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Why did Mennonites Abandon the Early Anabaptist View of Jesus’ Exception Clause? (Separatism and Confessional Statements)

American Mennonites gradually abandoned the early Anabaptist interpretation of Jesus’ words, “except for porneia(Matt. 5:32; 19:9). They eventually resolved, instead, to exclude from the church any remarried person whose former spouse was still alive, even if their divorce had been triggered by adultery.

In my last post, I shared when this change took place. It began no later than the mid-1800s (likely decades before) and was finalized in a General Conference of the Mennonite Church in 1905.

But why did this change happen, and why at this time? This why question is a little harder to pin down. I don’t think there was a single cause, but rather a cluster of reasons. I’ll begin discussing these reasons in this post.

Brief aside: To avoid (or create!) confusion, I should clarify that I am telling the story here primarily of the “Mennonite Church,” not of all Mennonites in America, let alone of all Amish, too. The Mennonite Church was the oldest and largest branch of Anabaptists in America, composed of primarily Swiss-Germans, both Mennonites and some former Amish. It gave birth over time to many other groups, including Old Order Mennonites and, later, various conservative “fellowships” and “conferences” (including, indirectly, the Midwest Mennonite Fellowship of the church of my youth). Those who remained (along with others who joined) are now known as Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church CanadaThe Mennonite Church has been the most influential branch of American Anabaptists, partly because of its many publications, some of which strongly shape conservative Anabaptists even to this day.

Click here to see a timeline of Amish and Mennonite separations and mergers, created by my friend Ernest Eby. The branch I’m focusing on is  the “Old” Mennonite Church, as well as the Amish-Mennonites who joined them.

Why did the Mennonite Church step away from early Anabaptist teachings permitting divorce and remarriage in cases of adultery? Several background historical conditions played a supporting role. In this post I’ll discuss two: the separatist mindset of Anabaptists, and the role of confessions and catechisms.

In a subsequent post I plan to discuss a possible third: the transition to the English language.

Again, I want to be clear that what follows is a series of informed propositions, not a publishable thesis. I am not sure how heavily to weigh each of these factors, and I’m sure I’m missing other factors worthy of discussion.

A SEPARATIST MINDSET

A first historical factor that probably helped nudge Mennonites toward a stricter divorce theology was their long tradition of seeing themselves as a people apart. Their two-kingdom theology separated them not only from “the world,” but also from most other Christians, who were seen as participating in the world through political involvement and moral compromise. “Their worldview pitted the faithful remnant of true Christians in hard struggle against the established churches and against the vast majority of ‘Christians’ who did not live righteously.” 1

It is important to remember that even on the topic of divorce and remarriage early Anabaptists were mostly2 “conservative” in comparison to Reformers such as Luther and Zwingli, who permitted divorce for more reasons that just adultery. (See this post for more about Zwingli and divorce. See here for relevant quotes from Luther.)

When Anabaptists moved to America, this sense of being a people apart evolved, but continued. On the one hand, these American Anabaptists no longer had the evangelistic zeal of their ancestors, which meant the church was now mostly composed of biological descendants rather than converts. This reinforced their isolation. On the other hand, they were no longer hiding for their lives, facing persecution from fellow “Christians.” This led to some increased assimilation within the surrounding culture. Mennonites engaged in business deals with non-Mennonite neighbors, shared church buildings, attended each other’s services, and even sometimes intermarried.

But before complete assimilation could occur, events such as the Revolutionary War reminded this nonresistant people of their identity:

The greatest result of the whole revolutionary experience for Mennonites and Amish was to heighten their sense of separation from their neighbors. Rather suddenly, they had found themselves to be a people somewhat apart from the new people the patriots were forming. So they… emerged from the American revolution to be, more than before, “the quiet in the land.”3

The Civil War (1861-65) found Mennonites and Amish less united in their response, but “unlike Protestants in major denominations… [they] had not put politics and sectionalism above faith to the point of dividing the church into northern and southern branches”4 Whatever their wartime choices, American Anabaptists experienced renewed debate about how to live as a separate people. Leaders such as Brenneman and Funk—the same leaders who played lead roles in the Herald of Truth divorce debate I summarized in my last post—published new booklets promoting nonresistance.

