CULTURAL AGORAPHOBIA
Why Young Postmodern Mennonites Struggle to Follow or Lead

David Landis

Two years ago I spent a week backpacking in southern Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park. It boasted some of the most spectacular scenery I have ever seen: 5,000-foot vertical rock towers, mile-wide glaciers, and wind that knocked an Israeli military commander friend to the ground.

The final day of the trek was spent hiking across an expansive and monotonous field surrounded by gigantic beauty. As I walked hour after hour and my position seemed stationary in relation to the massive landscape, I had a vague feeling of panic and paralysis—a feeling sometimes referred to as agoraphobia. I felt like I was on an endless treadmill, overwhelmed and unable to make decisions to change my situation. I felt like a leader who could not empower myself to head in a specific direction.

My experiences as a Mennonite young adult (age 24) in postmodern American culture have expanded my understanding of the concept. Young adults are often described as transient, noncommittal, and apathetic. In churches across the country, the number of participating young adults is steadily dwindling. This lack of engagement has often been interpreted as disinterest, deferment of responsibility, or general rebellion against tradition. I would guess that church leaders often feel the intensity of these disconnecting characteristics the most, as leaders feel responsible for movement within our culture and see a lack of successors.

After biking across the country this summer as the leader of a group of young adults, I understand better where these descriptions come from. First some background.

In ancient Greco-Roman culture, the agora was the marketplace, where an assortment of goods was available for choosing. Merchants would bring an array of products, greatly increasing the options for consumers and opening up the market. Over time, the word agora has become associated with open spaces, leading to the concept of agoraphobia, a fear of entrapment within that openness.

Our world offers the cheap consumption of a plethora of ideas, experiences, and contexts in which to theologically, philosophically, and ethically shape our paradigms and daily decisions. Within seconds, I can Google anything and get a listing of other people’s perspectives on my inquiry. Inexpensive air tickets bring the world much closer by allowing a personal global exploration of my deepest fascinations. Blogger and Myspace show that we can all become publishers and add our two cents to the digital global conglomeration. Opportunities to learn from and participate in a global expansion have come into our houses, with greatly reduced prices compared to our grandparents’ world. The postmodern marketplace of accessible ideas is open to many of us.

Accessibility is also a justice issue, whether the access is to information or opportunity. We often preach inclusiveness as the absolute will of God, not wishing to cut out any potential marketplace participants—as it’s only morally acceptable for all options to be available at all times.

Postmodernism has an exciting ability to encourage us to engage people who are different from ourselves, but I am anxious about the way it seems to have played out in our culture. We seem paralyzed to act for corrective change within our new and often complicated understandings of the world. I think we’re scared to lead because it may hurt others.

Bikemovement began when a group of young adults emerging from the so-called first postmodern generation wanted to foster movement and conversation in a church we perceived as tightly structured. Ours was an experiment to create a conversational, moving community attempting to define its participants’ relationship with the church in today’s culture.

We came with our experiences, dreams, hurts, passions, and apathies. We felt a lack of empowerment in the church and wanted to do something about it, maybe even by being leaders bringing about this change. At least we wanted to begin an adventure, a bicycle journey across the country. Even if its purpose was loosely defined, we were excited to go somewhere together.

And we did go many places, covering 3,385 miles by bicycle from Oregon to New Jersey over seven weeks. We visited more than 20 churches and connected with 62 cyclists on the cross-country journey. We shared our life stories. We yelled when we were angry and trying to express our ideals to each other. We had many ideas, options, and people to empower, and this process probably proved to be the most challenging.

Over the first few weeks, various arguments erupted regarding the true purpose of Bikemovement. Careful conversation over three weeks brought us to an agreeable haiku vision: cultivating a relevant community through conversation. It was empowering for us to define ourselves, even if the general phrase could be expressed practically in a thousand ways. Even though we hadn’t empowered any specific options, we had at least committed ourselves to a definition.

Although many young adults struggle with commitment, it started to become an attractive paradox within our community. As we were crossing the Continental Divide in Wyoming and struggling through deep sand on an unknown dirt road, many of us were becoming discouraged. At this point, one disheartened yet persistent person piped up; she declared she was "committed to this road."

