Just adding this

because somehow I missed this: "They don't do evangelism, they don't vote, they don't become firemen/policemen/soldiers, etc. Yes? "

Well, sure they become firemen and sure they do vote. The voting is relatively recent as democracies weren't around during the Reformation.

Traditionally, Mennonites did not vote. They did not become soldiers or policemen in the sense of carrying weapons because they would not kill anyone they considered their brother or sister. They were as okay with being firemen as they were with being doctors or nurses, because that saved lives, it didn't take life, life being one of those things in God's domain, not Caesar's.

There have always been Mennonites who evangelized on some level. They just weren't pushy about it, to the point of focusing so totally on the spirit that the body became neglected. The idea was that if the starving person is filled with food, and a roof is put over his house at some point that person, once his belly is filled, will ask, "Who are you and why are you helping me?"

At which point it would be appropriate to bring up Jesus, having already had your deeds bear witness that your words weren't empty.

Not saying that that's the way it is now. There are certainly pushy, annoying, evangelizing Mennonites whose deeds don't precede or follow their words. It's not about deeds saving you, but they point to your character. Jesus made mention of his deeds, not his words, when the disciples of John the Baptist came to him and said John had asked them to ask him whether he was the one, or whether they ought to wait for another messiah.

Jesus said, "Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me. "

People believed Jesus was the Messiah not because he said he was, but because of what he did. That is the point of the traditional thinking of Mennonites, with the emphasis on deeds first, not that deeds save but that they are an outward manifestation of an inward belief. "By their works ye shall know them."

Layla