- And yet again, the Young Anabaptist Radicals discuss women without a single woman in the discussion.
- Eeks. Apparently, in a matchup between motorcycle and crazed horse dragging a buggy, the motorcycle loses.
- Ami-Menno literature online this week include Russian Mennonite memoirs (with a graphically accurate cover) and a leader in the growing genre of “Amish fiction.”
- As if people don’t confuse the Amish with FDLS already.
- This answers the age-old question of whether one can be charged with drunk-buggying (although there is something heartbreaking about the guy saying that he’s “a bad Amish”).
- Concert choir pays off for this Canadian.
- Irony alert! The official military newsletter talking about Anabaptism (and kinda getting it wrong — which isn’t ironic, just annoying).
- I’m pretty sure the Amish are not watching High School Musical tryouts (but I am!).
And here’s your funny Amish picture of the day:
Related posts:
While I do realize that Anabaptism has it’s own monkeys swinging from it’s family tree – I feel like the way the Stars and Stripes presented that information is deliberate anti-Anabaptist propoganda to defame modern day Anabaptists. Because after reading that – military people are going to think Anabaptists are still like that.
Yeah, Melissa, I would agree, although I would not go so far as to say it was “deliberate anti-Anabaptist propoganda….Anabaptists”. Every movement has its crazies/fringe elements, especially at the beginning, when emotional fervor runs amok and sense is left behind; those who deny that fact about their own group may have more to hide than not! The more charitable part of me thinks maybe it was a case of a reporter not bothering to consider the source of the information. The shadow of Munster still hangs over the Anabaptist story, particularly in Europe, so I’m told, where to this day anything outside of the recognized state church box is viewed with suspicion. Which is a lesson to all of us, when new religious groups surface in our communities. I like the “wait and see” test. But yes, I find myself saying “oh please, don’t lump all anabaptists with that wacky, 400 + years old Munster bunch”. It also tells me to take all news reports with a grain of salt and not repeat everything I read or hear as fact until I’ve investigated more thoroughly.
So, why didn’t you plunge into the YAR discussion?
I thought about it … but there’s always a point at which I don’t think I’d be adding anything to the conversation except a “WTF are you guys talking about” which wouldn’t be helpful at all. And I know almost nothing about the emergent movement so I couldn’t talk about that in particular.
And its hard to feel welcome in a post where a commentator is essentially implying that God has only called men to be leaders in this particular movement.
That photo is awesome, I’m sharing it “liberally”….
Yeah, I’ve misappropirated that picture onto my blog too.
As for the YAR conversation, I’ve been following it, and just don’t see the point in getting involved. Nobody is really going to change anyone else’s mind.
I’m one of the men who was involved in the discussion you referenced on YAR. Initially I was chastened by your comment, but I’ve done some more thinking about it, and I think when it comes to anti-sexism work, women shouldn’t always have to be the ones defending equality. Sometimes men need to confront men about sexism and not expect women to do the work.
Maybe no one’s going to change anyone’s mind, but blatant sexism and oppression need to be challenged. Silence is not the solution.
I actually think there a lot of men on YAR who do a great job of speaking up for women’s equality and I applaud them. And I don’t have a problem at all with the men defending the good fight. Particularly since it can be really hard as a female to keep having these kinds of conversations over and over again — soul-killing actually.
I drew attention to the post not to chastise any of the men involved. I saw the post and resulting comments more as another example of where women are talked about and not talked with. It would be interesting to take that particular post and ask the general YAR audience why didn’t women comment on it …
Is it the ratio of men to women on YAR? Is it a matter of picking your battles and the women didn’t feel like fighting this particular one? Was there some subtle unwelcoming thing?
“Silence isn’t the solution” is totally accurate … and I’m glad that the men weren’t. But why were the women?
Well put, urbanmenno. I’ve been meaning to write a post with that question for quite some time now. This discussion makes me thing the time has come to stop procrastinating.
Would you mind if I quote you extensively? Or better yet, if you’d like to post your comment yourself on YAR, you’d be welcome to. We did a poll for a month that showed readers are about 60% male, 40% female, but the proportion of women commenting is probably much lower then that. Especially when it comes to disagreements.
As I’m getting reminded by the bloglurker (you know who you are), I no longer qualify for the Y in YAR — unless we are going with a very inclusive definition of the word “young.”
So feel free to quote extensively. I did put our exchange in the comments of that particular post so feel free to do with that what you want.
It will be interesting to follow the responses.
Heh – when Steve Dintamin posted in one of the threads over there and referred to Tony Jones and I as “young” I wanted to say Blessings upon Steve for thinking that I’m young!