Advocacy

Why has God placed Mennonites in the United States, the most powerful country in the world?

When Mennonite Church USA reorganized in 2001, leadership created a Peace Advocate office under the Executive Board Directors Office. As our Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective states, this office seeks to help Mennonites follow the biblical agenda of "being ambassadors for Christ (II Cor. 5:20), calling the nations (and all persons and institutions) to move toward justice, peace, and compassion for all people. In so doing, we seek the welfare of the city to which God has sent us. (Jer. 29:7)"

Speaking prophetically to government is not an easy task, but one our Mennonite sisters and brothers around the world beg of us. Perhaps the most poetic request comes from Colombia, a country torn by violence and poverty, made worse by weapons supplied by the United States and edible crop fumigation paid for with U.S. tax dollars:

"If you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance...will arise from another place. And who knows but that you have come to this position for such a time as this?" (Esther 4:14)

My dear Brothers and Sisters, the gospel invites us to know how to "interpret the signs of the times" (Matthew 16:3). For this reason, "with fear and trembling," I dare to write to you in this moment of confusion and pain that the Colombian people are suffering, in search of solidarity and fraternal discernment.

We are asking you, just as Mordecai desperately pleaded with Esther regarding the threat of annihilation of the Jews, to not remain quiet at this time, but to unite your voices with ours in order to denounce the perverse nature of this kind of "aid" and the ever-closer danger that this war-like conflict may affect your homes and produce the death announced in the biblical passage.

We plead with you, just as Esther did, to call together all believers and to fast and pray for the Holy Spirit to change the minds of your governors, and to give strength and wisdom to the members of Colombian churches so that we might console, offer hope, and continue to take a message of life and peace from our Lord Jesus Christ to this people and this suffering church.

Bogotá, Colombia - July 1, 2000
Ricardo Esquivia Ballestas
Member of the Mennonite Church of Colombia
Director of Justapaz

Peter Stucky
President
Mennonite Church of Colombia

These words from Colombia both haunt and state eloquently the purpose of the Peace Advocate office:

Why has God placed Mennonites in the United States, the most powerful country in the world?

God has given us wisdom as an Anabaptist people that we are compelled to share with our leaders. The Peace Advocate office, working closely with the Mennonite Central Committee Washington Office, Christian Peacemaker Teams, and our many overseas workers, provides guidance and tools to help make this sharing timely and accurate. With our limited time and resources, we tend to choose issues
for which we have a unique voice, those
traditionally of interest to Mennonites (war, just distribution of resources, pro-life),
that relate directly to our Mennonite sisters and brothers overseas, and
that we have unique experience concerning (environment issues from our farm backgrounds, correctional issues because we developed the Victim-Offender Reconciliation Program).

The Peace Advocate office staff includes
Susan Mark Landis, 1/2 time Peace Advocate
Lisa Amstutz, 5 hours a week, secretary

Additional Resource
A new MCC video, A Voice on the Hill explores how advocacy for just government policies grows from service.

Quotes

"Christians may often witness to the state, asking it to act according to higher values or to standards which, while less than what God expects of the church, may bring the state closer to doing the will of God. Christians are responsible to witness to governments not only because of their citizenship in a particular country, but also in order to reflect Christ's compassion for all people and to proclaim Christ's lordship over all human institutions." - Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective, article 23, comment 2.

"One cannot level one's moral lance at every evil in the universe. There are just too many of them. But you can do something, and the difference between doing something and doing nothing is everything." - Daniel Berrigan

"If you see injustice and say nothing, you have taken the side of the oppressor." - South African Archbishop Desmund Tutu.

"As a missional people aligned with God's purposes in the world, our concern for God's healing and God's justice calls us to speak on behalf of others. Because of what we are for--what God is for--we speak when war and violence cycle to greater levels. God calls all people and all things to reconciliation under God's purposes of healing, hope, and restoration. We choose to join God in that call." - Marilyn Houser Hamm, Mennonite Church Canada, 2002

"It is to say that the ministry of proclaiming and making peace is a gift and a treasure that we have been given to share with our broken world." - Esther Epp-Tiessen, Mennonite Central Committee Canada, 2002