This essay offers a genealogy, in the Foucauldian sense, of the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective. Thus, it provides an account of the origins of the document and its uses over time with attention given to the politics of both. The essay argues that the Confession was critical for the merger of the General Conference Mennonite Church and the Mennonite Church especially as it took on the function of the teaching position of the church. By way of a case study, the essay explores recent uses to which the Confession has been put. The essay concludes by discussing an inherent tension in Anabaptist confessions between the desire to fix a set of common beliefs and convictions, on the one hand, and the necessity for a discursive shift both in meaning and use amid a changing context, on the other