Strangely and quickly, everyone followed suit and repeated the phrase, a litany sounding like a group baptism. Reinforced and focused, we gazed down the long difficult road and proceeded together. Looking back, I wonder if our decision was made possible by only having two options, one of turning back and another to continue.

True young Anabaptist radicals need to emphasize community as a core value, and we pushed this concept to its fullest. A cycling journey at breakneck pace, focused on communicating our deepest struggles with religion and spirituality, requires the support of an incredible community. Community meant that we shared life stories with each other and strived to include everyone in all communication. Community was expressed as we cooked our meals and set up tents in the rain together. Community meant that we tried to critique each other while working for consensus in all situations. Community became volunteering to lead the pack to block the wind on our most challenging days.

Community also made it difficult to make decisions. With communal leadership being expressed as a value by some persons, those not included in decision-making processes felt hurt. It wasn’t always possible or practical to have everyone involved in all decisions. Some were hesitant to trust others in responsibilities that included a lot of decision-making. The environment became a challenging one in which to empower others to lead.

It’s impossible to lead effectively without feeling adequately empowered. My own role became that of providing the overall coordination for a group of leaders, all with ideas and directions. The challenge was to channel all our energy into one direction: the East Coast. As many organizational systems needed to be created to continue moving, we were continually reminded that we were completely responsible for our structural development.

The versatility of the word relevant should not be underestimated. This adjective from our shared vision statement is easy to love because it tells you that what you’re doing is timely and important. But it doesn’t tell you what to do. That’s the part we all need to figure out for ourselves and choose to act upon. That’s something young adults are craving—but struggling to approach, as we’ve experienced in Bikemovement.

In a world of privilege with endless options, it appears that choosing one option will eliminate all others. Yet if we shy away from a decisive perspective, we will ultimately strand ourselves in the milieu of our culture. We will become addicted to the feeling of being overwhelmed in our options, addicted to an agoraphobia that does not produce the leadership necessary to interpret the world around us.

The trick to countering this paralysis is to name the power we have in a way that allows us to trust ourselves and others as leaders. Although this seems like an obvious statement, it’s one I have seen Mennonites and sometimes other Christians hesitant to embrace. Postmodern culture’s default setting seems to be doing a good job at encouraging engagement, but it doesn’t seem to be naturally promoting empowerment.

Growing up in an Anabaptist tradition, I have experienced power as a spiritual taboo. Power allows us to abuse others and implies a definite sense of pride. Having it seems to mean that we should throw it away, opening up space for us to serve others. My fear for the future is that the poor stewardship of this idea, combined with the postmodern array of overwhelming options, will make effective leadership in the Mennonite church nearly impossible.

To figure out what is relevant in the world around us, we need to spend time being relationally immersed in that world in a way that will allow us to wisely use the power we have been given. It’s easy in a postmodern culture to stress the importance of understanding and trusting those who are different than us. The challenging next step is empowering each other to become decisive leaders in our contexts.

We need to hold each other accountable to implement decisiveness, even if it won’t always be cheerfully received. We can decide to get a return on our initial investment from the marketplace of ideas, turning at least slightly against our agoraphobic culture to implement positive change in the world.

Looking back on my experiences, I realize that I must choose to lead and begin to redefine my religious culture. This personal and collective critique has reminded me that I need to be humbly aware of my imperfections, forgiving of myself, my peers, my culture, and my church community. Wading through this sea of options has been a struggle so far.

Comparable decisions to take the challenging road ahead await us all. I believe that many young adults who find themselves with an imperative to lead and act upon it will grow into a greater understanding of God’s grace. Only by making the risky commitment to lead will we experience the joy and pain embedded in our journey, to move our world into the direction of the values that give us hope.

—David Landis, Harleysville, Pennsylvania, does not own a car and bikes everywhere. He works for Franconia Mennonite Conference in leadership cultivation and communication. Landis is looking for a graduate program that combines peace and conflict studies, cross-cultural education, and adventure travel.