Mennonite
Central
Committee

North American Mennonite experience

North American Mennonites have maintained this historic peace position these past 300 years, although their practice has not always been consistent with their biblical teachings.

Nonetheless during World War I Mennonite conscientious objectors (CO's) were drafted into military camps in the United States and Canada where they were often harassed and punished for non cooperation. Sometimes they were placed in solitary confinement.

The Canadian and U.S. governments provided alternative civilian service projects during World War II. Many Mennonites worked in mental hospitals, on forestry projects, including fire fighting, and at other civilian service projects during that period, but some went into regular military service and some into noncombatant medical service. A few went to prison.

Women were not drafted during World War II. Mennonite women though, supported the drafted men, and helped conceptualize and establish the first voluntary service unit in North America as an expression of the peace witness.

In 1950 at a historic Mennonite peace conference at Winona Lake Indiana, Mennonites recommitted themselves to "follow Christ in full discipleship in the way of peace and love, the way of nonresistance and peacemaking."

During the Korean and Vietnam Wars most Mennonites did alternative service at home or abroad, rather than serve in the military. In the United States, resistance to the draft increased markedly during the 1960s. Some Mennonite men believed it was wrong to cooperate in any way with the military and refused to register for the draft. Some were prosecuted and others went underground to Canada.

After considerable discussion, most Mennonite church conferences recognized non registration as a valid peace witness. Many drafted CO's and the Mennonites who served in Vietnam in alternative service assignments returned from their experiences with strong convictions about war's destructiveness and immorality. They urged Mennonites to continue caring for war sufferers and refugees and to speak out vigorously against national military policy. Both, they said, were essential parts of the peacemaking witness.

MCC workers serving in poor areas of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Central and South America, often return to North America convinced that Western economic, political and military policies contribute greatly to poverty, violence and war overseas.

War and the military remain a central focus of the Mennonite peace witness, but peacemaking concerns increasingly reach into all areas, including relationships within families and churches, stewardship of the earth, use of economic resources, and the role of governments and international bodies.

In 1993 the MCC board adopted a peace statement, "A commitment to Christ's way of peace" (PDF) to guide MCC's work (available in brochure form from all MCC offices). This statement broadens the realm of peacemaking beyond opposition to war to include addressing family, economic and ecological violence.

Mennonite rejoice at the widening interest in the biblical issues of peace, justice and nonviolence within all churches. Mennonites are also learning from contemporary peace statements of Protestant and Roman Catholic churches.

Mennonites are also inspired by Christians worldwide who maintain their peace commitment despite costly circumstances, such as church workers in South Africa and the former Yugoslavia who place themselves between warring sides, and Latin American Christians who work for justice for the poor even when threatened with death and torture.

Brazilian Bishop Dom Helder Camara reminds us that peacemaking is often a rough and lonely road: "We must not expect to find it easy; we shall not walk on roses, people will not throng to hear us and applaud, and we shall not always be aware of divine protection. If we are to be pilgrims for justice and peace we must expect the desert.