anabaptist – Ponder Anew

March 18, 2025

Good afternoon

Anabaptist Tuesday

The Martyrs Mirror book of the 1660’s, documents the deaths of Anabaptist believers of the 1500’s. It tells about 800 or more of the people that were killed. It is a gruesome book about man’s inhumanity to each other. It does not document the violence done by Anabaptists that occured in a few places in the Netherlands and Germany. And it does not tell about the people who renounced their faith in Anabaptism, so they could live. It is a complex history.

Vision magazine ( from CMU ) had a whole issue devoted to the world of Anabaptism of the 16th century in 2024. Jennifer Otto writes the following:

” [ the stories of martyrs ] were copied by Anabaptists for the purpose of inspiring other Anabaptists . That is not to suggest that they are not authentic

, but it is to remind us that they are not disinterested . Martyrs Mirror aims to depict the early Anabaptists in the best possilbe light ” ( page 33 )

She invites us to think about how we remember these stories. The best of the martyrs is Dirk Willems. He is a selfless person who is chased by a police officer. The officer falls through the ice, and Dirk stops, and rescues him. Dirk is re-arrested, and is put in jail and eventually executed. We honour the courage and faith of Dirk. Other stories are not so uplifting, and Catholics are vilified in many of the stories. Not all early Anabaptists were nice people. This should be no surprise . We are all a part of a complex church history. It took over 400 years for churches that killed Mennonites to ask for forgiveness, and it took that long for Mennonites to offer forgiveness. That is a long time to hold onto being martyrs.

Who are your faith people who guide your daily lives ? Today, we have a complex history with leaders who have done sexual harm to people. We have people who have changed the lives of people for the better through the church and MCC. My most challenging person is John Howrad Yoder. His writings changed the way I read the Bible, and what I thought of peacemaking ( in 1981 ). Then in the 1990’s it came out that he had abused over 30 women, while teaching at the Mennonite Seminary. How do I hold both things in my faith journey ?

We should all try to be like Dirk Willems .

Seen on a Pennsylvania highway last week. Our hero, Dirk Willems.

Fred

black and white shadows

crush humanity’s freedom

am I complicit ? MPL 2025

March 4, 2025

Good afternoon,( Anabaptist Tuesday )

The Amish church began with a schism in Switzerland within a group of Swiss and Alsatian Mennonite Anabaptists in 1693 led by Jakob Ammann. Those who followed Ammann became known as Amish. The issue was over the ban or ex-communication. Ammann wanted to not allow people to take communion and not have meals together when they had sinned, while the main group wanted to allow the excommunicated members to have meals together but not communion. When people refer to the Amish today, they normally refer to the Old Order Amish, though there are other subgroups of Amish. There are differences today with buggies, beards, bonnets, buttons, phones, and skid steers. They break apart over issues of obedience and not thology… from the Wikipedia files

The breaking up of various groups of Amish and Mennonites is part of our Christian tradition. We have always thought that we were right, on the issues that we could not agree on. In Floradale, at the north end of town, we had seven different Mennonite congregations represented , and two other houses where the people left to go to other denominations. We were civil to one another, but we couldn’t celebrate the Lord’s supper together.

This history of separating comes from our beginnings. Some believed in ‘ sola scriptura ‘ only Scripture. The group interpreted the literal meaning of the various passages from the Bible. While others saw the Spirit behind the text. This was more important than the actual letter of the Law or Bible. You can see where the different groups could, and did, run into problems. Since most of these people, both men and women, were strong leaders, they tended not to give into the other’s point of view. Therefore, today we have hundreds of different Mennonite groups. Mostly we all believe in the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, but is it our obedience to other rules, not biblical , that brings us into disagreement.
Mennonite World Conference has tried to bring the various groups together, but there are still issues that they cannot even bring up for discussion . They have seven core beliefs that they agree upon, but it does not solve all the issues of faith and life. In his life, death and resurrection Jesus tried to bring everything and everybody into the right relationship with each other. We must continue to try to repair the damage among Mennonites, Amish, Hutterites as we live into the Kingdom of God. AMEN
Fred

black and white shadows

crush humanity’s freedom

am I complicit ?

MPL 2025