Peace advocate helps Mennonites engage culture in finding Christ's way of peace

June 19, 2002

The following is a question-answer interview conducted with Susan Mark Landis on June 7. She is a peace advocate for Mennonite Church USA's Executive Board. She lives and works in Orrville, Ohio.

Q: In what ways are you engaging the culture through peace-making efforts in your role as peace advocate for Mennonite Church USA's Executive Board? What have your efforts included since you began your post Feb. 1?

A: My job is to organize prophetic witness and peace and justice advocacy on behalf of Mennonite Church USA. I coordinate interdenominational relationships concerning peace and justice issues. And I network and provide a structure for accountability for churchwide agencies and the Executive Board offices around peace and justice issues. This includes anti-racism work, following up on denominational statements, and the Student Aid Fund for Nonregistrants. At least, the goal is to do all this!

This includes coordinating Mennonite Church USA's response to national times of turmoil, such as working this spring on developing materials that decry the possible U.S. military invasion of Iraq and show solidarity through prayer and support for the Iraqi people. Many Iraqis have experienced deprivation caused by U.S. sanctions since 1991. One example of this solidarity was the sending of oil lamps and letters by Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church Canada to Iraq. Daryl Byler, Mennonite Central Committee, delivered the lamps during a spring delegation.

I formerly was peace and justice minister for the Mennonite Church General Board. In the last month of that job, January 2002, I helped to coordinate peace gatherings to discuss Mennonite response to Sept. 11. Leo Hartshorn, Mennonite Mission Network's minister of peace and justice, spoke at the Dallas gathering. My focus is denominational-wide, while Leo focuses more on providing resources for congregations.

Q: How many peace centers are connected with Mennonite Church USA and how are you involved with them? In what ways do those peace centers show how Mennonites in their local communities are working for peace in their communities?

A: I don't relate directly to the centers but in a broad-based way through my advocacy work. There are about 11 Mennonite peace centers across the United States. Several of those centers were originally developed from Peace and Justice Committee matching grants given through the Christmas Sharing Fund of the former Mennonite Church.

Center staff and volunteers engage their communities through a variety of activities. For example, The Center for Peace and Nonviolence at Kern Road Mennonite Church in South Bend, Ind., holds community vigils at murder locations and build interdenominational/interracial relationships in their community. In May, the center sponsored a peace meeting during which more than 50 church leaders from five South Bend congregations gathered. They discussed "the challenge of loving our enemies in a time of war."

At the Dallas (Texas) Peace Center, Mennonites are working on an Iraq campaign and do anti-racism work. The Mobile Peace Center at the Jubilee Mennonite Church in Bellfontaine, Ohio, has a peace library and sponsors some peace meetings. The Jubilee Peace Center at Raleigh (N.C.) Mennonite Church has worked with children from lower-income housing. They also teach conflict transformation and nonviolence skills.

The Lombard (Ill.) Mennonite Peace Center is known worldwide for seminars on mediation and congregational conflict. The Peace Ministries Center in Goshen, Ind., sponsors insightful writing on current events. Some groups also sponsor peace camps.

Other centers are Outreach and Service in Freeman, S.D.; Mennonite Community Peace Center in Saginaw, Mich.; Peace Connections in Newton, Kan.; Peace and Justice Center of Wichita, Kan.; and the St. Louis (Mo.) Mennonite Peace Witness.

Q: What is your vision for engaging the culture in the gospel of peace? How is engaging the culture today different than it was in the mid-1950's, for example? Does there need to be a change in how Mennonites communicate peacemaking?

A: The biggest change I see is that our peace witness is broader, both in content and the audience we hope to engage. Some Mennonites have found our peace work to be quite practical and believe it is possible to be as effective as well as faithful. During the World Wars, a few Mennonites spoke to officials in Washington. We seemed most concerned that our boys didn't have to go to war. Today, we seek to provide nonviolent alternatives for everyone.

Also today, Mennonites are affluent, respected in their professions and involved in other arenas besides religion and morals - business, education, the arts. We're viewed in a different light than in the days when Mennonites spoke only German and lived in isolated communities. We have more of a voice today. And our voice is heard. After Sept. 11, I was amazed at how the journalists who interviewed our church leaders seemed to be weary of violence and sought alternatives.

