Power in Dialogue: Mennonite Decision-Making and the Virtues of Dissent

The familiar explanation for Mennonite consensus-based decision-making is that it evenly distributes ecclesial power among all members. Rather than a top-down imposition of priestly or pastoral authority, authority rests in the gathered community. In a process of prayerful dialogue, the Holy Spirit empowers the church as a whole to agree on important matters about church policies, building matters, hiring, and so on. By resisting the tendency toward hierarchy, the typical reasoning goes, Mennonites foster several traits that are conducive to active peacemaking: a sense of responsibility for the community, the ability to express one’s voice and know that protest will be taken seriously, and the skills needed for dialogical problem-solving even in situations of conflict. Thus, relatively boring church meetings where everyone sits in a circle and bickers about the annual budget play a role in forging the characteristics necessary for standing up for peace in a violent world.

This rationale has validity, though as many authors have pointed out, it is idealistic and may be overly naïve about power dynamics within Mennonite churches. Even in the absence of de jure ecclesial hierarchy, there are social hierarchies such as those associated with gender inequality, age-based prejudices, and Anabaptist bona fides (cf. “weighty Friends” in Quaker churches). These make these consensus meetings a far cry from the Habermasian ideal speech situation. Mennonite ecclesiology replicates broader social inequalities even as it fosters spaces where they can be challenged.

The GAMEO (Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online) entry for “Consensus” ends on a note of ambivalence: “The consensus approach works well where the group is not too large, is relatively homogenous, has a high level of trust, and is accustomed to interacting with one another.” Especially in multicultural, polarized, and transient contexts, this seems like damning with faint praise.

In this paper, I survey the arguments made for consensus-based decision-making as a practice that not only embodies nonviolent dialogue but also prepares participants to engage in conflict in nonviolent ways. I then discuss objections from Mennonite feminist authors like Stephanie Krehbiel, Linda Nyce, Dorothy Yoder Nyce, and others. From here, I turn to the work of Mennonite theologian J. Lawrence Burkholder to argue that power needs to be at the center of reflection when we consider the intersection between nonviolence and ecclesiology. As Burkholder writes, “It is not enough for churches to be committed to love and justice while ignoring power.”

Like most thinking about dialogue, Mennonite insistence on dialogue is at its weakest when it ignores power. But dialogue and nonviolence are not only activities that take place within regimes of power and situations of conflict, they contain resources for rethinking power and conflict. In the final section of my paper, I turn toward the tradition of nonviolent direct action to argue that consensus-reaching practices form our moral imaginations and discursive skills to address

The familiar rationale for Mennonite consensus-finding is that it evenly distributes power among all members. By resisting the tendency toward hierarchy, the reasoning goes, Mennonites foster traits that are conducive to peacemaking: a sense of responsibility, practice expressing their views, and the skills needed for dialogical problem-solving. Thus, church meetings where everyone sits in a circle and bickers about the budget play a role in forging the traits necessary for standing up for peace in a violent world. This familiar explanation has come under some criticism, however, about its naivete with regard to power. This paper surveys these critiques—and makes some of its own—before arguing that Mennonite ecclesiology can nonetheless foster virtues of dissent and an alternative moral imagination that calls into question the antagonistic, zero-sum assumptions that sustain and escalate violence.

Though we should not be naively idealistic about budgetary discussions that take place while people digest potluck meals, the principles of nonviolent dialogue that can be embodied in these meetings nonetheless reinforce alternative visions of power, conflict, solidarity, and what it means to be politically active. Thus, although the absence of explicit hierarchy does not mean the absence of structural violence, church practices can be sites where people develop what I call “the virtues of dissent” that then can be enacted to work for justice and peace.