Check out this article from the South Bend Tribune by a history professor from Goshen College.  Here’s a sample:

"The sky is not going to fall if Mennonites for five years back out of partisan politics," he said.

In a recent speech and subsequent Tribune interview, Roth stressed
that he is not asking church members to disengage from their
communities or from political concerns.

But he said the nature of that involvement should shift from
electoral politics to a Christ-centered politics that more directly
engages the hungry, the homeless and the dispossessed.

"I think that demands much more from us than simply mouthing the
slogans of whatever the latest party ideologues are offering us, on
both sides," he said.

…"We have basically allowed the political landscape of partisan
America … to shape our language," Roth said. "And so we haven’t
framed our political engagement from the perspective of the church….Not to avoid hard choices, but to gird them with discernment that is
often absent from yard signs, voting booths and political rallies…Christians should engage the (body politic)," he said, "and to that
extent, they’re political. What I chafe at is too narrow a definition
of what it means to be politically engaged."

Specifically, Roth wants Mennonites to abandon their activism around
the definition of marriage and focus on sustaining the marriages around
them.

Or to stop their public advocacy about poverty, and feed and house the hungry and homeless.

Perhaps most centrally in a time of war, Roth hopes that Mennonites
put down their foreign policy placards and support Mennonite
organizations with an international focus.

I think all Christians would do well to take a sabbatical from partisanship…don’t you?  Why not?

About Mark Van Steenwyk

Mark Van Steenwyk is a member of Missio Dei. He is a speaker, writer, educator, and grassroots organizer. With the support of the Central Plains Mennonite Conference, he travels to radical and intentional communities around the country to help network and offer support.