We reported on this on May 19, 2022. Apparently Doug Mastriano and his family attends Pond Bank Mennonite Church in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
Now Tim Huber, a writer at Anabaptist World, reports on it:
CMC executive director Brian Hershberger told Anabaptist World by email that the conference believes the way of Jesus is extended not by political means, but by gospel preaching, compassionate ministries, reconciliation to God through faith in Christ and the supernatural intervention of God’s spirit.
He did not confirm Mastriano’s church membership and did not respond specifically about Pennsylvania politics or Mastriano.
“The church is distinct from the state in purpose,” he wrote. “We are to follow Jesus in the way of love, peace and nonresistance in relating to all people. We should pray for and respect the state and its officials, and obey in matters not violating obedience to Christ and His Word. The witness of the church to the state is to bring about a greater consciousness of and conscience toward the sovereignty of God, but is not an attempt to bring the state under New Testament ethics for the church.
“Our convictions on these matters have not changed, neither do we intend to do so. Having said that, we acknowledge that people find a home in our churches for various reasons, not always because they share all of our theological convictions.”
Read Huber’s entire piece here.
As part of our work on this story I also contacted Brian Hershberger. He was gracious enough to respond on his family vacation. He said he was not ready to say anything about Mastriano, but he did include excerpts from the Conservative Mennonite Church‘s positions on church/state relations and what he called a “general comment about our churches and those who attend.” Here are those excerpts (all the highlights are mine):
The Kingdom:
CMC believes that the way of Jesus is extended on earth not by political means, but by Gospel preaching, compassionate ministries, reconciliation to God through faith in Christ, and the supernatural intervention of God’s Spirit. The church is distinct from the state in purpose. We are to follow Jesus in the way of love, peace and non-resistance in relating to all people. We should pray for and respect the state and its officials, and obey in matters not violating obedience to Christ and His Word. The witness of the church to the state is to bring about a greater consciousness of and conscience toward the sovereignty of God, but is not an attempt to bring the state under New Testament ethics for the church. (See related excerpts from CMC’s Statement of Theology and Statement of Practice.) Our convictions on these matters have not changed, neither do we intend to do so. Having said that, we acknowledge that people find a home in our churches for various reasons, not always because they share all of our theological convictions.…
The kingdom of God is the realm where God reigns. It is a present reality and is visible on earth, especially in the church, giving believers release from the power and penalty of sin. The kingdom is extended on earth by evangelization and is expressed in Gospel preaching, compassionate ministries, peacemaking based on reconciliation to God through faith in Christ, and in supernatural demonstrations of God’s power. As participants in the Kingdom, God’s people follow Christ in the way of love, peace, and non-resistance in relating to all people, including personal and national enemies. The final fulfillment of the kingdom is awaited, when God’s people will be free from the presence of sin and the kingdom of Satan will be judged and doomed to everlasting destruction. I Pet. 2:9 Matt. 4:17, 23 Matt. 5:3, 10 John 3:3-5 Matt. 12:28 Matt. 16:18, 19 Matt. 24:14 Luke 17:21 Luke 19:11-27 John 18:36 Matt. 5:38-48 Rom. 12:14-21 Act. 14:22 Matt. 25:34 I Tim. 6:14-16 Rev. 12:10 Rev. 21:1-4 Rev. 20:11-15…
The State:
The state is a provision of God for the administration of order and justice for the welfare of all people. The state is distinct from the church in purpose and cannot be expected to function by the ethics of Christ and the New Testament. Under God’s provision, the state uses the sword, which “is ordained of God outside the perfection of Christ” (quoted from The Schleitheim Confession of Faith, 1527) and is a function contrary to the New Testament teachings for the church and the disciple of Christ. Christians are to pray for and respect the state and its officials and obey in matters not violating obedience to Christ and His Word. The church is a witness to the state of God’s righteousness and may cooperate with the state in matters of community and law where principles of love and righteousness are not violated, but may not be integrated with the state or succumb to a nationalism which essentially accords the state the status of a tribal god.
The witness of the church to the state is an influence toward a greater consciousness of and conscience toward the sovereignty of God, but is not an attempt to bring the state under New Testament kingdom ethics aside from a response to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. This witness of the church consists of testimony and appeal from a people ready to suffer, rather than pressure and demand from a people of political power. Rom. 13:1-7 Matt. 22:15-22 I Peter 2:13-15 Matt. 5:38-42 Matt. 26:52 John 18:36 Rom. 12:17-21 I Tim. 2:1-2 I Pet. 2:17 Titus 3:1 Acts 4:19 Acts 5:29 Act 5:13 Acts 24-26
Love and Nonresistance:
Jesus, as the incarnate Son of God, both taught and practiced the way of love in all human relationships. Under the old covenant, God’s people participated in warfare and capital punishment. Under the new covenant, Jesus commanded His followers not to resist an evil person or to fight with the sword to prevent His arrest because His kingdom was not “of this world.” As members of His kingdom, we follow His example by extending love, humanitarian aid, and the truth of the Gospel to all people regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, or national allegiance. Though we experience continual conflict with evil, we recognize that our primary enemy is Satan, not people, and the weapons we use in this conflict are spiritual, not physical. We should not jeopardize our primary allegiance to Jesus by participating in any office, career, or organization that requires us to employ the use of force, military service, or retaliation to accomplish its objectives. We believe the way of love applies to every area of life, including those situations that involve the use of litigation, strikes, international tension, and war. We must, even at the risk of life itself, extend love to every human and alleviate suffering, overcoming evil with love. Matthew 5:38-48 John 18:36 Romans 5:5; 12:18-21 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 2 Corinthians 10:3-4 James 2:8 1 Peter 2:23; 4:1.
