Teach and model mutuality between men and women and challenge the ongoing legacy of patriarchy in the church. – From “What we will do…As church institutions,” in “Churchwide Statement on Sexual Abuse.” Passed by Mennonite Church USA Delegate Assembly, Kansas City, July 2015. Institutions are crowded. In noticing the crowds, we also notice the orientation devices that direct the flow of human traffic in particular ways. We all know the experience of ‘going the wrong way’ in a crowd…You have to become insistent to go against the flow, and you are judged to be going against the flow because you are insistent. A life paradox: you have to become what you are judged as being. – Sara Ahmed, On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life *** On the day that Mennonite Church USA’s resolution on Sexual Abuse passed the assembled delegate body in Kansas City, I was skeptical that it would accomplish anything. For one thing, the language lacked specificity. There weren’t enough concrete prevention measures. There was lamenting and repenting, which felt insulting to survivors in a document that contained so little real accountability for them. There was a lot of “What we will do.” There was […]
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