Separation over military participation reinforced separation over marriage. Almost all Mennonite and Amish groups in the 1800s tried to prevent interdenominational marriages. Many churches excommunicated members who married outside the church; others placed such members on probation. A few churches gave reluctant permission, and one prominent Lancaster minister (1890) mourned the fact that Mennonite youth who were not yet members were forced to get conduct their interdenominational marriages elsewhere:

Why must our menonite [sic] children when they are united in the bonds of matrimony, be sent to those least esteemed in the church? We try to raise them up in the nonresistent [sic] doctrine in our Sunday schools, but when they get married, we must send them to those war ministers to get married.5

Such a strong separatist mindset probably also shaped how American Anabaptists felt about divorce and remarriage.

To be clear, Anabaptists had always warned strongly against (wrongful) divorce. It appears that American Anabaptists even pushed against the traditional practice of calling church members to shun spouses who were under church discipline; when Amish leaders in the 1860s tried to force a wife to shun her husband, church members called her an adulteress when she reluctantly complied! This suggests that, among American Anabaptists, the marriage bond was seen as even more binding than it had been seen by some early Anabaptists (such as Dutch Mennonites and Hutterites).

As divorce and remarriage gradually became more frequent in the surrounding culture and churches (more on this in a future post), Mennonite leaders were keen to observe the rulings of other denominations and to urge a strict course for their own churches. Though I have not found any record of actual church decisions on the matter from the 1700s or early 1800s, I suspect that as churches around them veered “left” on divorce, Amish and Mennonites gradually pulled harder to the “right.”

An author in the Herald of Truth put it this way (1883): “Instead of divine law, to regulate it [marriage and divorce], the civil law is made the criterion by many Christian churches.”6 Similarly, the Herald reported in 1895 that two men, “neither of them having been born in a Mennonite family,” gave a presentation titled, “Why am I a Mennonite?” Their sixth reason was summarized thus:

6. Nonresistance. Also that adulterers (divorced persons remarrying) cannot enter the kingdom of God. Virtuous life required of every member…7

A strong stance against divorce and remarriage was part of the “brand” of American Mennonites, part of their identity as a people apart. Their separatist mindset tied them to their Anabaptist ancestors, even though they had come to embrace a somewhat more stringent doctrine about divorce and remarriage than what their ancestors had taught.

CONFESSIONS AND CATECHISMS

Confessions of faith have been one important way Anabaptists have remained rooted in the theology of their ancestors. Significantly, however, the confession of faith that became most popular and authoritative for both Amish and Mennonites in America, the Dordrecht Confession of Faith (1632), does not mention divorce or remarriage at all. (Here is the Dordrecht Confession’s article about marriage.)

This is surely an historical accident, in the sense that the authors of this confession almost certainly did, with all other Anabaptists of their time, permit divorce and remarriage in cases of adultery. It is also an accident in the sense that the popularity of this confession had nothing to do with its silence on this topic. Historical accidents, nevertheless, can produce real results.

American Anabaptists did use some other documents that preserved the historic Anabaptist teaching. For example, the “long” confession (c. 1600) included in the Martyr’s Mirror did explicitly affirm remarriage after adultery (as noted by the 1882 Herald of Truth article quoted in my last post). Menno Simon’s writings, republished in America, taught the same. But most people probably had to go digging through long texts to find those witnesses. The Dordrecht confession, by contrast, was used alongside several catechisms for instructing candidates for baptism and membership. Virtually every Mennonite encountered it.

