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2008-08-19 issue:

Mennonites want Jesus for President

National campaign brings alternative political perspective to Raleigh, N.C.

by Laura Graber Nickel

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The Jesus for President national campaign tour stopped in Raleigh, N.C., on July 22. Although there was only a handful of local Mennonites in the crowd of 700, Anabaptist and Mennonite influence in the campaign was obvious.














Shane Claiborne addresses the Jesus for President crowd in Raleigh, N.C., on July 22. Photo by Luke Baker.

Through storytelling and worship, Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw described an alternative political perspective: Jesus for President. Their message includes a strong emphasis on peace and puts a high value on communities of believers who reject the world’s ways and live their lives according to Jesus’ teachings.

Authors of the book Jesus for President, the two men stopped in Raleigh near the end of a month-long tour that has attracted crowds of 500 to 1,000 people at every event. They described their beliefs as a mix of Catholic and Protestant with a Mennonite flavor and acknowledged that much of what they wrote has direct connections to Mennonite people and Anabaptist ideas.

“Some people have called our book ‘John Howard Yoder illustrated,’ ” said Haw. “That’s a great compliment, because Yoder’s definitely in the mix of how we’ve interpreted Jesus.”
Their book includes a collection of stories illustrating how people are living Jesus’ example. They tell the story of a conservative Mennonite farming community in Belize visited by a thief who stole all the community’s money. In response, the community did two things: (1) printed their own money, which decreased the threat of theft by those outside the community, and (2) once the thief was released from prison, built him a house.

Although the principles described in Jesus for President are well-known to Mennonites, according to Isaac Villegas, pastor of Chapel Hill (N.C.) Mennonite Fellowship, Mennonites can always use a reminder.

“Sometimes we need outsiders to remind us of the best parts of our tradition,” says Villegas. “Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw don’t claim to offer anything new about Jesus and politics. They simply piece together the best of what Mennonites have to offer … we need all the help we can get to remember how Mennonites of the past tended to cultivate a healthy suspicion when it comes to the promises of governments.”

In Jesus for President, Claiborne and Haw ask Christians to think differently about their political and religious allegiance, reevaluate the church’s role in the arena of American power and politics and examine the way they live out their faith.

“The Jesus story he’s telling is the same story we’re familiar with,” said Dennis Boos, member of Raleigh Mennonite Church. He and his wife, Kathy, are reading and discussing Jesus for President with their small group from church.

The tour came to Raleigh by invitation from the Eastern Carolina District of Virginia Mennonite Conference, with partial sponsorship from the North Carolina Council of Churches. Duane Beck, pastor of Raleigh Mennonite Church, first thought of inviting Claiborne and Haw to add Raleigh to their tour. He envisioned the event as a way for like-minded people with Anabaptist ideas or tendencies to come together in an area of the country where there are few Mennonites.

“When I came down here [to North Carolina],” Beck said, “I assumed there were well over a thousand Anabaptists here, and we didn’t know them, and they weren’t all Mennonites, and some of them didn’t know they were Anabaptists. … My dream was to see if there was a way to network these people.”

The Jesus for President event was one such way. It attracted about 700 people, from Pentecostals to Episcopalians, with a few Mennonites sprinkled throughout.

After the event, four area Mennonite pastors collaborated to set up a Web site with discussion forums, information about Mennonite churches and upcoming events. The site, www.anabaptistexchange.com, was projected on a screen in front of the audience before the Jesus for President event began.—Laura Graber Nickel

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