A Precarious Peace - Huebner

my notes from the first night of reading:

Introduction

Need to understand how Chris Huebner is defining peace. It is not a "traditional" definition.

1) peace is a gift from God ( p20, p24, )
2) God is unpredictable ( p27 )
therefore:
3) Peace is precarious. It can not be owned, located, or established. ( p30, p31, p36, )

According to Huebner, he is defining a peace "in a way that is always for and against peace" ( p30 ) while most previous definitions of peace implicates those defining it in "some form of violence or another." p30

Chapter 1

Defining Mennonite Identity - many bold statements
"A split exists between the church's mission agencies and those devoted to social justice" p35
and goes on to explain " the very fact that we have institutionalized such a division of labor in the church suggests that the care of the soul is somehow separate from a concern for the body." Is this a fundamental flaw in our theology, or is it simply a recognition that in most cases, the church's social justice arms ( MCC, MDS ) are often not prohibited from naming "missions" as one of their aims. Should we turn our back on social justice opportunities because evangelism can not be one of the stated objectives? If we had the opportunity to do both, would we turn away volunteers who had only one of the 2 gifts? If CMU was hiring a talented ethics professor who could not preach, or a church hired a gifted preacher who could not teach ethics, would Huebner raise the same "institutionalized division of labor" concerns?

Are Mennonites really "in the midst of a full-blown identity crisis" and unable "to reach any kind of substantial agreement on what it ( our identity ) consists in." (p36) ???

Is the Mennonite church really "At its best ..... a kind of ongoing political experiment" ?? (p37)

on page 38 Huebner discribes the division of gifts that concerns him as "some congregations are dedicated practitioners of binding, while others are experts at loosing. Very rarely does one find both in one place." In order to have a more defined concept of our identity, Huebner hopes for a "more fluid and ambiguous conception of identity."

Ok, so Mennonites have TOO STRONG of a concept of identity. We tend to lean on, or rely on our concept of identity. I get it. Unfortunately, re-reading chapter 1 with this perspective does not fit the message. In fact it accentuates the impression that Huebner fundamentally believes that Mennonites do not have a correct conception of their identity, but how is that possible? Can we be wrong about how we conceive of our identity?

I could be persuaded that a professor, or historian, or writer could be instrumental in directing the concept of identity that an ethnic group has shapes in their collective concious, refreshes their memory of history, but the concept of identity in itself can not be "corrected" especially by expecting each congregation, each mission organization, each social justice initiative to embody the complete and historically acurate conception of the entire Mennonite identity.