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Wednesday, March 13, 2024

We Can Choose Our Like Minded Friends, But Not Our God-Chosen Spiritual Kin

Too little has been written, and too little said,
about the scandal of a divided and splintered
body of Christ
.
For most of my adult life I have been a member of the Virginia Mennonite Conference, an imperfect but blessed expression of God’s beloved community. For me VMC has not been just another "Gesellschaft," like a social organization, but a living part of a worldwide "Gemeinschaft," a spiritual communion of blood-bought close relatives.

So I grieve when congregations in this or any other God-chosen community of faith choose to separate themselves from others in their extended faith family, their spiritual kin. 

In the words of pastor and author Benjamin Cremer, "The world is not impressed by a church where everyone who is essentially the same is getting along with each other. The world needs to see the church practice what is extremely difficult to accomplish: an incredibly diverse group of people loving and advocating for one another.”

In the U.S. prior to the Civil War, one of the nation's major divisions was between Unionists who wanted to preserve the nation’s "E Pluribus Unum" (“of many, one”), and Secessionists who worked at forming an alternative confederacy of states. 

Today there is a similar divide between "unionists" (lower case) and “separationists” in the church, each believing theirs is the only right position to take in the face of significant differences of faith and practice.

But what message are we sending non-believers and to our children and grandchildren when we simply give up on maintaining long held spiritual ties, and give up on prayerfully seeking to work things out as blood-bought members of “one faith, one baptism, and one body?” 

There are of course clear instructions in the Bible about removing unrepentant individuals from a congregation, but is there any mandate for congregations separating themselves en masse from other whole groups of churches? 

I know of none. Jesus's fervent prayer is "that they all may be one, as I and the Father are one,” so that “the world may know that you are my disciples." It is clear that we are called to become members together of one new, God-chosen body and bride of Christ.

So while we may surgically remove a malignant member who threatens the life and health of the congregation, we should resist any amputation of whole limbs or organs of Christ's body unless it is clearly a matter of spiritual life or death.

We are always to "choose life," and always seek to demonstrate the kind of unity in our life here that we expect to experience in the life hereafter. In this way we become an answer to our Lord's prayer that the redemptive and reconciling will of God “be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

To me, this means we should be "unionists," intentionally expanding our circle of spiritual relationships and adding to the ties that bind us to other faith communities. As "separationists" we tend to subtract from, and further restrict, the circle of spiritual kin with whom we fellowship and work. 

Some may fear that too much focus on becoming “one in the Spirit” might result in a blurring of boundaries that mark a clear difference between light and darkness, between insiders and outsiders.

I agree that congregations should take seriously their responsibility to prayerfully determine, to the best of their ability, what they believe is heaven's judgment regarding what are truly matters of spiritual life or death. In other words, to ask, “What actually excludes people from God's Book of Life and from being a part of the wedding celebration of the Lamb?”

For example, Anabaptist-minded believers might exclude from their communion tables (and even their work tables) congregants who engage in bombing and killing people, who abuse and oppress the least of these, who manufacture and promote harmful drugs or military style weapons, or who "fare sumptuously every day" without regard for the homeless and hungry Lazaruses among them.

At the same time we should seek radical inclusion with all who are committed to “doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God,” and join in fellowship with those who pledge to "love God with their whole heart, soul, mind and strength,” and to “love their every neighbor as they love themselves.” This kind of agape-based love, by definition, will never do harm to another, even to an enemy, but will reach out to insiders and outsiders alike, just as God does. 

ln the case of insiders Christ’s love takes the form of discipleship. With outsiders, that love is about warm invitation and the sharing good news of God's abundant mercy and amazing grace.  

In short, we humbly bind and loose, separate or embrace, based on our best understanding of what we believe to be the will of heaven, but never separate ourselves from others whom God has joined together and made citizens of the kingdom, or “kin-dom," of heaven.

After all, this is God’s covenant community, not ours. We’re just fortunate to have received God’s gracious invitation to become adopted members of it.

Sunday, March 10, 2024

A Highly Paid Parole Board That Rarely Paroles

Charles Zellers, who has been incarcerated since he was
in his twenties, has like many others done everything 
humanly possible to earn their release, but to no avail.
Of the over 2000 parole eligible prisoners in Virginia, the Virginia Parole Board released only two in January and four in February.  I received the following message Friday from my friend Charles, who has been denied parole eleven times, even though when he took an Alford Plea in 1993 he was assured he would obtain an early release if he did well while incarcerated. 