Did the catechisms clarify the historic Anabaptist affirmation of remarriage in cases of adultery? No, they did not. While many Anabaptist catechisms and confessions from 1600 to the 1860s affirm divorce in cases of adultery, I have not found any documents from this period that mention the question of remarriage in such cases. They certainly do not forbid remarriage, but neither do they explicitly affirm it. They are silent. Many of these post-1600 documents probably assumed the historic Anabaptist teaching without repeating it.8

The Church of God in Christ Mennonite denomination (started in 1859 by John Holdeman) offers an informative contrast. This was a restorationist group, so they intentionally reached back to early Anabaptist writings to shape their own theology and practice. This excerpt from their 1896 confession cites both the “long” confession (c. 1600) and the writings of Menno Simons as it affirms, mostly intact,9 the historic Anabaptist teaching on remarriage after adultery:

We do believe that the Lord prohibited divorcing excepting in case of adultery. Yet we do not believe that a brother or sister should apply for a divorce. We understand the Savior’s expression in Matthew 19:9, as did the Martyr brethren in their 33 articles of faith as we read in “Martyr’s Mirror,” page 387, article 25, when they expressed themselves as follows: “And thus re-establishing marriage between one man and one woman, and so inseparably and firmly binding the bond of matrimony, that they might not, on any account, separate and marry another, except in case of adultery or death.” Also read in Menno Simon part 2, page 311.

But the confession considered most authoritative by most early American Mennonites (Dordrecht) did not mention the question of divorce and remarriage after adultery. Many other documents they used most often addressed only the first half of the question.

Given this situation, it isn’t surprising that American Mennonites gradually lost clarity and agreement about what they believed on the topic. This lack of teaching set the stage for renewed debate, eventually leading to a new (and different) consensus.

CONCLUSION

The separatist mindset of American Mennonites probably pushed them to become even more rigorous than their Anabaptist ancestors in their interpretation of Jesus’ exception clause. This “push” factor was not counterbalanced with any “pull” in their most popular Anabaptist confession and catechisms, which did not address the topic of remarriage after adultery. Together, these historical factors helped set the stage for the Mennonite Church to retreat from early Anabaptist views about valid grounds for divorce and remarriage.


In my next post I hope to wrestle with the question of whether the language transition from German to English shaped Mennonite views on divorce and remarriage.

Meanwhile, I invite your responses to this post in the comments below. Thanks for reading!


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  1. Theron F. Schlabach, Peace, Faith, Nation: Mennonites and Amish in Nineteenth-Century America, The Mennonite Experience in America, V. 2 (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1988), 20. In this quote, Schlabach is discussing early Anabaptists in Europe.
  2. I say “mostly” because some early Anabaptists affirmed the practice of converts divorcing their unbelieving (non-Anabaptist) spouses and remarrying; a practice which the magisterial Reformers strongly opposed. Except for the Hutterites, and except for the Dutch Mennonite who advocated shunning spouses who were under discipline, within a generation or so almost all Anabaptists had rejected this additional ground for divorce, limiting it only to one: adultery.
  3. Richard K. MacMaster, Land, Piety, Peoplehood: The Establishment of Mennonite Communities in America 1683-1790, The Mennonite Experience in America, V. 1 (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 19850, 279.
  4. Schlabach, 199.
  5. Schlabach, 83.
  6. A. K. Zook, “Matrimony,” original article for The Herald of Truth, Vol. 20, No. 14 (published July 15, 1883), 212; https://archive.org/details/heraldoftruth20unse/page/n111/mode/1up.
  7. “Proceedings of the Mennonite S. S. Conference of Indiana and Michigan,” Herald of Truth, Vol. 32, No. 22 (Nov. 15, 1895), 346; https://archive.org/details/heraldoftruth32unse/page/n176/mode/1up.
  8. See the conclusion to this post, including footnote 36, for more analysis of this documentary evidence.
  9. I say “mostly intact” because of the statement that Christians should not apply for a divorce. This may be based on the idea of some early Anabaptists that marriages initiated outside the church are not particularly valid or binding. The Holdemans seem to have concluded that, in contrast, marriages between church members cannot be broken. Most early Anabaptist writings, however do not appear to restrict believers from divorcing spouses who commit adultery.

“Into the World, But Not of the World”

“In the world, but not of the world.” Perhaps you’ve heard this slogan. It’s one way we Christians describe our ambivalent position in this world.

This slogan has biblical roots, which can be unearthed in John 17, in the prayer Jesus prays for his disciples just before he returns to his Father. Here are the relevant lines:

I am no longer in the world, but they are in the worldthe world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. (John 17:11, 14, emphasis added)

There you have it: “In the world” but “not of the world.”

