Mennonites

This ethnography examines the disaster relief work of the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in Aceh, Indonesia, following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. MCC's work is informed by the theologies and historical experiences of the North American Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition. An intentional focus of mcc's work was a substantive interfaith encounter between MCC workers , all of whom identified as Christian, and Acehnese Muslims. Through an examination of interpersonal relationships, organizational partnerships, and materiality, I trace the ambiguities and transformative potential within these interactions. Encounters are not simply the unfurling of predetermined scripts, but rather dynamic spaces of negotiation. Focusing on encounters counteracts tendencies to reify and essentialize religious disaster relief.

An entry in the online German-language MennLex encyclopedia project (originally from 2012; published in 2020). The article considers how Swiss Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites can be analyzed in terms of the historiographical model of confessionalization, if that concept is understood in a heuristically flexible way. The English version is a pre-publication text. Please consult and cite the German version (link included).

In 1968 a Mennonite pastor and peace worker named Edgar Metzler published a short booklet in the popular “Focal Pamphlet” series published by Herald Press – a series that includes other more widely read works by Mennonite historians and theologians like Harold S. Bender and J. Lawrence Burkholder. The brief preface on the inside cover gives some indication of its purpose and audience in the context of the American Mennonite experience during the late 1960s:

"This pamphlet is prepared to stimulate the Christian’s peace testimony. Christians need constantly to return to the Bible to discover the message of the gospel. This message must be translated into living terms by every generation. The S. F. Coffman Peace Lectures are sponsored by the Committee on Peace and Social Concerns of the Mennonite Church. They are financed by an individual who has an interest in the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ as it relates to the social needs and the international tensions of the world in which we live."

Metzler’s text is situated amidst the international tensions alluded to above, particularly racial tensions and violence in the United States during the Vietnam War era. The pamphlet is titled Let’s Talk About Extremism, but what the author means by the term “extremism” calls for explanation, some of which the author provides in the first section of the text below.

Although other pamphlets in the series were more widely read, Let’s Talk About Extremism has only been cited a few times since it was published – most recently in a survey of definitions of radicalism and extremism. The lack of scholarly or public engagement with the text in the years since it was published is a problem that I hope to remedy in this edition.

In short, the argument of the pamphlet is that how we think about the relationship between extreme or opposed positions – whether they are political, religious, social, or a combination of all three – matters deeply. For Metzler, ways of thinking and knowing, or what scholars call “epistemologies,” are just as important for the Christian peace witness as more visible manifestations of violence like killing or war. Whereas Metzler refers to “extremism,” today we tend to refer to the problems he addresses by using the term “polarization.” In response to these problems, Metzler calls his readers to consider how hard oppositions between liberals and conservatives are clarified when we think about not only what we think, but also how we think, and how we express what we think.

But rather than staying within the bounds of the liberal-conservative opposition, Metzler enjoins his readers to reframe their vision of extreme positions by measuring ways of thinking against a different standard, asking: “Is this way of thinking closed or open?” Drawing attention to the presence of closed-mindedness at all points on the political spectrum (a pattern recently explored by Francois Cusset), Metzler advocates for openness. Against racist, nationalist, and religious prejudices, Metzler values a kind of open-mindedness that is able to listen to the other, take in new information, and charitably engage with “extreme” perspectives. By contrast, the closed mind is reactive, reliant on questionable second-hand sources, and unable to be moved. This is not to say, however, that Metzler advocates for a kind of passive middle way that sits between extremes and attempts to remain neutral on matters of justice. Rather, Metzler helps his readers to avoid the pitfalls of both polarization and neutrality.

One further benefit of how Metzler frames his argument for openness is that he leaves open the question of how this openness is authorized or validated. For Metzler himself, it is the peaceful figure of Jesus Christ who is the model for a more open epistemology. But Metzler leaves open the possibility of taking on his perspective without confessing Christian faith. Metzler’s resistance to oversimplification, selectivity, black and white thinking, appeals to fear, authoritarianism, and so forth, are critical values that can resonate with the priorities of Christians and religious ‘nones,’ secular and confessional Mennonites, and anyone who is concerned with the problems of our shared world. For this reason, perhaps anachronistically, I would characterize Metzler’s work as “postsecular” – where “postsecular” names a way of thinking that challenges the claims to superiority made by both religions and secularities.

