A dispute over the place of homosexuals in the church appears to be forcing some Mennonite congregations in western Canada to align themselves with conferences that better reflect their beliefs.

“We have churches in Alberta, B.C., Saskatchewan and Manitoba who all have the same understanding and have left or are in the process of leaving their area conferences,” says Ray Landis, conference minister of the Calgary-based Northwest Mennonite Conference.

“We’ve had calls from churches all through the west wondering about Northwest.”

Last year, the conference’s 16 member-churches in Alberta and northern B.C. voted 69 per cent against seeking full membership in Mennonite Church (MC) Canada.

At issue was MC Canada’s refusal to exclude Calgary Inter-Mennonite Church which Northwest had placed under discipline two years earlier for accepting non-celibate gays and lesbians as members. It decided instead to let regional conferences set their own standards of accountability, while encouraging dialogue over the issue.

“We don’t want to shy away from the conflict that’s there, because those are real issues that we’re facing,” says MC Canada moderator Henry Krause, who also pastors Langley Mennonite Fellowship in B.C.

Krause maintains there is no disagreement over their Confession of Faith, which upholds the traditional understanding of human sexuality. “That’s not up for discussion,” he says.

“But there is quite a bit of diversity over how is this lived out in the congregational life.”

“This was not acceptable to us,” says Landis. “We wanted the national church to take a position on how to work with congregations and have each area conference abide by that.”

Nor did that decision sit well with MC British Columbia. It responded by launching a review of its relationship with the national body.

But one MCBC church—Kelowna Gospel Fellowship—decided not to wait any longer. This past April, it joined the Mennonite Brethren.

“We do not wish to be a member of an organization [MC Canada] which allows process to become dysfunctional and almost codependent in empowering dissident groups to misdirect our energies,” wrote pastor Larry Schram in announcing his church’s decision.

To some observers, Mennonites are becoming two camps defined by that aspect of their heritage to which they give priority—theological liberals who stress peace and justice and conservatives who are evangelicals first.

“I always thought our Anabaptist forefathers kept those two in tension, and that was a part of what made us a unique group,” says Landis. “But it seems like we can’t hold those two together.”

Yet John Stackhouse, professor of religion and culture at Vancouver’s Regent College, believes “it’s way too early to tell” if Mennonites are headed toward some sort of progressive-orthodox split. “I’d be really surprised if that’s what’s happening,” he says.

“My sense is that peace and justice concerns are pretty widely distributed across the Mennonite spectrum. And while it’s true that some Mennonite Brethren individuals and even congregations seem to have lost a lot of that distinctive Anabaptist identity, many of them haven’t and would still enthusiastically be concerned for that.”

Krause believes that their disagreements over human sexuality can be resolved—although when is “an open question”—as long as all sides are willing to keep talking about it.

“Certainly for some folks in our denomination, they’re saying, ‘We don’t need to have any more dialogue, because we know what we believe,’” he says. “But as long as there are ongoing conflicts where people or churches are wrestling with these issues, my sense is we need to be in conversation.”

Landis seems less hopeful that there can be a resolution. But he also insists that Northwest feels no animosity toward MC Canada.

“We want to bless them and release them, and hopefully they can bless us and release us,” he says. “We’re not here to fight them, we’re not here to bad-mouth them, we’re not here to say that they’re wrong. We’re just not where they are and vice-versa.”