A divided people : The dissolution of the général conférence of mennonite brethren churches (1990-2002)

Abstract: In 1999, the General Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches, which united the Canadian and U.S. Mennonite Brethren for over one hundred years, voted to dissolve and divest its ministries to two national conferences. This essay reconstructs the events leading up to the dissolution of the General Conference through an examination of periodicals, interviews and General Conference committee and conference proceedings during the 1990s. National, generational and theological differences among the North American Mennonite Brethren constituency all played a significant role in the decision to dissolve the General Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches. ********** Candles flickered within the darkened sanctuary of the Central Heights Mennonite Brethren Church in Abbotsford, British Columbia. On the evening of July 27, 2002, over 1500 members of the Mennonite Brethren Church gathered to witness the leadership of the General Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches pass the light of its faith and ministry to the next generation. In this symbolic ceremony, former General Conference board and ministry members lit candles and then, amid prayers and hymns, passed their candles to current leaders and youth who filled the aisles. (1) While hopeful, the mood of the service remained somber. The main purpose of the gathering was not only to affirm a new generation of leadership but also to close forever a chapter in the history of the Mennonite Brethren Church in North America. The service marked the formal end of the General Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches, an organizational structure that had facilitated a bi-national partnership of ministries between the U.S. and Canada for over 100 years. Perhaps no event in recent Mennonite Brethren history has generated as much controversial debate as the decision made in 1999 to dissolve the General Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches and divide responsibility for its ministries between the Canadian and U.S. national conferences. Some have proposed that the dissolution of the General Conference, or as it was later called, resulted from nationalistic feelings on both sides of the border. Biblical scholar and former secretary of the General Conference John E. Toews cited nationalism as the prime evidence of a growing fragmentation among North American Mennonite Brethren. (2) Others argued that the divestiture grew out of a theological identity crisis. Still others, such as former Executive Secretary Marvin Hein, suggested that the dissolution of the General Conference arose out of the impatience of a younger generation of leaders frustrated by the multi-layered conference structure and the complex process of governance. (3) Each of these perspectives, however, provides only a partial explanation for the demise of the General Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches. Both General Conference leadership and its constituency faced a swirl of diverse issues throughout the 1990s that complicated relationships between Mennonite Brethren in Canada and the U.S., between present and future generations of leadership, and between those divided by theology as well as age and nation. In the end, divestiture was the consequence of national, generational and theological divisions that permeated the constituency of the General Conference. Historical Context Mennonite Brethren history helps to illuminate the significance of the divestiture and the tensions that plagued the Mennonite Brethren Church throughout the 1990s. Since its inception in 1860 in Imperial Russia, the Mennonite Brethren church has had a long history of balancing multiple streams of religious thought, drawing especially on a blend of Anabaptist, Pietist and evangelical thought. (4) As a branch of the larger Mennonite denomination in Russia, the Mennonite Brethren maintained many of the theological principles of their Anabaptist forbears, including believer's baptism, church discipline and nonresistance. …

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