Series Editor's
Foreword
Fractured Dance
Fractured
Dance, the third volume of the C. Henry Smith Series,
carries on two distinct conversations. One conversation
concerns the philosophy of rhetoric. In this venue,
author Michael A. King analyzes the philosophical
hermeneutics of German philosopher of communication
Hans-Georg Gadamer. King’s methodology charts a new
chapter in rhetorical analysis. Fractured Dance is
among the few works not only to apply Gadamer’s
hermeneutical philosophy to actual conversations but also
to assess at the level of theory the possibilies and
problems with such an application. It thus promises to be
a milestone in hermeneutic and rhetorical studies in
general and a touchstone for future Gadamer studies in
particular.
The second conversation
concerns Mennonite conversations about homosexuality, a
discussion that has occupied much of the energy and
creativity of the Mennonite Church and General Conference
Mennonite Church for the final decades of the twentieth
century and into the present. While the second focus of
the book comes from that ongoing discussion, it is
important to realize that Fractured Dance is not
about homosexuality per se. Rather, it is about talking
about homosexuality. Conversations on any other
agenda—such as denominational mission strategy,
divorce and remarriage, military members in the peace
church—might at another time serve equally well to
test Gadamer’s theory of conversation.
To obtain the source
material for this project, in April 1997 King and an
assistant sat in on three cluster groups of Franconia
Conference and transcribed the dialogue as these groups
struggled with how to respond to the Germantown
congregation that did not accept the Conference’s
official stance, which excludes gays and lesbians who
actively engage in sexual practice from church
membership. It is these conversations which King uses as
a case study to test Gadamer’s theory of genuine
conversation and to assess how Mennonites do—or do
not—know how to process conflict.
For King, these two
conversations intersect at the juncture of conflict
resolution. With Jesus’ injunction to “love
your enemies” in mind, King is drawn to study
Gadamer because of Gadamer’s theory that deep
commonality underlies even the most bitter conflict and
enables those sharing in the conflict to understand each
other. Genuine conversation, Gadamer theorizes, seeks to
find that commonality present within differences when
each participant is open to question his or her own truth
and to consider the truth of the other. In Fractured
Dance, King applies Gadamer’s theory of genuine
conversation to the dialogue on homosexuality within the
two largest Mennonite denominations (just before their
merger into Mennonite Church USA). And because Fractured
Dance focuses on the conversation about homosexuality
rather than on homosexuality itself, people on both sides
of this issue will profit from reading this book.
With this positioning, Fractured
Dance clearly reflects the agenda of the C. Henry
Smith Series to show how an assumption of nonviolence can
impact the discussion in virtually any academic
discipline. It is a pleasure to include this book in the
series as a fine example of scholarship in the service of
the church.
Fractured Dance
may also pose an unexpected challenge to Mennonites as a
peace church. One component of Gadamer’s
hermeneutics involves understanding the “effective
history”—the shared history of common
experiences and assumptions—of the group or groups
in question. In developing the effective history of
Franconia Conference, King remarked that in the history
that shaped their conversations on homosexuality and
their efforts to resolve the conflict, there was
virtually no reference to the Mennonite tradition of
peace and nonviolence. In other words, being a peace
church seems to have had little explicit impact on the
conversations that aimed at finding a resolution to a
quite impassioned conflict. I wonder what it bodes for
the future of the peace church if the historic commitment
to nonviolence was not visible in efforts to resolve this
conflict.
It is my prayer that
King’s observation will spur a new commitment to be
more explicit about maintaining the peace church as a
peace church. I fear that “use it or lose it”
applies to the church’s understanding of and
commitment to continuation as a peace church. King’s
observation also invites research in other settings, as
he asks whether conversations about homosexuality in
other denominations would differ from the Mennonite
conversation that occurred in the Anabaptist tradition of
the historic peace churches.
I am deeply grateful to
Michael King for his cooperation and colleagueship in all
phases of the preparation of this manuscript for
publication. In particular I am thankful for his superb
responses to suggestions from reviewers and the editor.
Readers will share that gratitude.
—J. Denny Weaver, CHS Editor
Bluffton College
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