We, at Windsor Mennonite Fellowship, centre our faith on the person of Jesus Christ. Our beliefs aspire to follow the life, teaching, and character of Jesus. This includes how we understand God, the Bible, our relationships with one another, creation, the wider community, our constitution, the church structure, and leadership roles within our local congregation.
We interpret the Bible through Jesus.
How we read the Bible is just as important as what we read in the Bible. When interpreting the Holy Scriptures, we recognize that every person or group reads and interprets the Scriptures through a particular lens. We recognize that the interpretation and subsequent application of the Bible can have serious impacts on the life of the faith community. The interpretation of the Bible can be weaponized to cause great harm or be a source of profound healing, insight, and hope. The Bible is a collection of ancient documents from a different time, culture, and context- not easily transferable to the 21st century without the careful work of humble, responsible, contemplative, and community-based hermeneutics (the study and interpretation of Scripture).
With this consideration in mind we believe that central to interpreting the Bible is using a Jesus-shaped hermeneutic. This means that we filter our understanding of Scripture through Jesus’ life and teachings, particularly the way Jesus himself shows us how to read the Scriptures in the Sermon on the Mount.
The Scriptures do not point to themselves as the source of life, the Scriptures point to Jesus, who is described as the living “Word of God.” If our interpretations of the Bible do not lead us to God revealed in Christ, we are not reading the Bible in a Christ-centred way. Although the written word of God is a central part of the Christian life and of knowing Christ, it cannot be separated from Jesus, the living Word of God.
The meaning and application of the Bible is discerned within community.
We believe that prayerful dialogue, discussion, and mutual submission among the gathered community is necessary for responsible hermeneutics. Through the lived experience and diversity in the Body of Christ, we discern the meanings and applications of the Scriptures. Private study of Scripture is a valuable part of spiritual formation, but interpretation isolated from relationships and a plurality of voices disconnects us from the inspiration and accountability to each other in the Spirit.
The Bible is our primary text and authority for understanding and practicing our faith.
Through the witness of Jesus, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and the gathered community in Christ we look to the Bible as our primary source for learning about four fundamental relationships:
Our relationship with God,
our relationship with one another,
our relationship with ourselves,
and our relationship with creation.
These relationships are not mutually exclusive but rely upon one another and weave themselves through the books, songs, stories, poems, letters, and histories contained in the Bible. Our interpretation of the Bible relies upon the history of interpretation.
We do not read the Scriptures in an historical vacuum. We look to thousands of years of interpretation for wisdom and knowledge. We join the ancient and sacred conversation of our ancestors in the community of the historic Church as we interpret Scripture, while taking into account the convictions we share with other Mennonite churches.
The Mennonite church is a Christian denomination with roots in the 16th century Protestant Reformation. However, the Anabaptist movement, of which the Mennonite church is a part, aspired to take this even further. Anabaptists were convinced that
Scripture calls for adult baptism upon confession of faith, separation of church and state, the priesthood of all believers, etc. The Mennonite church is also one of the historic Peace Churches.
Variance on the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective.
Windsor Mennonite Fellowship participants generally accept the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective (Scottdale, PA and Waterloo, ON: Herald Press, 1995), but add some qualifying updates in regard to Article 19.
WMF has prayerfully discerned and chosen to join other MC Canada congregations in amending Article 19 to better reflect our position of LGBTQIA+ inclusion. As written, Article 19, “Family, Singleness, and Marriage,” of the Confession does not reflect the theology and practices of our local church concerning the welcoming and inclusion of all persons. We believe that God intends marriage to be a covenant between two persons for life.