Hello everybody! Welcome back to another episode of Anabaptist Perspectives.
I'm here again with Melvin Lehman.
In 2007 (ten years ago), you wrote an article that in the Mennonite world at least went semi-viral.
A lot of people read it. It got of a lot of attention because of some things you said.
It was called "The New Conservatives".
We'll make sure to put a link to that, so you can read it. It is a really interesting read.
Actually, Frank Reed used it in history class for us. That was part of our curriculum.
We were asked to discuss it and dialogue about it. Anyway, it's been ten years.
Let's revisit some of that stuff. Just starting off, define what you meant by the term "new conservatives".
What group are you talking about? Let's kind of get a baseline here.
Big question.
Again, thank you, Reagan, for the opportunity to talk here a little bit about this.
It's pushed me around just a bit to think on this and say, "Okay, what do I believe?"
Well, as you've said, I did write the article about ten years ago.
At that particular point, I was thinking long and hard about
the young folks who were coming here to Faith Builders and trying to read them
and came to the realization that they had a different perspective than what I had.
Of course I asked the question, "Well, why? What has changed?"
That led me to reflect on things.
I grew up in the 60's public high schools and realized that I myself had taken in---
(what would I say?)--- the rebellious 60's or just that whole world that existed at that time.
It was also the era of the fragmentation of the solidarity of the old Mennonite church, even the one I grew up in.
I don't mean the congregation itself, but the conference that we belonged to.
Of course there were just a lot of divisions that happened,
but the big divisions were liberal/conservative.
What do we mean "conservative"? What do we mean "liberal"?
Back at that time, it was pretty clear---this was conservative, this was liberal.
So, I think out of that framework.
I could tell that the people I was teaching in the 1980's, 90's, and into after the millennial change
did not think in the same terms I did.
That person is the person I'm calling the "new conservative".
They're not coming out of that 60's and 70's perspective.
They decidedly though are not liberal. They don't think like a liberal does
(not at least the liberals I knew in the 60's and the 70's ---liberals I went to school with.)
In fact, kind of were quite open to conservative people and conservative thought.
What I heard them asking for was a compelling reason.
What are the compelling reasons for following the conservative path?
I heard them talking about the things that concerned them that they really cared about.
This is the 80's, 90's, 2000's?
That's right. Particularly the 90's and the 2000's.
So basically more my generation and maybe a little bit older?
People who are now 25 - 50 --- in that age group.
It's like your generational differences almost in a way.
That's right. I myself was attracted to what I heard them talking about.
So I thought, "Well, why not try to sort this out a little bit?
Think about what are the categories and and so on?"
So, as you've already stated, our listeners could easily access the article itself.
I will just mention the six items that were very important if I may.
The ones I identified that would I think
represented the new conservative first would they do appreciate traditional practice.
I don't mean they just buy in.
Okay. Yeah.
Maybe better said they don't out-and-out reject it just up front. Just because somebody says it's traditional,
they don't say, "Okay, okay. I don't want it."
Oh well, okay.
While a liberal (what I call a liberal) would be a person
who just automatically reacts to anything that is traditional.
The new conservative does not do that.
He's not a buy-in. He doesn't just say, "Oh yeah!"
I'm glad he doesn't. He shouldn't. That's why I refuse to call them liberal.
Their a new conservative.
Second, they reject authoritarianism without relationship.
I grew up in a world where authority might even be in an office ten miles away, but if they spoke, you did.
The church not quite like that, but perhaps more so than what at least a new conservative would want.
So, authoritarianism with relationship.
Third, seek to respect and honor other Bible believing groups.
So, unnecessary walls --- the new conservative doesn't like them.
"Why all the the divisiveness?" It's a really good question.
Values a Christian education.
That's a big one.
Obviously, I'm a teacher at Faith Builders. I care about education.
I respect the position because I understand the concern, so I want that understood.
The more conservative or the farther you go, the deeper you go into conservative thought,
the more anti-educational you tend to be.
It's a little unfair statement, I know, but generally speaking, probably true.
The new conservative does not think in those terms.
He actually sees education as an outline to the kingdom, into his church, into his life.
The next one, or the fifth one that I mentioned is believes that separation from the world in thought and practice
begins in the heart and affects every area of life, not just arbitrarily selected areas.
I've heard a lot of friends from Bible School that I would have went with
would have said things almost word-for-word like that.
