Some people find it odd that I am both a pastor and against having mandatory prayer in the public school system. After all, didn’t Jesus say things like, “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation,” and “Those who are ashamed of me and of my words, of them the Son of Man will be ashamed when he comes in his glory”? Aren’t we called to boldly proclaim the Gospel in every area of our life?

The short answer is “yes.” Unfortunately, that’s an answer to the wrong question. The real question for me as a pastor does not have to do with religious freedom but rather with religious coercion. In other words, the question is not, “Can I freely share my faith,” but rather, “Can I force others to share my faith?” As I said, the answer to the first question is “yes,” but the answer to the second is “no.” More importantly, considering that our schools and teachers are representatives of the federal government, the second question is not simply, “Can I force others to share my faith,” but rather, “Can the government force others to share my faith?”

In fact, these two questions are tied together, and the answer cannot be “yes” to both of them. If we live in a society where the answer to the second question is, “Yes, we can force others to have or express a particular faith,” then it is also true that, “No, we do not truly have the freedom to express our faith as we see fit.”

This should be of particular importance for Mennonites. First of all, we should be committed to the separation of church and state because it was our idea to begin with. Yes, the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” but that’s not the reason I hold this view. I’m more concerned with what founding documents like the Schleitheim Confession say: “The rule of government is according to the flesh, that of the Christians according to the spirit … Their citizenship is in this world, that of the Christians is in heaven.”

The reason I want to keep church and state separate is not for the sake of the state but for the sake of the church. Besides inviting corruption when the two are joined, we would do well to remember that the persecution that our spiritual forbears suffered was at the hands of other Christians, empowered by the state in an attempt to force us to believe, pray and worship as they did.

I’m continually perplexed by Mennonites who argue vehemently that prayer and other religious activities should be mandatory in public schools. How is it possible that we have forgotten our own core values and history so completely that we can argue against those values that our people pioneered? What’s more, how is it possible that we have forgotten that Mennonites are still in the minority in this country?

I support a strong separation of church and state, not because I believe we should be ashamed of, or limit our faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I support it because if the government did start forcing our children to pray in school, the prayers they would be saying would not be our own.

Alan Stucky is pastor of Pleasant Valley Mennonite Church in Harper, Kan.

From Weekly to World

Biweekly MWR blends tradition, new voices

A year ago we announced Mennonite Weekly Review would become Mennonite World Review on April 2, 2012. Now you are reading the first issue of the new MWR. You’ll find it is both familiar and different.

Familiar because it continues a 90-year journalistic tradition based on a vision of unity among Mennonites, so often divided by culture and theology.

Familiar because that old-fashioned font at the top of the front page says this is a newspaper that’s been around a while.

Different, most obviously, because it is biweekly. This is an adjustment to economic realities. Print journalism today is in trouble. Declining circulation and shrinking ad revenue threaten the existence of newspapers as we have known them. The Internet has broken newspapers’ business model, and no one has found the fix. Amid a revolution comparable to Gutenberg’s invention of movable type, publishers are trying to find the right place for print in a digital age.

For MWR, the right place is every other week. There are two main reasons for this.

First, we need to manage our finances wisely. It is no longer good stewardship to print and mail 46 times a year. Postage costs were consuming 25 percent of income from subscriptions and advertising.

Now we will spend less on delivery and more on producing a larger and better newspaper.

Second, timely news online makes weekly mailing less essential. MWR’s website offers news faster than a weekly paper ever could. We invite readers to visit mennoworld.org not only for news but also for the diverse writers on our blog, The World Together.

Despite the website’s speed and interactivity, it doesn’t pay the bills. Print subscribers keep MWR’s ministry viable.

MWR’s new name drops an emphasis on frequency and adds a new focus on our mission: “Putting the Mennonite world together.” We’ve used that slogan for years. But the new name implies we will cover the world better than ever. We’re embracing that goal in a new phrase that appears on page 2 and online: “An independent news source serving Mennonites and the global Anabaptist movement.”