Power in Dialogue: Mennonite Decision-Making and the Virtues of Dissent

The familiar rationale for Mennonite consensus-finding is that it evenly distributes power among all members. By resisting the tendency toward hierarchy, the reasoning goes, Mennonites foster traits that are conducive to peacemaking: a sense of responsibility, practice expressing their views, and the skills needed for dialogical problem-solving. Thus, church meetings where everyone sits in a circle and bickers about the budget play a role in forging the traits necessary for standing up for peace in a violent world. This familiar explanation has come under some criticism, however, about its naivete with regard to power. This paper surveys these critiques—and makes some of its own—before arguing that Mennonite ecclesiology can nonetheless foster virtues of dissent and an alternative moral imagination that calls into question the antagonistic, zero-sum assumptions that sustain and escalate violence.