Wise as serpents, innocent as doves
Subtitle: American Mennonites engage Washington
By: Keith Graber Miller.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: University of Tennessee Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Knoxville
Language: eng
Number of pages: 314
Subjects: Mennonite Central Committee -- History; Mennonites -- United States -- Political activity
Description: In July 1968, the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) opened an office in Washington, D.C., for monitoring the actions of the federal government's various branches. Given American Mennonites' long history of noninvolvement in political affairs, this shift toward engagement was dramatic indeed. In this in-depth study, Keith Graber Miller shows how the church's distinctive traditions of pacifism, humility, and service have informed and shaped the nature of its activities in Washington.

Graber Miller argues that Mennonites have both influenced the national policymaking debate and have themselves been influenced by their increasing exposure to it.

Wise As Serpents, Innocent as Doves not only explores the twentieth-century transformations among American Mennonites but illuminates the larger issues of religious lobbying in the nation's capital. Graber Miller suggests that the Mennonites have helped redefine what it means to be a lobbyist.

Because the Mennonites' numbers are too few to make them a politically significant force, he argues, their only credibility in Washington lies in an astute and accurate analysis of how the world is and in the integrity of their witness to the truth as they see it.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [269]-300) and index.
Table of contents: title: 1. Engaging the quiet; title: 2. Bumping into the state; title: 3. Bedding and bundling in Washington; title: 4. Speaking the truth quietly; title: 5. Reporting from the field; title: 6. Speaking multiple languages; title: 7. Engaging wisely and innocently.