This slogan has proved useful, for it holds two truths in tension: First–in emphasis, though not order–we belong to a kingdom that is not of this world, the kingdom of Christ. Our true identity is found here, not in any earthly ties we possess. Second–though first in the slogan–we nevertheless still inhabit this world, and should not pretend otherwise by imagining we are already in heaven.

A closer look at Jesus’ prayer, however, might cause us to pause before we use this slogan again. For me, the closer look came this morning as I listened to my brother Steve Smucker expound from John in our sermon time.

I might have looked right past what I am about to show you, had I not been primed by some recent thinking I’ve been doing as I prepare for a presentation about “two-kingdom theology.”  Christians belong to God’s kingdom, yet live within the kingdom of Satan. I had been planning to frame some of my presentation of this reality by using the slogan above: “In the world… not of the world.”

Now I think I’ll need to adapt that frame a little. Here’s why–the lines from Jesus’ prayer that I noticed this morning:

They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. (John 17:16-19, emphasis added)

First, Jesus repeats his assertion that his followers are not of the world. Within the context of John’s Gospel, this is an amazing claim, one that deserves a few comments before we get to what excited me this morning.

As John records it, one of Jesus’ central claims regarding his authority was that, unlike the Jewish religious leaders who were too often his opponents, he was not of this world:

“You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.” (John 8:23)

When Jesus said “I am not of this world,” this was a negative way of saying what he really meant: He was actually of another world. And now in John 17, Jesus says the same thing of his disciples: They, too, belong to another world. They, too, are part of a kingdom that is higher and bears greater authority than anything their opponents can claim. What an amazing honor!

But that is not all. Notice the first half of what Jesus told his opponents: “You are from below; I am from above.” Notice the little word “from.” When Jesus said “I am not of this world,” he was not merely (merely!) saying “I belong to another world.” He was also saying “I come from another world.”

And now, in John 17, Jesus uses the same language about his disciples! What can this mean? Are his disciples–are we Christians today–not only of, but also from another world?

Back to the verses I noticed this morning:

They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. (John 17:16-19, emphasis added)

Now notice the second line I have emphasized. Here Jesus makes an amazing pronouncement. Just as the Father sent him into the world, so he has sent his disciples into the world!

So, it is not merely that we find ourselves “in” the world, though that is true. And it is not merely that Jesus didn’t ask that we be taken out of this world, though that, too, is true (John 17:15). Rather, we have been intentionally sent into the world by Jesus.

Now we can return to our unanswered question: Yes, Jesus does indeed indicate that his disciples are from another world. We have been “sent into” this world, which suggests that we did not come from here, but from somewhere else.

No, I am not suggesting that Christians have experienced an eternal “pre-existence” like the Second Person of the Trinity did before he inhabited flesh as the earthly Jesus. Rather, I am saying that Christians are on mission in this world just as Jesus was. Just as Jesus was sent from beyond this world (from God) with a mission from God to fulfill, so we are sent from beyond this world (from God) with a mission from Jesus to fulfill.

So now I plan to rephrase the slogan for my presentation. It will be “Into the world, but not of the world.”

But is this safe? Is it safe for Christians to imagine they have a mission to intentionally go into the world? I can hear the all-to-understandable concern: “Your faith won’t survive if you go into the world. The world will change you more than you will change the world.” And I can see the common solution: An attempt to retreat into Christian enclaves. No, we are not in heaven—we mournfully acknowledge that we are still “in the world,” after all— but we attempt to create our own little self-made heavens until we can be lifted away to the real thing. (Now I’m convicting myself as I write.)

What is Jesus solution for our concern? It is right there, in the words we have already read twice. Here it is again, with fresh emphasis and some footnotes I’ll explain in a minute:

They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them[b] in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself,[c] that they also may be sanctified[d] in truth. (John 17:16-19, emphasis added)

Notice how Jesus intersperses his statements about mission with statements about sanctification. How will we be sanctified? By the truth, by God’s word. God’s word—especially his message to us spoken through the work and words of Jesus—will purify us as we are sent out into the world. His word will keep us from defilement as we are on mission in the world.