One final point that makes Metzler’s work important today is his critique of conspiratorial thinking. His conversation with an alienated congregation member, as described in the final pages of the pamphlet, is a model for how to openly and critically engage with those who are given to conspiratorial thinking, while seeing through the content of such arguments to the narratives of rejection and victimhood that lie beneath. In a time when conspiracy theories are becoming more influential, concomitant with a decline in public trust and trust in expertise, I think it is essential to consider Metzler’s reminder that beneath the “extreme” positions of those who believe in conspiracy theories is often a common human desire to be heard and recognized. Again, this is not to say that Metzler’s work is a resource for those who would, in the name of ‘free speech,’ give an open platform for hate (for example, the conspiracism and violence of far-right groups). Instead, his concluding comments point to the deeper social roots of present political problems, and provide practical ways of challenging violent ways of thinking.

Von 1684 bis 1697 entbrannte im westpreussischen Danzig ein Streit zwischen dem Maler Enoch I. Seemann und dem mennonitischen Ältesten der Flamischen Gemeinde Georg Hansen über die Geltung des biblischen Bilderverbots. Anhand von bisher ungenutzten Quellen wird die ‹Causa Seemann› mit ihren täuferkundlichen und kunsttheoretischen Bezügen neu dargestellt und gewürdigt. Anhang I enthält Elemente zu einer künftigen Geschichte der Künstlerdynastie Seemann, Anhang II bietet die kommentierte Rekonstruktion von Seemanns verschollener Streitschrift ‹Offenbahrung und Bestraffung des Gergen Hannßens Thorheit 1697› sowie die Edition von drei komplementören Dokumenten aus dem, Staatsarchiv Danzig

This book contains a indexed descendancy of Ludwig Riehl and Veronica Fisher down to their fourth great-grandchildren, with separate chapters for each of their four children who had progeny. It also contains a history of Ludwig, Veronica, and their descendants, and an explanation of the usage of the name "Riehl."

Eric J. Schmaltz.  “Other Immigrant Destinies:  An Overview of South America’s Germans from Russia.”  Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia 39:1 (Spring 2016):  pp. 1-13

Many scholars are unaware of the resources available at the AHSGR.  See link to AHSGR Website for this and so many other fine research materials: 

https://ahsgr.site-ym.com/store/default.aspx?

The article compares dispute resolution processes, especially mediation, in stateless primitive societies, with two modern attempts to annex mediation to the U.S. legal system: Neighborhood Justice Centers (NJCs) and Restorative Justice (RJ).  The failure of the NJCs is acknowledged by those who have not simply forgotten them.  They made promises, based on a flimsy theoretical base, which could not be fulled.  RJ, whose theoretical bases, insofar as it has any, are flimsier still, but its claims are even more far-reaching: to replace retribution with reconciliation, to replace hurting with healing, and to mend the torn fabric of community.  These claims are false or, upon examination, incoherent.  Academic attention to RJ is way out of proportion to its merits and to its marginal role in the legal system.  These schemes of informal justice are paradoxically subordinate elements of formal justice systems.  The conclusion is drawn that forms of dispute resolution which are effective in anarchist primitive societies cannot be, in any authentic versions, incorporated into the legal institutions of state societies.  Another objective of the article is to evaluate the classical anarchist critique of legal order, which is adjudged to be out of date and incomplete, in large part because it has ignored dispute resolution and also ignored the reasonable objections of those who  fear for their safety and security in a society without police, courts, and criminal law.  Ironically, contemporary anarchist criminologists -- who are very few -- either ignore these concerns too, or else advocate Restorative Justice, which is impossible to reconcile with anarchism.

В статье на основе полевых материалов рассматриваются особенности праздничного календаря у немцев-меннонитов Южного Урала, его структура, конфессиональные особенности, обрядовое содержание. Анализируется развитие календарной обрядности немцев-меннонитов с учетом ряда факторов: межэтническое взаимодействие, саморазвитие принесенных традиций, влияние на традиционный календарь праздников гражданского календаря.

