page_39 < previous page page_39 next page > Page 39 our day must warn against arrogance, greed and excessive love of money," he offered. Mennonites and Amish have shied away from prophecy, often taking refuge under the canopy of silence. With respect to agricultural life and soil stewardship they have had few prophets. Two are the late Orie O. Miller and Howard Raid. When asked to name the greatest threat to the Mennonite Church today, Miller replied, "Affluence." Howard Raid of Blufton, Ohio wrote: "We should seek to build community and not personal empires." 19 I interview fifty-five-year-old Lancaster Conference minister Eli Martin20 in the pastor's office of Oakview Mennonite Church. At the outset I refer to Orie Miller's quote about affluence and to Milo Kauffman's book about stewardship. Eli Martin seems invigorated by the references, as they offer him the chance to "go back" to writings he first studied in seminary. But when asked to comment on these theologians' observations in respect to what he sees happening in Lancaster County today, Martin emits a huge sigh. To answer this question is to enter territory filled with theological land mines, so Martin takes a minute to disarm himself. Dressed in an expensive blue suit, tall Eli Martin looks more like an architect or a lawyer than a Mennonite minister. Martin moves a hand through his thick gray hair. Despite his urbanity and the thoughtfulness with which he wrestles with his faith this morning, Martin retains the faint rural twang of one born and raised in a Lancaster County Mennonite family. The twang emerges every now and then when he says "sometimes" with the emphasis on the second syllable. "Orie Miller and Milo Kauffman!" he exclaims. "These are some of the stalwarts of the Mennonite Church! Some of our younger people are looking back at their writings today saying, 'Right!' and 'Boy! Where are those voices coming from?' Something we read in them makes some of our younger people say, 'Yeah!' But I think you have to get into the baby boomer generation on down for that to be felt, though. "Because persons my age or older who have worked very hard all of their lives on farms might hear those quotes differently. These are people who could buy a farm of a hundred acres for thirty thousand dollars and fifty years later sell it for thirty thousand dollars an acre. As that generation sees it, the money is justified because of all that hard work that went into caring for those farms." Martin leans forward. "But there's also a danger here: the same people who will accept that kind of inflationary return on an investment also think that people who are getting a minimum wage are being paid fairly. There are incredible incongruities in such thinking. This older generation of Mennonites, they're  < previous page page_39 next page >