But to be “sanctified” is more than just to be made holy. Here the ESV footnotes help. They all communicate the same thing: to be sanctified is to be set apart for holy service to God. This is priestly language, and it is mission language. Just as the priests were consecrated for the purpose of holy service to God, so we are cleansed by God for the purpose of being sent out into the world on holy mission.

So God puts together what we so often see as in conflict: Our need to be holy and our interaction with the world. We say, “How dare I go into the world if I am to remain holy?” Meanwhile, God just might be saying this: “What use is it that my children are seeking to be holy if they are so slow to go into the world on the mission for which I consecrated them?”

So yes, we are certainly “not of the world.” Let us never forget this! We belong to another kingdom, and this must be clearly evident. Our slogan is definitely not “Into the world, and of the world,” and we must never act as if it is.

But we have also been sent from another kingdom, sent on mission, and this, too, must be clearly evident. So I think I’ll hang up the old slogan “In the world, but not of the world.” My new slogan is this: “Into the world, but not of the world.”


Do you have some out-of-this-world insights to share? Send them our way in the comments section below. And thanks for reading!

Clarifications about Removing Church Traditions

My recent posts prompted a couple questions that I want to answer briefly here. Both are good questions, deserving much fuller responses than I will be able to provide. But here’s a start.


Q. 1: Should we be drawing parallels between Anabaptist traditions and Jewish traditions?

As I understand it, the concern here is that comparing the two may cause us to downplay the value of Anabaptist traditions, thus rejecting them too quickly. Here is the question as it was presented to me:

Is it appropriate to compare the fading Mosaic law at a time when the light of Christ had just come into the world, to the “practice” part of Christian faith and practice that has been established by hundreds of years of born again, Spirit-led Anabaptist believers? One set of rules was outshone by the light of Christ. The other seems to be teetering and threatening to be blotted out by a world that is quickly sliding into darkness as the church is “falling away.”

This is a complicated question! I want to begin by acknowledging the differences. The Mosaic Law clearly belongs to the time before Christ, while Anabaptist traditions have been formed since the time of Christ, by Christ-followers. So, yes, it is very clear that we are no longer under the Mosaic Law (in the sense of being legally bound to observe its rules), but our relationship to church traditions and laws is not always so clear.

That said, I still think we can learn a lot about the potential dangers of regulated church traditions by looking at the Mosaic Law and Jewish traditions.

First, Jewish traditions did not become a problem only after the institution of the new covenant in Christ. Already prior to this, Jewish traditions were obscuring God’s true intent with the Law of Moses—see Matthew 15. The word of God for the nation of Israel was being buried under the tradition of the elders. The elders (early Pharisees, etc.) were God-fearing, Law-loving men. They intended this tradition to be a “fence around the law” to ensure no one broke the law. But as the traditions became more extensive and rigid, they actually distracted people from the spirit of the law and hindered people from obeying it. If this all happened within the time of the old covenant, then surely the same can happen today within the time of the new covenant, with its ethical commands. In both cases, good men with good intentions can become badly imbalanced. So I think it is fair and wise to draw lessons from the former for the latter.

Second, I do not find any NT example of a similar “fence around the law of Christ.” I do not see any example of an established, prepackaged Christian set of traditions that would parallel the Jewish tradition of the elders. We see no uniform, church-wide sub-culture being promoted, with detailed church standards for things like regulation clothing. On the one hand, this has a natural sociological explanation, for “the Way” was too new to have developed into such an established movement. Indeed, within a couple centuries there were many such church systems, rules, and cultural practices in place.

On the other hand, I think it is significant that the apostles never seem to have envisioned the formation of such a uniform Christian culture. They proclaimed a gospel, not a culture. And the gospel is not a culture. The gospel is a message about a King who calls people everywhere to submit their cultures to his reign. Thus in Revelation we see people of many cultures all serving the Lion-Lamb—we see cultural diversity, not homogeneity.

