate effectively in as many different ways and through as many different types of media and outlets as possible - Instagram stories, YouTube educational videos, podcast conversations, written articles, debates, panels in front of live audiences, and most importantly with the people they have genuine family and friend relationships with in person and people that they aren’t as intimate with but interact with often such as neighbours, clients, and workers they receive services from.

This is not the kind of education most current pastors and church leaders have received, and most human beings don’t have the ability to perform all these things consistently long-term as they would be expected to if employed with a salary, and no wonder churches are shrinking in size and influence even though many are led by very competent, compassionate, wise, and theologically-astute people.

My Ideas For The Future of the Church

This essay is about my issues with and vision for church structure, not theology, so I will leave my opinions on that out of this section on recommendations for the future.

Knowing and reading this opinion of mine will be infuriating and saddening for many but my honest, straightforward suggestion for the future of the Modern Mennonite Church is to disassemble and fold as many of its institutions as possible, sell off as many properties as possible and use the resources for charitable ventures or causes, and let people form relationships and communities freely and organically based on past experiences and convictions.

I’m not going to try to legally or physically make this happen but I will continue to advocate for this going forward. Because I believe it is the “institutionalization” or “corporatization” (not exactly the same as “monetization” which I don’t have an issue with on its own) of theologies and ideologies that is the source of many past and present issues in our world. When people use “Church” and the name of God or Christ to profit or earn a living for themselves without actually leading people in truth, goodness, and towards God, Jesus’ words to money changers outside the temple where he was citing the prophets of Isaiah and Jeramiah apply to these people as written in Matthew 21 and Mark 11 (NRSV): “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”

A lot of people crave and sometimes need externally-imposed structure though, so here are a few suggestions for how to make “church” happen even without church buildings, organizations, and institutions:

• Neighbourhood social, business, and volunteer/cause based groups

  • Examples of groups people could start or join and incorporate theology or moral discussion and teaching into even if not explicitly or regularly:

    • Neighbourhood associations

    • Regular street parties/music festivals

    • Farmers’ markets

    • Coffee groups

    • Bible study groups

    • Meditation groups

    • Theatre and music groups (including Mennonite hymn-singing groups)

    • Pick-up sports groups

    • Restaurant-experimenting groups

    • Educational groups

    • Groups who go to volunteer at established organizations such as House of Friendship, Tiny Home Takeout, A Better Tent City, or Ray of Hope in Waterloo Region

• Home churches

  • For people who want weekly Sunday-morning routine, meeting at people’s homes, and taking turns leading devotion, prayer, and maybe singing (if you feel more comfortable in a smaller group) I believe it’s more fulfilling for most people that sitting in a larger gathering even if it is more vulnerable and requires more effort. It also prevents power dynamic issues and clique development for the most part I think, unless it becomes too big (then you can split it up or shuffle people with home church groups if you’re that inclined to organization)

• Book clubs, online course study groups, podcast/theological conversation discussion groups

  • These are suggestions for people who would miss the sermon and education-hour aspect of institutional churches the most. These kinds of groups allow for more variety of teachings, more input from everyone in attendance, less time-restricted conversation, and more flexible scheduling than traditional Sunday-morning-only churches.

As stated at the start of this essay, I know I have been someone engaged in battle, and the tactics I’ve used, mainly the words of emails and messages I’ve sent to specific people and large groups of people, have been sinful, not effective in any way, and really backfired against myself and what I’m battling for.

So I know I’ve hurt a lot of people, a lot of whom did not know they were engaging in this battle because they have not been informed on all that I have through my reading and studies and life experiences. I’m working at making necessary changes to how I take care of myself and relate to people around me to do what I can to prevent harmful and sinful behaviour from myself going forward - but I know the best path is to continue to seek wisdom and guidance from God and words written and spoken by seekers of God and truth.

I do not expect everyone who read through this paper to agree with all my opinions and suggestions, but I hope it at least helps to give people inspiration to think about what could be, especially those who have been hurt by what has been and what is in the Modern Mennonite/Anabaptist Church.

To end this and make my point about the non-necessity of institutionalized churches clear and concise, remember what Jesus said in Matthew 18:19-20: “Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”