Roll Over Menno

The following is a ROM warning:

Joint Mennonite Church Canada/Mennonite Church USA release
January 10, 2008
http://www.mennonitechurch.ca/news/releases/2008/01/Release01.htm

Winnipeg, Man. — Members of Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church Canada will meet together at a bi-national “People’s Summit for Faithful Living” on July 8-10, 2008 on the campus of Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg.

The speakers at this upcoming “People’s Summit” are Tom and Christine Sine of Seattle, Wash., April Yamasaki of Abbotsford, B.C., and Tom Yoder-Neufeld of Waterloo, Ont.

The Sines are promoters of Celtic Spirituality, monastic communities, the labyrinth and the Catholic spiritual disciplines (as seen in ‘Mennonites Promote Celtic Spirituality’). Tom Sine writes about the New Monasticism in an article called The New Conspirators - Modern Monasticism. He is also the author of a new book called The New Conspirators and recently participated in a conference by the same name, The New Conspirators Conference (thenewconspirators.wordpress.com) where the four streams of renewal discussed were mosaic, monastic, emerging and missional. There is more information about this here:

‘Conspirators’ Plot New Ways to Be Christian
Thu, Feb. 28 2008
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080228/31351_’Conspirators’_Plot_New_Ways_to_Be_Christian.htm
Cutting-edge leaders of the emerging, missional, mosaic and monastic streams are convening Thursday evening in Washington state to re-imagine ways to express the Christian faith….

‘Conspirators’ Bring Together New Styles of Christianity
Fri, Mar. 07 2008
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080307/31458_’Conspirators’_Bring_Together_New_Styles_of_Christianity.htm
More than 300 people participated in “The New Conspirators Conference” last week that brought together hip-hoppers, community workers, and mainline pastors who all were looking for new ways to connect the new generation with Jesus Christ….

It is alarming to see that both the Mennonite Church USA and the Mennonite Church Canada are going the way of the New Monastic conspirators.

ROM Index: High

There a many spiritual people who do many good things, but that does not necessarily mean that theirs is a biblical spirituality.

Take for example Tom and Christine Sine who are involved in helping with the AIDS crisis. They had an AIDS conference at MB Biblical Seminary in 2002.

That same year, the Sines spoke about A stool with three legs at the Mennonite Brethren Convention.

More recently, in an MB Herald article adapted from the author’s book GodSpace, Christine Sine talks about our God being a God of rhythm in We’ve got rhythm – but is it the right kind? At the end of this article, which appeared in last September’s MB Herald, is a link to the website of the Sine’s Mustard Seed Associates, an ecumenical organization that that encourages people to become contemplative activists.

It would be interesting to know how many Mennonites found their way to the Sine’s spirituality resources where Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline and Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home are promoted, as well as the Labyrinth (to contemplate the deeper things of life).
Or their Celtic Spirituality page of links to various contemplative Celtic communities and Celtic books.

From their main website you can go to the Mustard Seed blog (http://mustardseedjourney.wordpress.com) and click on Divine Hours to get to Phyllis Tickle’s A Complete Guide to the Ancient Practice of Fixed-Hour Prayer, or you can click the link for the daily Catholic lectionary reading.

And that’s not all. If you were to continue browsing, you would see that the Sines also recently had the Thin Space: Celtic Christianity Learning Party at the Mustard Seed House, a neo-monastic intentional community in Seattle, Washington (mustardseedhouse.wordpress.com).

By the way, there’s a book called Schools for Conversion: 12 Marks of a New Monasticism that has been endorsed by Brian McLaren and Tom Sine. (Update: read about it HERE at Christianity Today.)

Are the Mennonites knowingly promoting Celtic Spirituality through the Sines? Weren’t the Celtic peoples the ones who assimilated the practices and beliefs of various religions? It was a pagan blend of mythology, magic, goddesses, and druids. In fact, the foundation of Celtic Spirituality is said to come from the Goddess religions of Europe, and even today you can find websites that offer courses in Witchcraft and Celtic Spirituality, with labyrinths, sacred circles and stones, drumming, and solstice celebrations of the earth’s rhythms.

Meanwhile, the Sine’s seem to be very involved, not only with Celtic “Christian” spirituality and it’s rhythms, but also monastic communities, abbeys, contemplation, spiritual disciplines, social justice, images of Jesus, and Catholicism.

Perhaps this is why the Mennonites like them. It seems they have a common interest - walking the same bridge back to ancient spiritual practices, which eventually leads to Rome.

Rom Index: rising