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm right on board with this.
To categorize, and so on is problematic. In fact, I like the term "counterculture" better than I do "separation".
Oh. Okay.
"Counterculture" meaning whether it's money, whether it's the house I build.
Whatever it is, I'm willing to not only accept, but embrace a position that
separates me from a world that is pagan and is gung-ho about such things.
So that I think is an important point.
The sixth one I make is the new conservative longs for meaningful Christian community as a
basis for personal growth and effective mission activity.
The Christian community thing is what I'm keying in on here.
My own sons... I hear them almost wistfully saying, "Well Dad, help us to understand
what the Christian community was like that you grew up in."
I hear them wanting a level of community
that seems just a little beyond their grasp in today's anabaptist circles.
I'm not quite sure how to get my finger quite on that, but I know that the new conservative wants it pretty badly.
So, those six things are the ones that generally outline who the new conservative is.
This is a very unique blend of mindsets and culture and
reaction to traditionalism (I guess you can use that word) and liberalism.
With such a unique combination, where is this headed, and how is this group (the new conservatives ---
my generation) making contributions to the church?
Oh boy. A great question. Where is it headed?
First, I'm not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but I'll still make a few comments about it.
I think the new conservatives are tilted toward tolerance.
When I say tilted (again there's always a continuum here of where we're really at) ---
but tilted toward tolerance and away from raw authority in institutional organization.
Now, I'd say that to address the question of "Where's it headed?"
My summary statement actually that I wrote down in my notes was that I
think that the new conservatives will struggle with the administrative structures
that actually will move their idealism forward.
I'm old enough now and have experienced enough failure myself.
I'm not talking about personal failure, but failure trying to get accomplished what I wanted to get accomplished.
To realize that the actual structures that are required
to move a vision forward are understood by very few people.
The new conservatives will have to learn that there are structures that move things forward.
This tilt toward tolerance. I tell you a place where I see this.
When I watch the new conservative parent, actually parenting a child,
they do not parent it the way Sheila and I do it --- did.
I don't mean to be negative so much as to say that it's clear that they think that they can talk
their children relationally into --- fill in the blank
My warning is this --- you can't talk everybody into...
I thought you could. I actually thought if you're skillful enough, that you're persuasive enough,
you can talk anybody into anything.
Not true.
A child does need to be raised to understand that no means no.
Yes means yes. Sit here means sit here and so on.
I think the way the new conservative answers the question I'm trying to push out here
will say a lot about where it actually heads.
If they can create the structures, and if they can actually know the difference between godly tolerance
that leads toward holiness of lifestyle and a tolerance that really just opens the door to a crass worldliness.
So, I'm waiting to see how that works.
It's been ten years since you wrote that article.
Do you see it going down, up, or is it too early to say?
The new conservatives that I know, and I would be frank, and say they're mainly people who
circulate through Faith Builders and so on are pretty alert to this and aware of it.
I really can appreciate their willingness to actually engage the discussion,
let's say the discussion of tolerance. It feels to me as though we have a good chance, frankly.
Ask me at the right time.
That's hopeful.
I sometimes tell people, "Ask me at a different time of the day, and I'll be so pessimistic it's unbelievable."
In general, I feel pretty optimistic about it.
Well, just the fact that we're having these conversations,
and the fact that you wrote this article, and it did strike such a chord.
You're hitting something that my generation is feeling, and we just don't know quite what to do with it.
That's what it seems to me, yes.
Really when I read it for class (which would have been several years ago under Frank Reed),
I was like, "Woah. This really makes so much more sense." At least it gives me a baseline to work from.
Even now, revisiting, going through this again, I'm just
really seeing the potential, but also how it could go either way.
It could, yes.
Let's get practical. What's some positives of this, and what's some negatives?
A very, very good question.
Some positives in particular is a mission emphasis.
Okay.
A particular one that I'm intrigued by. Your generation has become very interested in the children of the world.
So, when I was growing up, prison ministry was the big thing.
It was the popular thing. It's what you did. Good thing.
I was involved in one for 16 years.
Really? Okay.
Yeah, I loved it.
I don't regret it at all, but you always had that impression you were working at things from the wrong end.
The emphasis now it feels to me from the new conservatives is more back to the children.
At least the ones I know.
Lots of interest in your childcare places and for your pregnancy centers and things like that.
It's caring at the right place.
It's values at the right place.