I have been corresponding with him for over a decade, and he is now suffering from a severe case of Long Covid:

I have been incarcerated since January 25, 1993. I have earned my GED, successfully completed training for two vocational trades, and had been employed by Virginia Correctional Enterprises for 14 years until I got Covid. For ten of those years I was a lead man in charge of training and checking the work of other inmates in my department. 

I have been infraction free for decades, have successfully completed every self-help course available and have taken numerous college courses, earning a certificate in business through UVA and the Darden Business School. Now I am needing continuous oxygen and have been transferred to the Deerfield Correctional Center, a DOC facility that houses hundreds of prisoners with serious illnesses and disabilities.

I am wanting to complete my sentence as a parolee in my home community, where I can take care of my aging mother and give back to victims of crime and to the citizens where my crimes were committed.

I am seeking good people who believe in second chances to contact the Virginia Department of Corrections Director, Chadwick Dotson, and tell him that I have been parole eligible since July 30, 2005, but have been repeatedly denied release. 

Why hasn't the DOC prepared me and and others to qualify for release from prison prior to our parole eligibility date? Why aren't they working with me now, and preparing me and others like me to be deemed suitable for release? Why are so many parole eligible inmates still wasting taxpayers money sitting idly in prison?

Please ask DOC Director Dotson, state legislators and members of the Parole Board to advocate for whatever help is needed for people like me to be seen as "corrected" by the Department of Corrections and deserving of a well earned release from prison.

Thank you for your time and efforts, and for acting on your concerns.

Blessings,

Charles E. Zellers, Sr. 1036758
Deerfield Correctional Center
21360 Deerfield Drive
Capron, VA 23829

DOC Director chadwick.dotson@vadoc.virginia.gov 

Virginia Board of Parole https://vpb.virginia.gov/contact/

Governor Youngkin GGY74@Governor.Virginia.Go

P. S. Please share this with others.

Note: I posted this in November, 2015: https://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2015/11/model-prisoner-47-denied-parole-seven.html

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Gary Wayne Souder: Gentle Giant. Godly Man. Soft-spoken Servant.

Gary Wayne Souder 10/22/48-2/25/24 (photos by niece Denise Showalter Martin)

There were more tears shed and more heartfelt emotions expressed at my friend and former parishioner Gary Souder's memorial service Saturday than I've experienced at similar events honoring esteemed authors, professors, church leaders or well known and wealthy philanthropists. And I've been to many a memorial service in my time. 

In his own quiet and unassuming way, he embodied and lived the text chosen for the service in his memory, I Corinthians 13, the Love Chapter. "Love is patient. Love is kind..." 

Many of those in attendance expressed their deep appreciation for how Gary's life had blessed them. I'm posting but two of the many memories shared, the first by his beloved daughter Kari:

How many people can say they had the best dad in the world? I know of at least 2. I'm not just saying that because Dad was my first love.

Dad was a teacher, not the kind of teacher that would give you the answer. But the kind that listened patiently when you asked a question. Then he would question you and stubbornly wait until you were able to figure it out.

He could turn any experience into a learning moment.  

He was our coach, one who would never consider allowing special privileges just because I was the coach's daughter. Privilege had to be earned. 

He wouldn't let me play football, even though he coached that too. He said I may be tougher than those boys, but a girl's got no business on a football field.

That one stung a bit. But he was probably right. 

Dad was a taxi driver. On Saturdays I would ride my bike to the Morris's farm or the Troung's house in Broadway. After playing all day I wouldn't feel like the uphill ride back, so I let the air out of my tire and called Dad. He acted like he didn't know what I did when he came to get me in his old green ford, the mule. He charged me a nickel though. 

He drove to Bergton to pick Tran and Denise up from camp at Highland so they could make it to their softball game. They being our best players and only hope to win may have had something to do with it.

He would drive to the school on mothers day to pick me up, along with Marcia and Melinda to pick out flowers for our moms. Then if we were lucky, we'd stop at the drugstore for a root beer float before he drove us back to school.

He was a pretty fair medic. Pulling splinters with his old timer or drilling smashed fingernails to relieve the pressure. Merthiolate would fix everything else. 

Sometimes he was my alarm clock, my star chart or encyclopedias, the full set.

Dad was our boss, he gave opportunity to so many kids by offering them work in the honey house. 

He was also a very skilled procrastinator. 

He was my hero. The bravest, strongest smartest man in the world

I'm not sure he could have retained this title with out the strength and support he got from my mom.

He actually changed the world. Just by being himself. He made life a better place for so many people. Around the summer of 86 or 87 he looked around and saw a bunch of bored girls complaining they didn't have anything to do. So what does he do? He starts them a softball team. We were horrible. Really Horrible. But because of him, we never gave up and we had A LOT of fun.

