Anabaptism as a Predator’s Paradise: Agency, Surrender and Abuse

Peace theology has an abuse problem, and it’s not just among conservatives. Deep within the established framework of Anabaptism lies an undercurrent that enablement of abuse, whether by D. H. Bender, John Howard Yoder, Bruxy Cavey, the perpetrators of sexual abuse as documented in “The Sins of the Amish” or the dozens of recorded cases of leaders who has misused their positions on the MAP Case List.

It shouldn’t surprise us that a man-made formulation can fall short, and end up doing harm. Every single description or articulation of theology is a human endeavor. It is subjective, imperfect, potentially dangerous if we exalt it beyond the story of its flesh-and-blood creators and make it into unqualified universal truth.

This does not make me less of an Anabaptist. I simply recognize that Anabaptism as it is is not perfect. At best, Anabaptism points us to the person of Jesus. There are many Anabaptisms (including Munster), and none of them were thundered down from Mount Sinai.

We can see elements of grooming for abuse in the following teachings:

1. Separatism, nonretaliation and rejection of “worldly power” predisposes victims of abuse (i.e. sexual abuse) not to speak up, report, or pursue justice to hold perpetrators accountable.
2. Forgiveness of one’s enemies is taught consistently, which means that not only does an Anabaptist victim imbibe the message that God requires that forgive the wrongs of their abuser, abusers also know that their victims are more likely to forgive, forget, and remain silent.
3. To not forgive and to not reject the “exercise of worldly power/revenge” is considered sinful, disobedient, and unspiritual. This means that the “sin” of the abused in not forgiving” and forgetting is made into something equal to or worse than abuse.
4. Reconciliation is prized. It is seen as a success story to be trumpeted, which means churches and leaders are motivated towards and often pressure victims towards a “happy ending”. This leads to manipulation by abusers and shortcuts.

“It is a predator’s paradise,” says Amish survivor Mary Byler.

My Mem replied, “To forgive means he’s sorry and you can never talk about it. If you do, your sin may be as big, if not bigger, than his sin.”… My Mem encouraged me to forgive him and endorsed me sitting on his lap even after I told her of his abuse. I didn’t have the words then to describe that I was terrified of my dat and even when I talked about it no one would hear me.” (Mary Byler, Reflections of an Amish Misfit)

“I don’t like Dirk Willems,” says Rosanna, a Mennonite domestic violence survivor and advocate. Looking at the well-known illustration the oft-lauded Mennonite hero reminds her of a lifetime of being told to be silent and submissive in response to violence, to turn the other cheek, to go back to a violent man.

One ex-MCUSA pastor said the following:

Sexual violence happens across the board regardless of denomination or theology. However, the particulars and dynamics are often specific to the particular theology and group. This isn’t just a conservative Mennonite problem, but also a liberal one, where the patriarchal dynamics may not be as pronounced.

Not only are girls not taught to stand up for themselves, but we also have a theology that doesn’t handle conflict very well, where the emphasis on “peace” sidelines the necessity of conflict sometimes. On top of that, the mythologizing of martyrdom often leads to the silencing of victims with an emphasis on suffering like Christ. I once saw someone argue that since Christ loved his enemies an abused spouse should love her abusive husband.

One of the worst comments I ever heard at an MCUSA convention was a public argument about how the church should be a place for both the perpetrator and the baby he abused. It was really tone-deaf.

Mennos often seem to see violence as something outside or separate from us. I don’t often see the critical lens, except by sexual abuse advocates. Violence is something that someone else does, rather than something we (as the Kingdom of God) are capable of doing ourselves.

All groups have to deal with sexual violence, but it often has particular distinctives in Menno groups that have been shaped by our theology and I don’t see a lot of critical reflection about that.

But Jesus said to forgive, to turn the other cheek, to lay down one’s sword! What do we do with these teachings, and how we do do nonviolence nonviolently?

Anabaptists point out that Protestants have a “flat Bible” interpretation. That is, that instead of the centering the words of Jesus and discipleship, sola scriptura as an exegetical method allows for haphazard and irrelevant applications of “whatever the Bible says anywhere”, such as about war. However, Anabaptists in making the words of Jesus central have a “flat discipleship” emphasis. We have lost the nuance of the different callings Jesus issued to different people, taking conversations out of context, disembodying them, and using the lens and story of John Howard Yoder and other Anabaptist luminaries to prescribe what discipleship looks like for every single Christian.

It hasn’t worked.

Jesus talks about religious leaders who heap burdens on others that they will not even lift a finger a carry. This is the precise opposite of Jesus, who suffered and laid down more than what He calls us to (because none of us can truly know what it is like to be in the likeness of God and take the form of a bondservant).

The primary epistemological error Anabaptists have made is an age-old one: oversimplication.

In doing so, Anabaptism has been co-opted by abusers. It is really very convenient to groom potential and past abuse victims to be silent, forgiving, meek, subservient, long-suffering, and subordinate. They are told this subordination under the thumb of abusers is “revolutionary”, a kind of “difficult obedience” that requires gelassenheit, surrender. Yieldedness to God means the acceptance of suffering and hardship, even and especially when the result of fellow Christians’ sin.

In this way, preachers and teachers pour salt into existing wounds. They drive nails deeper into flesh, torturing the conscience abuse victims with guilt and condemnation. Every reiteration of the godliness of nonviolence, a teaching that sets Anabaptists apart and makes them superior to every other denomination in existence, alienates and anathemizes those who dared break the code of silence and “nonresistance”.

