Mennonite "Repertoires of Contention": Church Life in Steinbach, Manitoba and Quellenkolonie, Chihuahua, 1945-1975
1998; Volume: 72; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0025-9373
Autores Tópico(s)American Literature and Culture
ResumoThis paper examines conflict within a small Manitoba Mennonite church, Kleine Gemeinde of district. It focuses on a post World War II division in that church between young evangelicals and older communitarians. As a result of that division a conservative remnant of Kleine Gemeinde moved to Mexico in 1948 where it founded Quellenkolonie at Los Jagueyes. During next decade this colony and Manitoba church, renamed Evangelical Mennonite Church in 1952, experienced an increasing antipathy to one another. The paper argues that despite division, migration, schism and clearly biased historical representation, conflict did not detract from true Mennonitism: teachings of separation from world and humility, a lay-church polity and tightly knit community. Moreover, conflict served to bolster a sense of Mennonite identity. Using Charles Tilly's paradigm, repertoires of contention, it appears that Mennonites used a supply of learned ways to express disapproval, manage conflict or make claims on other people. Those learned ways included migration, brotherhood meeting, schism and literary representation. ********** This is a study of role that conflict plays in an evolving Mennonite identity. Conflict itself is not a new subject of study. Most histories of Canadian Mennonite groups, for example, derive from a schism or a migration following a confrontation. Any history of Ontario Mennonites would be incomplete without allusion to a series of divisions during late nineteenth century, the net effect of which, writes Frank Epp, was 3400 Mennonites worshipping in 93 different congregations. Most histories of Manitoba Mennonites detail five major schisms of 1880s and 1890s that brought to province a bewildering array of new church names--Chortitzer, Sommeffelder, Holdeman, Bruderthaler, Brudergemeinde--to add to existing Kleine Gemeinde, Bergthaler and Reinlaender categories. (1) Leland Harder's study, Steinbach and Its Churches, identifies 14 schisms behind this Manitoba town's various Mennonite churches. (2) And one cannot read Canadian Mennonite literature, especially works by Rudy Wiebe, Pat Friesen and Di Brandt, without being introduced to an assortment of bitter and brutal patriarchal power plays in both household and congregation. (3) These illustrations of conflict tend to possess two characteristics. First, conflict is represented as event-based; it occurs occasionally as a specific moment of crisis, a time of schism or of shunning, in an otherwise peaceful unfolding of Mennonite story. Second, conflict is assumed to undermine a healthy social dynamism and lead to community failure. In conflict church strays from core of Mennonite belief, away from ideals of peace-loving forebears and from ideal of a nurturing community. Schism itself is reported, of course, but as a Tauferkrankheit, Anabaptist sickness, an unfortunate attribute of sectarianism. This paper suggests that conflict has been represented too negatively, that is, as antithetical to true Mennonitism and as an evil specter in community. There is, however, another way to read conflict. First, conflict can be understood as endemic and ongoing in Mennonite community, functioning simultaneously at several levels: between community and its host society, among Mennonite sub-communities, between individual and community, and between men and women or among siblings in household and kinship network. In this approach, conflict arises not from Anabaptism's weakness but from its very strength, that is, from its communitarian nature, its lay-orientation, its democratic polity and its emphasis on right behavior. Thus, conflict is not a descent into dysfunction but evidence of cultural creation. Charles Tilly's paradigm, repertoires of contention, seems useful here. (4) According to Tilly, all cultures have a supply of learned ways that members use to express disapproval and manage conflict. …
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