My recent post about the place of experience generated some conversation over on Facebook, and it reminded me how compelling personal experience is in forming one’s theological convictions. A couple of friends mentioned specific types of experience that cannot and ought not be ignored, including experience that can challenge long and deeply held theological convictions. The result of such challenges can be a threat to unity, which may or may not be a good thing. It can also be a threat to consensus — again, this may or may not be a good thing.

Our culture, including some church cultures, often valorizes rugged individualists who are commended as agents of change. Many in the Protestant church tradition lionize Martin Luther as one who persisted against unjust authority to create a sea change in the Christian tradition. In the Mennonite tradition, of which I am a part, the first Anabaptists are praised for pressing the weight of their convictions (deeply experiential) in the face of severe persecution meted against them.

The narrative created around such depictions seems to identify truth as the province of isolated prophetic voices who are called to make heroic and restorative contributions, despite the work of forces opposing them. They persisted toward what they believed to be true even while being called heretics and evildoers. In the case of the Anabaptists, they were called hypocrites and evildoers because they simultaneously modelled godliness and ideas dismissed as heresy.

It must be noted, however, that neither Anabaptist leaders nor Reformers like Luther (whose example is, I admit, a mixed bag) worked simply from the impress of personal experience. Their actions arose in historical, theological, and experiential context, and evaluated accordingly, they make sense — even if they are exceptional.

The history of Anabaptist and Mennonite movements since the Radical Reformation is a complicated web of stories about people and groups that have not only coalesced, but also fragmented and scattered in the wake of various kinds of disagreements. Early on, Anabaptists were divided over the tension between biblicist legalism and spiritualist antinomianism. Later, the extent of the application of the ban divided groups. More recently, a number of issues have been reasons for groups to separate, sometimes both theologically and geographically.

Tracing these stories brings us to confront a dilemma that is woven into the fabric of our identity. I believe that the Anabaptist Christianity born in the 16th century has bequeathed a great gift to global Christianity. I think it did much to restore a faithful Christian witness at a time when such was lacking. The emphasis on discipleship — including an emphasis on obedience as a requirement for understanding Scripture changed the experience of believers. The accompanying transformation of what church means in Anabaptist reflection — including crazy new ideas like religious toleration and regenerate church membership — reoriented the relationship of the church community to others around it.

But here’s the rub. The early Anabaptists, in radically dissociating themselves from other Christians, were effectively heretics. Because they declared the existing churches irredeemable and began anew (a conclusion to which their experience and theological reflection necessarily drew them), they initiated a tradition that not only believed new things, it also initiated a new way of validating beliefs. And it set a precedent of what I like to call “church multiplication by division” among Anabaptists and their descendants, leading to a proliferation of Anabaptist-Mennonite denominations. This divisiveness has done much to undermine the witness that many Anabaptists paid for with their lives, and compromises claims to truth.

Today, unity among Mennonites and Mennonite Brethren is under stress. Theological issues threaten our unity. Not only are we challenged by the task of rebuilding broken relationships and lost alliances, we have to overcome the legacy of five centuries of practice where disunity was frequently seen as the measure of truth. It’s in our DNA. We may pride ourselves about not being militant, but being passive-aggressive is not a virtue either.

As a result, I do not believe that our goal can be to reclaim a pure Anabaptist heritage. We need to learn from the past, keep what is good, but then use these resources to create a heritage to pass on to future generations. Do we have the will — or the humility — to do this?