This suggests that when we aim to regulate the production of a Christian subculture, we may be borrowing an approach more suitable to the old covenant. The Jewish traditions of the elders were based on a Mosaic Law which was designed by God to physically separate Israel from the surrounding nations, forming a people of God identifiable by its own language, geography, national government, foods, and clothing. If a Jew obeyed the food laws of the Mosaic Law, he was physically unable to eat with Gentiles. This was not just an incidental consequence of these food laws; it was the very purpose of the laws—to keep Israel segregated from the influence of their godless neighbors. But this physical segregation was abolished by the introduction of the new covenant (read Acts 10). Spiritual separation from unbelievers is still important (2 Cor. 6:14-7:1), but it is now no longer accomplished by means of physical segregation. (Paul reserves physical segregation for those under church discipline—those who claim to be Christians but don’t live like it; see 1 Cor. 5:9-13.) Rather, spiritual separation is accomplished by being personally cleansed from the sins that unbelievers share in (2 Cor. 6:14-15; 7:1) and by opening our hearts to the apostles and to the gospel message they proclaimed (2 Cor. 6:11-13; 7:2).

I want to make some important distinctions within Anabaptist traditions here. Paul’s approach to personal holiness seems consistent with warnings against specific sinful behaviors (including specific clothing items, etc.). It also seems consistent with “holy habits” that a godly community will inevitably form as it follows Christ. But I am not convinced that it is very consistent with an approach that emphasizes prescribed uniform standards—especially when this standard includes rules that have no obvious direct moral significance, rules designed primarily to promote “separation.”

In summary, I think (a) the fact that Jewish traditions were a problem even during the time of the Mosaic Law suggests that church traditions can become a similar problem during the time of the law of Christ. And (b) the fact that the apostles preached a gospel with that promoted holiness by very different means than either the Jewish traditions or the Mosaic Law suggests that we should ask whether regulated church traditions reflect a deep understanding of the gospel.


Q. 2: Is it true that “removing even harmful church rules will not, by itself, draw a single person closer to Christ”?

I made that claim in my most recent post. One person cited it as my most valuable observation. Another challenged it. Is it true? Here is the question as I received it:

I guess i don’t get it when someone says that removing harmful church rules has nothing to do with our souls or being a better Christian…. That’s false my friend!!!!…or am I missing something here?????

The key phrase in my statement is the words “by itself.” With that included, I stand by my statement. Without those words, the sentence becomes untrue.

An analogy may help. Merely removing weights from runners will never bring any of them closer to the finish line. However…! If someone has a mind to run, then removing weights may make all the difference as to whether they ever reach the finish line.

If you think I’m being confusing here, listen to Paul. In the letter to the Galatians he writes, “For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision” (Gal. 6:15). Yet earlier in the same letter he says this:

Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. (Gal. 5:2-4, emphasis added)

So which is true, Paul? Is circumcision neither here nor there, or is it deadly?

Well, it depends. If you are a new creation in Christ (Gal. 6:15), and you are clear that circumcision has zero ability to save you or anyone else, then is neither here nor there. But if you’re thinking you need to be circumcised in order to be saved, or you’re thinking others need to be circumcised in order to be saved, then it’s deadly!

Paul had Timothy circumcised for strategic mission purposes, probably to enable Timothy to enter synagogues with him as they proclaimed Christ on their mission trips (Acts 16:3). But imagine the gross hindrance to the gospel if he had insisted that all converts be circumcised! Similarly, I might wear a regulation plain suit today for strategic purposes, in order to open doors for gospel proclamation and to open the ears of those who might otherwise never listen. Or I might wear it as one of many possible ways to dress in a NT-consistent manner. (Or I might wear it simply because it’s the only suit in my closet, and I’m too cheap to buy another!) But if I insist that I must wear a regulation plain suit, or that others must wear one if they are truly sincere about following Christ, then two problems arise: First, I am confusing myself and others about the true nature of the gospel. Second, I am creating cultural hurdles for others who may want to respond to the true gospel.

So, to answer the question: It is true, merely removing church rules, even harmful ones, won’t by itself draw anyone closer to Christ. But it is equally true that, if I or others are already eager to place faith in Christ or serve him fruitfully in mission, removing unhelpful rules may make a crucial difference for all eternity. Thanks for pushing me to speak clearly here!


Again, both these questions deserve better answers than I’ve given them here, but perhaps my responses can help someone continue thinking in gospel-shaped ways about the questions of tradition and change.

If you have more insights, please add them in the comments below. Thank you!