The other teams were jealous. They had to win to get ice cream at JJ's. Win or lose we only had to play our best. 

Dad wasn't able to find a record of anyone who had defined the algebraic expression for the arc of a softball, but of course he had to figure it out. When he tried explaining it to me I made it about a third of the way down the first page before getting totally lost. But he must have gotten something out of it, because he taught a whole lot of Broadway High Gobbler girls how to pitch a softball.

Softball became his passion. When his team didn't have practice or a game he was fixing up the strike zone or working on the field. Softball was life.

He would pile all us kids into the back of his truck after church to go swimming at Long Rock, or camping for the weekend at the Cove. He could identify a tree by its leaf or bird from its song. He cooked us a rattlesnake. He showed us that life is something you do. Give it your best shot and if that doesn't work give it something else until you figure it out.  

This was by a long time friend Tony Brenneman:

I learned to know Gary when I was 12 years old. Gary was captain of the Broadway High football team. My family lived in Broadway, and I would go to all the ball games. Gary was one of my heroes. It was
10 years later that I developed a friendship with Gary. He had gotten an engineering degree at VMI, served at Fort Belvoir, was an electrical engineer, then left his engineering job and started a bee beekeeping business,

Becky and I had just gotten married, and moved to a house about two miles from Gary and Karla's, and it wasn't long before Gary and I developed a close friendship.

I could spend hours telling stories about Gary. He would give hours of volunteer time to many people and organizations. Here at the Zion church, he engineered a significant part of the electrical system, and then spent days doing the labor to get the job done, all as a volunteer. He designed and built the concrete steps in front of the church. He served on the building committee for the front addition. And he was Zion’s moving service for many years. If someone was moving to another home, he would take all the bee hives off his flatbed truck, be the first to show up on moving day, and be the last to leave.

One evening when I was working on building my first home, I was ready to leave. Gary comes driving in about 9 at night, after working bees all day, gets out of the truck and says, "Sorry I'm late!"

You have heard others share many stories about Garys caring spirit.

Gary marched to a different drummer. He was amazingly sharp with mathematics, had a degree in electrical engineering, and had a lot of knowledge in other areas as well, so I often wondered why he chose tending bees instead of holding down a 9 to 5 job with paid vacation, and a higher income.

Gary followed his heart, not the values of this world. The poem written by Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken, tells the story of Gary’s life.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And I, sorry I could not travel both,
And both that morning equally lay, 
I kept the first for another day.

I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence, 
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Friday, March 1, 2024

An Open Letter To Congregations Choosing To Separate From Virginia Mennonite Conference

To me, this association of churches doesn't just represent a
"Gesellschaft," an organization, but a "Gemeinschaft," a
beloved community and spiritual family. 
I've had some weighty conversation  recently with some of my fellow pastors whose congregation are considering severing ties with Virginia Mennonite Conference and Mennonite Church USA. Like believers in many other denominations, they are concerned about issues like congregations and church leaders becoming more open to recognizing monogamous same sex marriages.

In all my years, I've never witnessed an issue so divisive for churches everywhere, now that increasing numbers of gays and lesbians have openly formed such partnerships. I have advocated, without success so far, for our taking as much time as necessary listening to each other and praying and discerning together,  to reach some kind of consensus that could hold us together.

We are all prone to cherry-pick Bible texts that support our positions, but here are a few of my favorite ones on the issue of maintaining unity among God's people:

"How very good and pleasant it is when we live together in unity!"

- Psalm 133:1, a song of ascent

“I pray that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may
be one in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

“May your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven.” 

- Jesus Christ

“Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you
(all) have been called by God. Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other,
making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. Make every effort to keep
yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. For there is one body
and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future.

There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
one God and Father of all,
who is over all, in all, and living through all.”

“Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors
and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do God’s work and build up the
church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and
knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and
complete standard of Christ.”  

-the apostle Paul

In light of all the Bible has to say about maintaining close ties with fellow members of God's chosen and blood-bought spiritual family, couldn't we commit to keep on working out our differences? And shouldn't we keep on affirming the following good words?

We are one in the Spirit 
We are one in the Lord 
And we pray that all unity 
May one day be restored 

And they’ll know we are Christians
By our love, By our love
Yes, they’ll know we are Christians
By our love. 

-Peter Sholtes

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Has There Ever Been So Much Polarization, Violence, And Insanity In Our Country?