The article based on the field materials uncovers peculiarities of the festive calendar of the Sothern Ural Mennonite-German, its structure, religious aspects and rite actions. The author analyzes festive rites of the Mennonite-German taking some factors into account such as interethnic cooperation, self-development of brought traditions and influence of the civil calendar to the festive calendar.

This essay argues that the attempts by the Mennonite Church to address Yoder’s problematic sexual explorations revealed and heightened at least three tensions internal to the Anabaptist tradition that affect its polity in very practical ways: 1) the tension between the “Anabaptist vision” and “Mennonite reality”; 2) the tension between church discipline and anti-Constantinian resistance to power; and 3) the tension between the Anabaptist desire to separate from sin and the need for continued dialogue in disagreement. After describing how these tensions are narrated in Yoder’s writing and manifested in the competing perspectives concerning his disciplining process, the essay argues that—even though the circumstances are radically different—the same tensions are present in the current discernment process devoted to same-sex marriage and LGBTQ inclusion in the church. In so doing, we clarify the implicit theo-logics appealed to by differing groups in the Mennonite Church in order to facilitate better understanding among those representing various perspectives in these often impassioned discussions.

[N.B. This article is under the copyright of the publisher and is posted here by the author strictly for personal/educational purposes. Please do not distribute or reproduce this content without the express written permission of the publisher. To purchase this content or subscribe to the journal, please visit https://www.goshen.edu/mqr/. If you are the publisher and would like this content removed from this website, please contact me directly at the information included in my CV. Thank you.]

Written in 1954 but unpublished in his lifetime, Robert Friedmann’s Design for Living asks that pertinent existential question: how should we live? Drawing on literary, philosophical, and theological sources, Friedmann’s answer begins with a critique of utilitarian ethics and popular apathy, and proceeds through an existential preparation that ascends in confessional style to the question of the meaning of human life, culminating in a fourfold set of principles: regard, concern, service, and love. Along the way, Friedmann’s critical eye remains clearly fixed on his object of study—lived experience, and not abstract principles detached from day-to-day life—and he intentionally guides his reader step by step up the mountain of spiritual and ethical inquiry in a deliberate and serious attempt to educate the heart, mind, and soul. At once accessible and scholarly, while troubling our contemporary divide between religion and the secular, Design for Living presents a rare vision of human meaning and purpose that will appeal to scholarly and public readers alike.

Mennonite-supported peacemaking institutions have been at the forefront of the effort to discredit Israel to audiences in North America. These institutions portray Jewish sovereignty as the cause of conflict and suffering in the Middle East and downplay Muslim and Arab hostility toward Jews and Israel.
The prescription for peace offered by these activists-especially those affiliated with the Mennonite Central Committee and Christian Peacemaker Teams-is for Israeli Jews to abandon their insistence on maintaining Israel as a sovereign Jewish state and acquiesce to a one-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. This prescription fails to take into account overwhelming evidence that a Jewish minority would not be safe in a Muslim- and Arab-majority country in the Middle East. Mennonite expressions of hostility toward Jewish sovereignty and indifference to the plight of Jews in Arab- and Muslim-majority states are ironic and hypocritical. Mennonites enjoy safety and wellbeing by virtue of other people’s willingness to engage in acts of violence. Israeli Jews enjoy no such privilege.
Mennonite anti-Zionism is emblematic of an inability to deal with the reality of evil and the power needed to confront it.

The listed leaders had a grasp of pacifism or nonviolence as a distinguishing mark of Christianity and of the restoration movement begun by A. Campbell (see below). Earlier but independent beginnings in Europe and Palestine are noted especially in the work of the Grimm family.

This short piece describes the special risks for child maltreatment faced by Amish children in the context of Amish history, values and lifestyle. Readers will also find suggestions for working with Amish families and communities to address child abuse and neglect.

