MBCI students weigh in on Mennonite Brethren Confession

A high school course is encouraging teens to be involved in open conversations about statements of faith. 

Ramon Rempel is a Bible course teacher at Mennonite Brethren Collegiate Institute (MBCI) in Winnipeg.

"One of the problems you try and work at is, high school kids need to be convinced that the church needs them as thinking, intelligent, reasoning people. Their exposure to Christianity largely comes to them as kind of a set system that they can either accept or reject," says Rempel. 

This fact has frustrated Rempel for some time, to the point where he is hoping to do something about it. 

"The church desperately needs thinking, intelligent, creative young people to be a part of it. The process of trying to figure out what it means to follow God in this crazy world we live in is something where we need everyone to contribute in."

Rempel says in his 10 years at MBCI, he's noticed that young people want someone to take them seriously, even if they don't agree with them. 

"We work with confessions. I lead them through various confessions and creeds and we talk about what were the issues and problems that each one of them was trying to address, the differences and similarities between them. Then we go through the various Mennonite Brethren versions of the confessions over the past 100 plus years until we get to the most current one."

This is the third time Rempel has asked his students to weigh in on such matters. He asks students to break into groups and pick one of the 18 articles in the latest confession. 

"Some of them will simply outright affirm a particular article and give their reasons why they think the article stands perfectly fine as it is."

Other students suggest potential changes to current articles. 

"If they suggest a revision I ask them to search for Biblical grounding or evidence of why the revisions would be a good idea."

A few students have suggested new articles to add to the 18 currently in the Mennonite Brethren Confession of faith that was revised in 1999. 

"The one article that talks about the sanctity of human life came up a lot. Also, the article on marriage, singleness, and the family because of course within a few years they might be considering such things."

To bring a new level of seriousness to the assignment, Rempel teamed up with the Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) and had his students present their thoughts on the confession to two CMU professors.

"It's one thing for me to listen and evaluate. But then I also take two professors from CMU who are in high standing in the MB conference community, so it goes beyond just our circle," says Rempel.

The students presented their cases about the MB Confession of faith just before Spring Break of 2021. 

"It's not always as polished or complete as a theologian might put out, but they're taking steps towards creative theological thinking. I hope many of them will be productive and helpful members of all kinds of different churches in the future."