The scriptures are clear.
Pure religion and undefiled ... to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. James 1:27
It's kudos to the new conservatives for putting their finger at the right place.
I'm not saying that we were doing the wrong thing in the prisons.
Sure.
Just saying that it feels right to me that we're being very, very interested in the children.
So that's I think a very, very positive thing. I already mentioned earlier the community emphasis.
I hear that more and more and more.
I'm not quite sure if the new conservative has identified what they mean by community.
So, what is that? Is that living close together in proximity? Is it just a feeling of camaraderie?
Is it we have one goal that we're pushing to? I'm not quite sure what all they mean, but it's good talk.
Again it feels to me, as I said earlier, that the new conservative's work is
to bring some of that into some structures that actually do see those ideals emerge as realities.
I like the rejection of affluence.
But a warning that can circle around and bite you.
I was a part of the 60's. We were very much that way --- anti-affluence.
"Plastic society" we called our fathers and forefathers.
Well, interestingly enough my generation by the time we were in our 40's had bought into it.
Maybe worse than the generation earlier. In what way? Well, on the honesty issue.
My generation was willing to actually be dishonest for gain.
The generation who had reacted to the plastic society then were willing to build
on the plastic society in the end and even introduce dishonesty and a whole lot of other things with it.
The new conservative generally frowns on money grabbing and just so much effort put into the financial.
And that's something I've seen, started hearing a lot more.
It's a good thing.
So I feel very, very positive about that.
A negative or so: You can't be all things to all men.
This is that tolerance thing a little bit kind of coming back and circling back and saying that
at the end of the day, you do have to --- well maybe at the beginning of the day and the end of the day ---
you have to somewhere make some differences.
I'll just let my statement stand. You can't be all things to all men.
If you try to do that, you end up being almost nothing to anybody.
So there does have to be some clarity there.
I'm not pushing now back to say that everybody needs to identify with the conservative anabaptist constituency.
I think it's a very good group to identify with.
One needs to create an identity.
It feels a little ambiguous to me for the new conservatives.
I know this is kind of repeating myself, but I'll say it again.
The new conservatives (Not really negative. It's maybe an observation) need to build a sustainable culture.
Now I use the word "culture" here because it's probably the newest frontier that I'm working on.
The culture is extremely important.
It's not everything, but it's important.
What all means sustainable?
Well, even for myself am I passing my core values to the next generation?
What does the next generation actually carry with them?
I don't mean that they should mimic us and be just like us.
They should clearly carry the core values forward.
So those six things I read.
So I wonder: So the next generation will they actually have imbibed them?
Will they carry them forward?
Here's the thing that people forget:
Values are carried forward generationally by traditions.
Don't think specific Mennonite traditions now, but think of Christmas for example.
There's all kinds of values that surround that that if you were suddenly to somehow magically be able to excise
the tradition of Christmas from Western society. You could just make it disappear.
I know it's a mind game, but supposing you could,
what would happen to the values that are attached there that
almost everybody in Western society talks about "going home", "Christmas", "at Christmas-time" and so on?
All that will disappear.
That's what I'm talking about.
It's not so much artificial traditions as it is traditions that actually are integrated,
and they carry forward the values.
I'm not sure that the new conservatives are building those.
That's a really good point. I've never thought of that before.
Well, think about it. I don't know.
I'm doing some writing on this right now,
and just observing that even in non-Christian circles in the pagan world.
It's your baseball games. All the stuff that's involved there.
These are the traditions that carry their values forward.
Maybe that's enough for now, but those are some things.
Definitely. With those, one criticism of this
(I think of the original article too) is just well, isn't this just another way of saying
this is people transitioning from conservative Amish or Mennonite
into more mainstream Christianity. Isn't that just what the new conservatives are?
I'm optimistic that it is not.
Normally, there is not just a choice between this way or that way.
Okay. I hear you.
In a sense, there are some questions that are that way. We sing the song, "There's one door, only one."
I don't see this question as being a one door or this door. This one or this one.
Liberalism or conservatism, so to speak.
I think there is an option.
Actually, can I read just a little section from the end.
Please.
Say it this way: "Finally, I apologize for not being able to think of a better word than new conservatism.
To define the stream of thought that I'm attempting to identify personally have a deep respect for the
contributions of the old conservative positions during the 20th century and have no desire to devalue that
contribution by suggesting that there is a new way that we must follow."