What is most striking to me is the picture at the top of this post. Jeremy Lehmann, the pastor of Pond Bank Community Church, the pastor of a Conservative Mennonite congregation, is worshipping at the election party for Doug Mastriano! Evangelical right-wing culture warrior Sean Feucht led the worship that night.
How does Lehmann reconcile this with the commitments of the Conservative Mennonite Church? Again, we explored some of this more fully here.
John, interesting stuff… Some thoughts: Based on CMC and LMC (Lanc. Mennonite Conference) polity, which is similar to SBC , in that it’s a convention/conference of mostly independent churches (and more than say 50-70 yrs ago.). Note that Pond Bank has dropped the “Mennonite” from its name…This indicates some shift away. I would guess Mr Hershberger and upper level colleagues might be troubled by the recent attention/events, but I doubt they can do much, nor might they want to pick a fight with a church that might be one of the bigger, more ‘vibrant’ churches in their conference? I’m guessing there’s not much he or they can do, unless maybe at a yearly confab they could make some resolution or something disavowing this church’s particular stance/trajectory on these church/state issues. I doubt they can kick the church out or enact any other disciplinary measures unless its members agree to such a thing.
As the journalist of this piece, I assume you’re bound to some disclosure boundaries regarding your conversation with Mr Hershberger, and so I understand if you can’t answer, but I’d love to know if Mr Hersberger was alarmed by this or if he tacked more like the SBC has done with it’s abuse allegations… ie “we can’t do anything about that because we’re a conference of independent congregations, therefore our hands are tied…yada, yada… can we keep the peace?”
Whatever his stance or approach to this, this is deeply disturbing to think of what this association with Mastriano is going to do to the witness of Anabaptists/Mennonites in general… this so-called Mennonite church, Pond Bank, has clearly, imo lost the plot, and I suspect for some time. As a committed Mennonite/Anabaptist myself, I feel they’ve already brought shame and disrepute upon a particular branch of the Church. I pray to God this man doesn’t become governor…
Back in 2008 we left the church I had grown up in and attended for most of my life up to that point. It was an “Evangelical Mennonite” church (they have since dropped the Mennonite part and just call themselves Evangelical). It was being taken over by political conservatives/Republicans. If you haven’t been in such a situation you cannot imagine the pain, but leaving was our only option. It is just so unbearably sad when Christianity is hijacked, warped, and destroyed by those seeking political power.
Karen, sorry to hear of that pain/loss. I wonder if something similar happened at Pond Bank?
I am sorry to hear this, Karen. I think the Obama era, followed by the Trump era, revealed a lot about American evangelicalism. Having said that, Mennonites are not easy to pin down politically these days.
J: I have sent a few queries to CMC theologians and church leaders (other than Hershberger) for help in sorting all this out, but they have not responded. There is not much more to say about my interaction with Hershberger. I appreciated his response, but I think you are right–I am not sure what else he can say. I do think that the stuff he sent me from the church statement of beliefs is worth noting. He obviously chose these sections carefully. The pic of the pastor “worshipping” at the Mastriano rally was very revealing. Although I imagine most Mennonites–men and women who know the culture much better than I do–would not be surprised by this. I am willing to admit that most Mennonites I know tend to be connected in some way with the academic world. I am not sure that they are best sampling of life on the ground in some of these congregations. For example, I know that there were Amish who supported Trump.
John you are more correct than you may know when you say this… “I am willing to admit that most Mennonites I know tend to be connected in some way with the academic world. I am not sure that they are best sampling of life on the ground in some of these congregations.”
There would be many an LMC or CMC congregation with nary an academic person in their midst, including leadership… And so most likely such a congregation’s primary discipling is a mix of religious right media, charismatic/pentecostal/INC influences, some neo-fundamentalism and a sprinkling of ‘Mennonite’…maybe a visiting sermon giver from the ‘home/denomination’ office… a few times of year (or maybe never!). In other words, churches like Pond Bank may have little to no input from their conference’s public theologians, Bible teachers, leaders, etc… And maybe more to the point, no discipleship from their historical distinctives like the peace stance, etc (I could be wrong regarding PB at the granular level. Maybe there’s a few real Mennonites with Anabaptist convictions there, who are secretly horrified – I have no experience with it – but given the church’s pastor and his inclinations, I have my doubts.)
Churches with less of that and more trained, educated laity and leadership will probably look and feel much different than Pond Bank, especially if trained in Biblical hermeneutics, church history and history in general! (But in my experience these types of churches are few and far between; mostly urban – another major divide besides the education gap within this conference of churches).
One of my contentions for bringing some health back to our churches, like the LMC which I’m a part of, is regular teaching on church and world history w/good sources, compelling real life stories! On Sunday mornings, in Sunday Schools etc so the laity hears a different narrative than the one they’re getting from Fox News or TBN et al… Would there be howls of “that’s not in the Bible! Why aren’t we reading a Bible story! etc — but I don’t know how else to reach these people for the little bit of time you have them all sitting there, listening to you. It would be my wish that anyone doing any kind of pastoral training of any kind, has required courses in a well-balanced, non-partisan church and American history… it might start turning the tide a teensy bit.
Sorry, I’m so long – this subject, the educational gap, and the bitter fruit we’re reaping from it…gets me going!
Great points, J. Most of the Mennonites I know are very thoughtful people, but I imagine Anabaptists suffer from a kind of anti-intellectualism just like their evangelical brothers and sisters. Thanks for your work!