Old Colony Mennonites have historically responded to the introduction of public education in their communities by moving to areas where there were no public schools. One such area was the northern Peace River country of Alberta. Old Colony Mennonites began moving there in the 1930s, and took with them their distinct culture, which included private German-language schools. Initially, they were free to manage their own schools without the interference of outsiders, but as
the population increased and the region became less isolated, the provincial government decided that public education should be provided. Although some Old Colony Mennonites had come to peace with the prospect of public schools and were supportive of the government’s move, the vast majority fiercely opposed this intrusion. Despite vigorous opposition, the first public school opened its doors in 1953. In the ensuing years, Old Colony Mennonite parents often refused to send their children to school, or did so only after the government initiated legal proceedings against them. The recent establishment of several Mennonite private schools in the vicinity of La Crete indicates that this sifting-out process continues as many conservative Mennonites prefer to educate their children according to their religious convictions instead of exposing them to the secular values of a public school system.

In 1931-32 several thousand Russian Mennonite refugees were re-settled in the Gran Chaco at the heart of South America.  They soon found themselves in the middle of the largest inter-state conflict in 20th century Latin American history.  This article explores the settlement of Russian Mennonites on the Paraguayan Chaco frontier during the Chaco War years. These colonists engaged in a range of seemingly contradictory place-making practices – from the agro-environmental and the political to the spiritual and the cultural – that served to solidify their tenuous claim to an unfamiliar and highly contested landscape. Ideas of food security – seen in terms of both production and consumption – linked these diverse exercises. In the Paraguayan Chaco, these former Russian wheat farmers experimented with new crops and foodways. Although pacifists, they supplied the Paraguayan military efforts even as they also sent their crops to Nazi Germany. Finally, as an ethnic group practising endogamy and seeking isolation from their neighbours, they unexpectedly initiated a campaign to evangelise the Chaco's indigenous population centred, in part, on reforming the latter's ‘deficient’ diet.

*** UPDATE: I have now included a complete text of the essay in a pre-publication version. Please consult the published text before citing. *** This paper focuses on the largely negative memory of Anabaptist rule at Münster in scholarship and pop culture. The book from which the essay comes is available on Kindle for under $5. Go to https://www.amazon.com/European-Mennonites-Challenge-Modernity-Centuries/dp/1889239097. For images related to the essay, see http://wke.lt/w/s/Uv0QV.

Every year reportedly more and more school age children are facing bullying from their peers due to having a mild form of Autism known as Asperger's Syndrome.  This paper will explore various ways to recognize and combat bullying all within an Anabaptist peacemaking perspective.

The Amsterdam-based merchant and mathematics enthusiast Adriaen Verwer (1654/5-1717) was one of the few in the Dutch Republic to respond to the first edition of Newton’s Principia (1687). Based on a close study of his published work, his correspondence with the Scottish mathematician and astronomer David Gregory (1659-1708), and his annotations in his own copy of the first edition of the Principia, I shall scrutinise the impact of Newton’s ideas on Verwer’s thinking. The proposed analysis, that will add nuance to earlier findings, also has broader implications for our understanding of the introduction of Newton’s ideas in the Dutch Republic, as will be shown.

Part of the German-language Mennonite encyclopedia project (MennLex V). About 18th-century bourgeois associationalism, and the roles that European Mennonites played in them. Pays particular attention to Mennonites and Freemasonry. This text is a pre-translation English version. Please consult and cite the finished German text online or in print.

Peace on Earth: The Role of Religion in Peace and Conflict Studies provides a critical analysis of faith and religious institutions in peacebuilding practice and pedagogy. The work captures the synergistic relationships among faith traditions and how multiple approaches to conflict transformation and peacebuilding result in a creative process that has the potential to achieve a more detailed view of peace on earth, containing breadth as well as depth.

Library and bookstore shelves are filled with critiques of the negative impacts of religion in conflict scenarios. Peace on Earth: The Role of Religion in Peace and Conflict Studies offers an alternate view that suggests religious organizations play a more complex role in conflict than a simply negative one. Faith-based organizations, and their workers, are often found on the frontlines of conflict throughout the world, conducting conflict management and resolution activities as well as advancing peacebuilding initiatives.