Dear Ann and Ron,

MCC has a history of drawing people from diverse Christian backgrounds together to do good work in the world. There are three requirements for MCC workers: commitment to Christian faith, active participation in a Christian church, and commitment to peace & nonviolence. Sensitivity to the local context of service work is an additional factor that MCC wraps into discussions of moral life. The firing of Wendi Moore-O’Neal, the petition for inclusion of LGBTQ people, and the updated policy guidelines document have highlighted the challenge of trying to work as one body amid strongly differing understandings of LGBTQ people. I believe MCC could serve as a model of wisdom if it acted out of its fundamental identity and the strength of its tradition by building on its three core faith requirements.

Let’s speak of alcohol as an example of how these faith criteria can be applied. Workers come to MCC with personal faith commitments from home church communities with different beliefs and teachings about alcohol. Abuse of alcohol (addiction, overuse) is violent toward one’s body and can lead to violence against others. In some cultures where MCC workers serve, alcohol use would hurt the witness of MCC, whereas in other cultures, activities such as sharing a glass of wine with dinner are an important part of hospitality and social connection. I see in MCC’s documents and policies space for wisdom that contains all of these complexities, and allows for a living morality that takes into account a worker’s personal faith, accountability to home church communities, nonviolence, and sensitivity to witness in different cultural contexts. This wisdom guides MCC in a way that a policy that imposes an absolute binary ruling on the morality of alcohol would fail to capture. Read more ›

To Ann Graber Hershberger and J. Ron Byler,

I am writing to express my discontent with Policy #152 that requires sexual celibacy for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) personnel outside of heterosexual marriage. On March 16-17th, your organization affirmed this statute for all those in leadership positions, workers with significant interactions with MCC’s constituency and service workers on international assignments.  You went on to state that some exceptions will be made, though it is incredibly vague around what and who those exceptions will be.

I have been following this story, but felt somewhat disconnected to any feelings around it.  So much so that my partner commented to me, “You don’t even seem upset about this.  Your friends are more upset than you are.”  I told her that at this point, I am just used to it.  However, this morning I felt something again when I read the letter written to you by Wendi Moore-O’Neal.  MCC fired O’Neal, by email, in 2014, after “becoming aware of actions that violate MCC’s requirement of sexual celibacy for personnel outside of heterosexual marriage.”

This caused me to feel something on behalf of Wendi, who identifies as a “Black, butch, dyke.” These are desperately missing identities in all places of work, particularly Mennonite institutions.  Because of this, we/you miss out on people who are able to see things that you/I do not see, from our/your positions of privilege and majority.  In an organization that does cross cultural outreach, this is just negligent. Read more ›