What did Jesus do? Call the rich young ruler to lay down his wealth, call the sword-bearers to lay down their swords. He told his disciples to stop trying to enthrone themselves one above the other.

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18–19)

If our gospel does not look like the above, then it is not truly the good news of Jesus.

I made this appeal not because I am trying to introduce some other theology, but because the situation is dire and the suffering and trauma of abuse victims has surely reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. We are heaping up wrath for ourselves if we continue to do them harm.

Instead of a flat binary of nonviolence to violence, we need to dig deep into the gospels and listen to those who are trying to tell us something important.

Here on this diagram we have two axes: power and agency. What the church has done so far is call the powerless (i.e. abuse victims) to further surrender. In doing so, we have enabled abusers to other, dehumanize, coerce, exploit and impose. We have placed the onus and responsibility for “Christlikeness” on those suffering the most, and we ask them to use whatever agency they have left, that has not been taken away from them, to relinquish their agency more. In doing so, we have abused them further. We place them on the hot seat whenever the issue of abuse comes up, allowing abusers to get away with manipulative tears and vague non-apologies.

In current constructions, only the persecuted, poor, and powerless can truly exercise nonviolence. Only the victims can forgive. Everyone else in the church community has the role of cheering them on and giving mental assent to a wishful ideal that they will never have the responsibility or prerogative to carry out.

From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and from him who has been entrusted with much, even more will be demanded. (Luke 12:48b)

This illustration I sketched today is by no means completely representative of the idea I am trying to work through, but the idea is this: Jesus calls those with the power of the sword to lay down the sword, the rich young ruler (not the widow with two mites) to sell all that he has, those who were not like children to become like children, those for whom greatness and authority are within their grasp and in their ambition, to lay down their pursuits. This prerogative was demonstrated by Jesus because He was equal with God and made Himself, under Roman rule, sub-humanized slave. This was an act of agency. This was cruciformity, this was the upside-down Kingdom in action.

For some, Jesus calls us to agential surrender, for others, Jesus calls us to surrendered agency. Surrender and agency are not opposites. But Jesus did not call the wounded and broken to manifest the cross through and from a state of woundedness. Jesus does not call the suffering to suffer more. Rather, in specifically addressing the weary and burdened, he offered rest.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28–30)

I must end with this important point: the Anabaptist concept of gewaltlosigkeit (forcelessness, often translated nonviolence) is about the rejection of coercive force. An abuser employs such force. An abuse survivor who holds their abuser accountable, who seeks to prevent further abuse of themselves and others, and who does not remain silent, is not placing themselves above the abuser, abusing them, or exerting force. Rather, they resist the taking of their humanity and agency. By making choices, by speaking or acting as they choose to do, they are regaining something that the abuser attempted to take from them.

There is a difference between agency and violence. Agency is taking something that is rightfully yours, violence is taking something that is not. What I mean by surrender is the relinquishment, not of what is rightfully yours by God’s design, but that which is not rightfully yours.

Perhaps the word “powerful” is confusing. It may ruffle a couple of feathers. But this is what I mean: The “powerful” are those who have the ability to act in certain ways because they have power dependent on the dispowerment of others. The agency they have is taken from others and is not rightfully theirs. They may have assumed this ungodly power or they may have been unprotesting recipients of it.

Am I creating artificial categories of power? No. God gives all humans agency and choice. However, usurpers create and maintain categories of power and powerlessness by taking agency from others. I am only describing a situation created by abusers.

As we have seen, in many Anabaptist settings, “grooming” has occurred in which the agency of potential abuse victims is already taken from them and given to abusers. It is as if someone leaks a flammable gas into a room. The conditions are then set for a small spark or match to set everything blaze.

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things — and the things that are not — to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. (1 Corinthians 1:27–29)

The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. (Matthew 23:11–12)

But He gives us more grace. This is why it says: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:6)

Look at these passages above: Jesus and Paul illustrate distinctions artificially created by the world’s value systems: the wise and the foolish, the strong and the week, the somebodies and the nobodies, the greatest and the least. And God flips them.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10)

Abuse of power is the act of taking something that which is not yours. It is an act of theft, destruction, and killing. It involves robbing the dignity and life-blood of others to feed one’s endless hunger for gratification.

The powerful, the thief, the abuser — these say in their heart, “There is no God.”

I hope the spirit in which this was written comes across. It is all the more important for us to understand and critique our own positions, which means that what I have written is really an examination of my own personal beliefs and emphases.

Those who really get peace theology have the sincere desire to wash the feet of others, that is, to use the agency and position they have and even surrender it for the good of “the least of these” and their brethren. I truly see this in some — the humble recognition of what they have and the desire to serve others sacrificially.

I am aware that the word “sacrifice” is a painful thought for some. Jesus does not call the weary and burdened to sacrifice from the fetishized place of deprivation and trauma churches have made into the primary place of sacrifice. What I mean by this is that you do not need to bear the burdens others (or your own spiritual guilt) have laid upon your back. Sacrifice comes from the place of having something good. It comes from wholeness, not brokenness, and it will bear much fruit. Jesus calls us to receive abundance from Him, and overflow to others — not wring ourselves dry.

Check out a previous essay on The Cross: Spiritualized Suffering or Life-giving Wholeness