We need to broaden our scope of communication, engaging the culture in other justice-related issues - including opposition to the death penalty and abortion. We need to seek justice for the voiceless and to focus on domestic, as well as international issues.

Q: How far have Mennonites moved from seeing themselves as the "quiet in the land?" How far should they move?

A: There's a really wide spectrum in congregations on views surrounding how we should communicate our peace stance to the government. Some people believe their chief responsibility is to pray at home, asking God to guide our leaders with wisdom. Others would say that while we need to pray at home, God has also given us some wisdom as an Anabaptist people that we need to share with our leaders. In other words, prayer inevitably leads to action.

I see both as being extremely important. But we may have more of responsibility in this generation to engage our government. Just as we've become more involved in all other arenas - and can exercise power of affluence and influence in those places - we also need to take responsibility in engaging our communities and government in considering God's way of peace. The question, as Ricardo Esquiva of Colombia so prophetically asked, is "Why has God placed Mennonites in the United States, the most powerful country in the world?" Perhaps, as the biblical Queen Esther, we are here for such a time as this: speaking peace, justice and life in the midst of fear, destruction and death.

But in terms of speaking directly to our government, we are currently well respected. MCC Washington office staff are invited to fairly high-level government briefings. Aids to senators initiate calls to MCCers, seeking an alternative viewpoint. But we can increase the numbers of people who are speaking out. More of us need to make our voices known to our communities and legislators. There is strength in numbers and responsibility in our relationship to God.

Q: What about our Anabaptist values and theology can most speak to our culture in light of a post-Sept. 11 world? Has Sept. 11 changed the way we view our responsibility in sharing the gospel of peace?

A: We have hope. We have hope in Jesus and hope in alternatives to war. I sense there is great despair in our society right now. What utter hopelessness for people to think that the only thing we can do to save ourselves is to kill somebody. But we as Mennonites have alternatives that give us purpose and hope in life, because of our understanding of God and Jesus.

For this generation, the governing issue is a fear of violence. But as believers, we relate to God, who says, 'Fear not, I am with you.' We can live in ways that prompt people to ask, 'What is it about your understanding of the gospel that brings you peace in the midst of a world at war?' There is such a deep psychological need today for peace. We know that Jesus, the Prince of Peace, meets these needs. And we take Jesus into our communities as we spread hope and peace.

Sept. 11 has shaken people. But we can refuse to cave into the fear and to live in a world where revenge and killing are thought to be the best answers. God is a God of resurrection and love. As long as fear is the greatest force in our lives, then we will feel we need protection. But if God's love is the strongest force, then we will be willing to live alternatives that are risky.

Q: How does your office see our peace witness as part of the holistic gospel?

A: The gospel is God's answer to a hurting world and an alternative to hatred and revenge. What people seek is security and wholeness. Our society is founded on getting rid of fear through weapons and financial security. But we can offer the love of God and an understanding of salvation. Peace dispels fear. Salvation dispels fear.

We often fail to understand the political implications of Jesus' ministry. The scriptures show us how people got angry with Jesus because he came to bring justice to those we tend to ignore - the poor, the blind, the outcast. If that was Jesus' purpose, so should it be ours. The work of this office is to follow Jesus' purpose.

The Bible is strongly political. Mennonite Church USA's peace agenda is biblical, not political. But it's a biblical agenda that clashes with our society. That's why there are martyrs in our history, why prophets were hated, why people were thrown in jail in the New Testament. In order to engage the culture in the gospel of peace, we're going to have to realize that being in the world but not of the world will often bring us trouble - but also Godly joy!

Q: Is there one last word you'd like to share?

A: I want to say "thank you" to all those people who provide peace and justice witness in their communities and beyond. I am deeply grateful for the strength that their efforts bring me. I get so much joy in hearing about all that Mennonites are doing in the United States and around the world. They're involved in peace centers, community mediation, engaging government officials in the United States and overseas, and praying and witnessing up a storm. Mennonites are seen as among the world's foremost experts in conflict resolution and victim offender reconciliation. I continue to be amazed and privileged that I get to work beside these heroes of our faith, who spread God's hope in the world.