eThe Politics of the Cross Resurrected: Is There a Distinctively Anabaptist Witness?
The Anabaptists like to think of themselves as a "Third Way" neither Protestant or Roman Catholic. Many Anabaptists also view their distinctive "peace witness" as neither left or right and disdain to be lumped in with either liberal Protestantism or conservative Evangelicalism. But if we focus on the middle-class, college-educated, urban Mennonites in North America for a moment, do they really offer a distinctively Anabaptist witness? …
… The Amish and many conservative Mennonite groups do have a distinctively Anabaptist witness. They are a true "Third Way" because they actually withdraw from the power structures of society and strive to influence no one – preferring to strive for Christian perfection as a separate society.
But the middle-class, college-educated, increasingly urbanized Mennonites who write books, run the Mennonite Central Committee and teach in the colleges and seminaries have less and less of a distinctively Anabaptist witness as the years pass. They are increasingly difficult to see as being significantly different from liberal Protestantism. Maybe the 16th century Anabaptists simply were liberal Protestants several centuries ahead of their time. That is a depressing thought, but one that most contemporary Mennonites seem determined to make plausible.
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