Are we about to experience another era of national chaos
and violence?
We often hear the word "unprecedented" used to describe current levels of delusional thinking, polarizing propaganda, conspiracy theories and rampant violence in our country. Examples:

Millions of members of the party that lost the 2020 presidential election continue to insist the election was stolen.

Many evangelical Christians believe Donald Trump is "anointed by God" to save the nation from a totally evil Democratic administration.

A majority of progressives and conservatives alike continue to believe the nation needs to keep pouring billions of dollars in the military "defense" of Ukraine and Israel in spite of the mounting and monstrous numbers of casualties inflicted.

In spite of the growing number of multiple mass shootings, efforts at limiting unfettered access to deadly military-style weapons are being met with little or no success.

Multiple conspiracy theories go viral on social media.

But is this kind of instability and insanity "unprecedented"? 

Two books I've  read recently suggest the answer may be No.

The Pre-Civil War Period

The first book, David S. Reynold's John Brown, Abolitionist, The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War and Seeded Civil Rights, describes the chaos and polarization in the era that led up to the Civil War. I was particularly astounded by the prevalence of violence in territories like my native Kansas, where pro-slavery and Abolitionist groups repeatedly attacked each other with impunity. John Brown's first murderous raids, where under his leadership some of his pro-slavery foes were hacked to death and had their horses and other possessions stolen, took place in that state, earning Brown a larger-than-life reputation as a formidable force in the anti-slavery movement. Vilified as a crazed murder by some, he was elevated to near sainthood by others, some of whom compared the gallows on which he was hanged to the cross on which Jesus was crucified, according to Reynolds.

On a more positive note, the author also shows how far ahead of his time Brown was in seeing Blacks as equals, and by contrast how racist even most Abolitionists were at that time. For example, one Free State advocate in Kansas stated, "There is a prevailing sentiment against admitting negroes into the Territory at all, slave or free." The first Kansas constitution was introduced with a "Negro Exclusion Clause," and it was ratified by a three fourth majority of the Territory's Free State settlers.

Throughout this era most people, especially in the South, supported the blatant racism of politicians like John Calhoun, who called slavery "a positive good," insisting that it "served whites while it civilized blacks," a sentiment most of us would dismiss as completely irrational and wrong today. And Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, spoke for the majority of his citizens when he stated in his opening address to the Confederate Congress that slavery was a great blessing to blacks: "In moral and social condition they had been elevated from brutal savages into docile, intelligent, and civilized agricultural labors, and supplied not only with bodily comforts but with careful religious instruction. Under the supervision of the superior race their labor had been so directed as onlt only to allow a gradual and marked amelioration of their own condition, but to convert hundreds and thousands of square miles of wilderness lands covered with a prosperous people." p. 440

The Civil War that followed resulted in the horrifying and brutal deaths of more American combatants than any war in history.

The Jim Crow and KKK Era

Another book I read recently was Florence Mars' Witness in Philadelphia, An eyewitness account of the troubled summer of 1964, when three young civil rights workers were murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi.

That was the year, 1964, when I graduated from college and Alma Jean and I were married. While we were aware of many of the events of that summer and of much of the violence and oppression of African Americans in the decades preceding it, I was struck with how recent and how brutal the lynchings and other acts of violence and oppression associated with segregation really were. 

As an example of delusional beliefs associated with that time period, 101 southern senators and congressmen created and signed a blatantly racist "Declaration of Constitutional Principles" known as the "Southern Manifesto, published after the 1954 Supreme Court decision that ruled that segregated public schools were unconstitutional. Mississippi Senator James Eastland, who owned five thousand acres of rich Delta land worked by descendants of slaves, addressed the state convention of the racist Citizens' Council as follows:

The Supreme Court of the United States, in the false name of law and justice, has perpetrated a monstrous crime. It presents a clear and present danger, not only to the law, traditions, customs and racial integrity of the Southern people, but also to the foundation of our Republican form of Government.
The anti-segregation decisions are dishonest decisions. Although tendered by Judges whose sworn duty it is to uphold the law and to protect and preserve the Constitution of the United States, these decisions were dictated by political pressure groups bent upon the destruction of the American system of government, and the mongrelization of the white race. p. 71

A statement issued by the White Knights of the KKK in response to whether they were involved in the case of the three civil rights workers whose bodies were eventually found under 15 feet of dirt in a Neshoba County earthen dam, read, "Only to the extent of doing everything possible to expose the truth about the Communist and political aspects of the case. We are primarily concerned with protecting the good name and integrity of the honest people of the State of Mississippi against the physical and propaganda attacks of the Communist Agitators and Press." Spokesmen for the group warned of a "Jewish-Communist conspiracy" to take over the nation, and that "Communists were training an army of Negroes in Cuba to invade the United States."

