From the Publisher | Opinion
When I heard of Hannah Prosser’s book, Beat: My Journey Through Abuse and the Holdeman Mennonites, I initially doubted. Not because the Holdeman Mennonites are so righteous that they wouldn’t do something like that, not because it was simply an ex-Holdeman venting her anger, but at the amount of abuse hurled at her and her claim that the church ministers refused to take any decisive action. As time went by and I listened to her testimony online, I became more convinced of the veracity of her testimony, though I was fully aware that it was more of an isolated incident and not a normal occurrence in Holdeman Mennonite circles. Or so I thought. Yet when I heard that a similar situation had occurred in a Holdeman church in Belize, I was aghast and incredulous.
An adult person, well over 20 years old, was severely beaten by the father, and on top of that injustice was told to leave the home. Can you imagine? And all because the person was dating, a forbidden practice among Holdeman Mennonites. The parents, the victim and the victim’s “friend” are all members of the church and therefore by church doctrine required to uphold the standards but seriously? Should parents demand submission to church doctrine to the point of intentionally causing physical injury? With all the modern influences surrounding the church, the doctrine of “no dating/courtship” appears to have become a gray area for the youngsters. Not so for certain of the older generation such as this father who adheres to the doctrines rigidly and with pharaisical zeal to the extent that he vented his brutality on his own child.
Yet the story appears to be far more sinister. Not only did the victim’s father (a church member) brutally assault his own child, it seems he has a history of continually carrying out various forms of physical abuses against other members of his family, ranging from mild slaps to severe beatings and murderous threats yet faithfully attending church on Sunday mornings. What sort of church allowed such a monster to be a member and called him brother? What grace could there have been in the trauma inflicted by a person who is a member of the “one true church” on another member of the same church? How could such cruelty have been passively condoned by any church?
Almost a year ago I wrote what I thought would be my last article for a long time on the Holdemans, officially known as the Church of God in Christ, Mennonite. But this story of a person being ordered to leave the home touched a still somewhat raw nerve within me when I heard it, hence this article.
In a certain way the situation brings memories of my own teenage years in the Holdeman church. Thankfully my parents never once condemned me for marrying outside the church nor physically punished me for dating a “worldly” person. Neither was I ordered to leave home unless I gave up my special friend. In short, my parents understood me far more than I have ever given them credit for and because of that I cannot begin to understand the extent of humiliation, the depth of emotional pain and the seething anger the person must have felt at being subjected to such an abusive treatment. Imagine your own father, a faithful church member, breaking church doctrines himself yet demanding that you cling to the doctrine of no dating then proceeding to physically beat you.
I would like to point out though, that this does not portray the Church of God in Christ, Mennonite in general. Just as a flat tire does not mean the whole car is bad, so the above incident certainly does not indicate the whole church worldwide has degenerated into religious and empty rituals similar to the Old Colony Mennonites. There’s always those bad apples mixed in among the good. It’s the reaction of church authorities of the respective congregation in responding to that rotten apple that provoked outrage when I first heard it.
A. Mendoza