I'm not saying that.
"The path that leads to God is an old path that many saints have trod before us,
and we're brethren with them."
So rather than talk about is this just another path to liberalism?
I don't see it that way at all. I really see it more aligned with conservative ideals.
It has a better chance of carrying --- actually, I think it has a better chance
of carrying forward the ideals that my father had by a longshot
then does the really extreme conservatives or the liberals.
Okay, I got that. That makes sense. Interesting.
I really honestly do even though I have a heart for the old conservatives.
I'm not stupid. There of course are some serious flaws there that are problematic.
I think that the new conservative path has a chance, I think has the best chance of
grabbing hold of what's best in that old conservative flow
in actually pulling it into a bit of a different perspective,
but not one so different that it's totally unrecognizable as being connected
or finding it's roots in the conservatism of the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's.
So, that's why I feel optimistic about it ---
of saying I don't see it as a path that is going to veer over here to
really in the end just being on the liberal path.
Does it have a possibility of doing that? Of course it does. Absolutely.
No. Let's not be foolish or have our heads in the sand. Of course it can.
I think if it can stay on course with actually, honestly grappling with the issues,
sorting through some of the debris, and pulling it into some of the framework we've talked about here,
I'm hopeful that it really is the path forward for next hundred years.
Is this mindset something that is truly unique?
Is this something that in a sense every generation goes through?
What can we learn from this mindset?
It's probably not wise for us to think that something is uniquely unique, and by that I mean brand-new.
We're human beings, and we're way down the line here.
Human beings have experienced a lot of things. It's not that I would say that,
"Aha. We've landed on something so brand-new that everybody needs to get on it. This will fix our problems."
I don't think so.
However, I'd like to hope that we are grappling with the right issues, and we'll find perhaps a unique path
in the world of which we live even among Christendom so to speak.
Here's a book that I would --- I don't know if you've read it or not.
It's called "Vision, Doctrine, War" by James Juhnke.
I have not read it, no.
It's a part of a four-part series.
I've read some of that series, but not that book.
This chronicles the 1890's to the 1930's --- 1870's --- I'm sorry --- to the 1930's.
I just read it. I was amazed, astounded at the recording here of some conversations and movements
that are so similar to the things that we are actually talking about.
When I saw this question that you raised, I'm like "uh-oh."
There is a certain amount of this cyclic thing that is somewhat recognizable
particularly if you read something like this and realize,
wow, they were asking the same questions that we're wanting to ask
in a different time, different setting and so on.
So, I'm being like modern scholars are even though I'm not one myself.
It's like, "Well, yeah, it depends on how you look at the question here." From one perspective, it can feel cyclic.
That's the reason why I'm saying we shouldn't be stupid and act as if this is so brand-new.
It's linear. Headed the right direction.
Let's also be hopeful that we actually can plow ground particularly in our generation that hasn't been plowed.
Perhaps it was plowed ten generations ago. I don't know for sure.
We have the opportunity, and I think we have some perspective and some vision for it.
I'm quite hopeful that the new ground that I'm talking about is unique to our generation.
Hence we have a unique chance to carry forward these ideas. Let me give you an example.
Take community. Well this is a rich ideal of the new conservative.
We've got phones, and we've got computers, and
we've got endless array of stuff that an earlier generation did not have.
To actually push forward community, we all know that it also has a potential to go the other way quite strongly.
I just use that as a simple example to say we have a unique opportunity to plow new ground in our generation
and perhaps make some headway that was not made previously.
I say that with humility and just a lot of respect for those who've gone on before us.
So, maybe the mindsets that are going through my generation (the new conservatives and so forth),
maybe those particular concepts aren't necessarily new.
The setting that they're in, the context is totally new.
Absolutely.
That's a challenge.
No generation that --- I teach world history ---- no generation that I have ever read about or even thought about
has anywhere close the number of things at their fingertips.
There's a generation today.
Well, we have a lot of things to work through it sounds like. Oh my.
Well, thank you for explaining some of that and taking the time. A lot to think about.
Praise the Lord.
Thank you, everyone, for watching as well.
If you like what you see, come back. We do new episodes each week.
Leave a comment if you have a question.
Hopefully, we'll keep making stuff like this. This has been really interesting. Thanks again for your time.
You're very welcome. Thank you.
I've enjoyed this. I guess we'll see all of you in the next episode.
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