Discipleship as a Path to Peace

I recently read Just War as Christian Discipleship:Recentering the Tradition in the Church rather than the State, by Daniel M. Bell Jr. 

I will admit that the book bugged me and I profoundly disagreed with the authors conclusions. At the same time, the role of discipleship in shaping a peace witness within a culture apparently intent on violence, continues to stir within me. Even though I disagreed with his conclusions, I deeply appreciated the way in which Bell wrestled with the implications of Christian discipleship within his argument for Just War. I think Bell offers the Mennonite/Anabaptist faith community a worthy example of how we might wrestle with the implications of discipleship for a witness to peace.

            Much of my thinking around this topic of discipleship has been heightened and clarified by my experience in Ethiopia in the month of March. Engaging with pastors and church leaders, I was curious about the tremendous growth the church in Ethiopia continues to experience even twenty-five years after state sanctioned persecution of the church ended. Several themes began to emerge.

            First among these themes was a regular recitation of the memory and lessons learned by the persecution. Everyone over the age of thirty could relate experiences of what it was like to be an underground church. The measures used to ensure safety and secrecy are recalled with the fondness of nostalgia, but also a lesson for what the church could experience again at any moment. There is recognition among the leaders that the state offers no guarantee of safety to the church. Policies of the state, already a precarious maze to be navigated, could shift at any time. As such the church prepares itself for a time when the situation may not be as good as they currently experience. This preparation leads to the second theme.

            Discipleship is at the heart of the practice of the church. When I asked pastors about the focus points of their work as leaders in the church, the response was at first surprising. Most of the pastors I spoke to mentioned that they would preach as little as once, and maybe twice per month. Preaching and Sunday worship was not the central piece of their ministry task. The gathering of the faith community on Sunday is vital. However, leadership of the various aspects of Sunday worship are divided among a wide array of leaders who together give spiritual direction to the life of the congregation.

            Central to the pastoral role was the task of ongoing discipleship. When persons indicate a desire to explore faith in Christ, they are immediately invited into a discipleship process. On a weekly basis, new believers meet with a pastor or elder for an hour long discipleship time. With the Gospel of John as their curriculum, the leaders guide new believers towards baptism (there are more than 15,000 people preparing for baptism on an annual basis in Ethiopia). After approximately four to six months which includes some instruction on the meaning of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the new believer is invited into the waters of baptism.

            However, baptism only indicates a move from one phase of discipleship to another. The baptized believer continues to meet with the pastor or elder for another year which is focussed on training in church doctrine, structure, vision and mission of the church. This year of instruction further evolves into ongoing, weekly discipleship discussions in small groups and one-on-one exploring questions focussed on living as disciples in the home, your place of work, within the community and beyond.

Within this practice, peace is understood as a natural expression of discipleship. Imitation, following and learning the model of Christ are understood as critical to the Christian life. Disciples are given regular opportunities to witness to their faith through tangible ministries of caring for the widows and orphans, but also by being a peace witness in an increasingly hostile environment that has seen radical imams find their way into the Mosques of Ethiopia. I did not hear consensus across denominations on the question of peace and pacifism, but there was agreement that peace is central to the expression of discipleship. Some of these conversations struck me as similar to the rationale Bell used to argue for Just War while agreeing that the way of Christ constituted a call to peace.

Finally, the church thrives in the recognition that the people of peace flourish in Christian community. This conviction is lived out in the practice of church planting. The Meserete Kristos Church is a church which plants churches. As churches grow by reaching out to their neighbours and actively engaging their community, the church pays careful attention to its local expression. Once twelve couples are identified in a given community, village, or neighbourhood, a new church is planted to address the local need for ongoing discipleship. While my experience is only a snap shot of the church, I am convinced that it will be difficult to find a commuter church. The church is a local expression of community. Believers worship together, but they also work and live together in the same community, neighbourhood, or even city block. In this way Christian community and the integrated practices of discipleship, become part of daily practice as believers are in near constant community with one another.

I am still processing my experience in Ethiopia (this reflection paper is part of that processing). A challenge that cross-cultural experiences such as these present is how we might translate the Ethiopian experience to the context of southern Ontario. Some of the Ethiopian experience will likely not translate at all. However, I am more convinced than ever than the church is called to an intentional focus on discipleship.

As much as the Mennonite Church speaks of peace as central to the gospel, discipleship must be our central practice. If it is our conviction that Christ calls us to a way of peace, we cannot leave expression of this faith to the Sunday sermon or the Sunday school room discussion. The church must reclaim the model Jesus offered of gathering small groups of believers who are invited into intense learning, following and imitation that leads to transformation.

I am afraid that we have too often relied on assumptions of biblical knowledge and theological awareness, assuming that the people in the pews know, believe, and live what is being presented in times of corporate worship. If we dig deep enough, we soon realize that even in a hyper-connected social media driven culture; faith has become largely privatized and focussed in individual expression. As a community driven Anabaptist church, a focus on discipleship will challenge the pervasive individualism of our surrounding culture. I believe it will also offer an incredible freedom to find a safe space to express questions and challenges of faith in a discipling environment.

If Daniel Bell can so intensely engage the question of discipleship in order to argue for Just War, surely an Anabaptist/Mennonite faith community can appreciate the opportunity of making a similar exploration of discipleship focussed on the peace of Christ.

(Adapted from a paper I wrote for a course at Conrad Grebel University College - TS691 War and Peace in Christian Theology)