Looking back, it's hard to imagine so many Americans embracing this kind of delusional and destructive thinking, and who remained silent about the lynchings of over 4000 people, in both the North and the South between 1882 and 1964,

Looking around, however, we can see ominous signs of the same kind of sickness and irrationality today.

Sunday, February 18, 2024

A Torturous Voyage To Philadelphia On The Francis and Elizabeth

Our Yoder forebears crossed the Atlantic
in the voyage described in this historical
novel, available from Masthof Press
I just finished reading this book by a descendant of Frau Barbara Fridman, a 41-year-old widow who with her children, age 19, 15, 8 and 6, crossed the Atlantic on the Francis and Elizabeth in 1742 in a grueling voyage of over two months. Packed in this vessel were over 200 other immigrants, including my Amish ancestor, widower  Christian Yoder and his 20-year-old son Christian and 16-year-old Jacob. 

The ancestral home of the Yoders is Steffisburg in Switzerland, but we're not sure just where our immigrant ancestors lived when they left for the New World. The Fridman family were Lutherans from Massenbach, and made their trip on a series of barges up the Necker and Rhine Rivers to Rotterdam, a journey almost as long and trying as the trip across the ocean. The hardships they and their fellow immigrants endured before and during their ocean voyage, along with Mennonite, Amish and other migrants, are almost unimaginable. Think rats, seasickness, chronic illnesses, burials at sea, insufferable heat, unbelievable stench, and having to sleep in stacks of wooden bunks packed next to other passengers night after night.

I wonder if any of us would have been hardy enough, or desperate enough, to have considered taking this kind of risk, but reading this book certainly added to my appreciation of the sheer courage our forefathers and mothers demonstrated in doing so. 

Here's a link to another post about this voyage: https://harvyoder.blogspot.com/search?q=francis+and+Elizabeth 

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Roses And Ashes: Local Marriage And Divorce Numbers For 2023

Flowers can be expensive, but a good
marriage is priceless.
Today, February 14, is both Ash Wednesday, the first Day of Lent, and Valentines Day, a day for celebrating love, roses and romance.

As a pastor and marriage and family counselor I’ve been keeping record of the number of local marriages and divorces each year since 1996. While our Rockingham/Harrisonburg population has grown significantly since then, the number of divorces granted in 2023, 366, remained relatively low, and the number of marriage licenses issued, 961, remained at near the average number of marriages each year since 1996.

While 366 marital breakups is a lower number than most years, it nevertheless means the painful disruption of the lives of 732 partners, along with whatever distress it creates for their children and countless numbers of friends, parents, grandparents and other loved ones. 


Meanwhile, while we have good records of documented marriages in our community, we lack any statistics on the increased number of partners who are living together without registering their de facto marriages. This means we have no record of how many of these undocumented couples also experience undocumented divorces, with equally distressing effects on children and/or other close family members and friends.


Here are the official numbers as provided by the local Circuit Court:


Year       Marriages     Divorces


1996           873                 387

1997           950                 405

1998           964                 396

1999           932                 405

2000           947                 365

2001          1003                438     (most annual marriages)

2002           976                 421

2003           961                 399

2004           959                 437

2005           889                 381

2006           929                 389

2007           925                 434

2008           950                 405

2009           903                 347 

2010           879                 358     (fewest annual marriages)

2011           933                 433

2012           995                 445

2013           924                 484    

2014           972                 427

2015           955                 474

2016           985                 612     (most annual divorces)

2017           983                 426

2018           935                 476

2019           947                 487

2020           882                 445

2021           994                 466

2022           954                 332     (fewest annual divorces)

2023           961                 366


We should note that the marriage numbers above are based solely on the number of marriage licenses issued, and include those who come here from other localities to get married, whereas divorce numbers include only the official breakups of people who live in the City or County. However, it is reasonable to assume that a roughly equal number of residents from here marry in other jurisdictions as marry here from other communities, so the numbers given should be reasonably valid for comparison purposes.


It should also be noted that we cannot assume a rate of divorce based on any one year's numbers, as in "35% of the first time marriages in our community will end in divorce,” since many of the above couples are marrying or divorcing for a second, third or fourth time. But with numbers like these over a period of years, we can safely conclude that the odds of a given first marriage surviving are well over 50%.


Separations and divorces may certainly be justified in cases of ongoing patterns of abuse, addictions or adultery. But in every way possible, our community is better off supporting ever more marital roses and ever fewer ashes of failed marriages and severed relationships.