This Mennonite meetinghouse in Virginia was built around 1760.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I published the column below in the Provo Daily Herald<\/em> around 29 April 1999:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAmong the existing heretical sects,\u201d wrote the Catholic scholar Franz Agricola in 1582, \u201cthere is none which in appearance leads a more modest, better, or more pious life than the Anabaptists.\u00a0 As concerns their outward public life, they are irreproachable: no lying, deception, swearing, harsh language; no intemperate eating and drinking; no outward personal display is found among them, but humility, patience, uprightness, meekness, honesty, temperance, straightforwardness in such measure that one would suppose they have the Holy Spirit of God.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nFew communities have earned such praise.<\/span><\/p>\nThe first \u201cAnabaptists\u201d appeared in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1525, under the title \u201cSwiss Brethren.\u201d\u00a0 That title, Greek for \u201cre-baptizers,\u201d derived from their requirement of adult baptism and a serious covenant to forsake sin.\u00a0 (This, indeed, was the reason for their separation from the great Zurich reformer Zwingli.)\u00a0 Later, they were called \u201cMennonites,\u201d after a Dutch leader of the movement in the 1530s named \u201cMenno Simons.\u201d\u00a0 They began to produce martyrs almost instantly.\u00a0 These heroes are still celebrated in ballads and recalled in a huge collection of stories, the Bloody Theater<\/i> or Martyrs Mirror<\/i>, published in 1660.<\/span><\/p>\nInsisting on separation of church and state, Mennonites claimed that the leaders of the Reformation had not gone far enough to fix the problems of Christendom.\u00a0 Mennonites emphasize plain living, plain dress, and simple worship.\u00a0 They declare the Sermon on the Mount to be their creed.\u00a0 Most believe that the Bible forbids them to fight, swear oaths, sue one another, or hold public offices involving the use of force.\u00a0 They teach that Christ\u2019s forgiveness of sins is inseparably connected with choosing to live rightly, even under suffering. Much less militant or confrontational than certain other forms of modern Protestantism, they feel called to quietly model the ways of peace.\u00a0 (The \u201cQuakers,\u201d or Society of Friends, came to the same conclusion a century later.)\u00a0 Today, they are noted for their care for the aged, orphans, the sick, and the poor, as well as for those injured in wars and natural disasters.<\/span><\/p>\nAlthough they rejected the hierarchical structure of the Catholic church \u2014 they still call one another \u201cbrother\u201d and \u201csister\u201d and avoid titles like \u201creverend\u201d \u2014 Mennonites were actually closer on two vital points to Catholicism than to Martin Luther.\u00a0 First, they expected good works of believers, and did not see that as denying God\u2019s grace.\u00a0 One early Swiss writer reported that the Mennonites stressed the importance of good works even more than the Catholics did.\u00a0 For this, they were accused again and again of trying to earn their way into heaven; they were labeled \u201cwork-saints\u201d and \u201cheaven-stormers.\u201d\u00a0 Second, they believed strongly in missionary work, whereas, since Europe was already nominally Christian, Lutheran theologians de-emphasized the need for conversion.\u00a0 (Virtually every European had received infant baptism.)\u00a0 \u201cThe church,\u201d one Mennonite writer says, \u201cis the body of those who have been converted and have turned from sin to Christ, and in whom the Spirit of God dwells.\u00a0 The church is not officers, boards, committees, and other structures.\u201d\u00a0 Accordingly, for Mennonites, no infant could be a member of the church, since no infant was capable of the conscious decision required for such membership.<\/span><\/p>\nBut Mennonites stressed the importance of the church, of Christians banding together to live in community, believing that only thus could they approach the kind of life they were called to live.\u00a0 (Some, following John 13, even wash one another\u2019s feet as an emblem of mutual service.)<\/span><\/p>\nFiercely persecuted, the Dutch Mennonites moved to northern Germany and Prussia in the 1600s and then fled to the Ukraine in the following century.\u00a0 In 1874, they moved again to Canada and the American Midwest.\u00a0 The Swiss Mennonites settled in southern Germany and France, but accepted William Penn\u2019s offer of religious liberty and moved to Pennsylvania in 1683.\u00a0 Decentralized church structure and enforced geographical dispersion, among other things, fractured the Mennonites into various groups, including the Amish and the so-called \u201cPennsylvania Dutch\u201d (who take the notion of \u201cplain living\u201d to picturesque lengths that are not characteristic of most factions).\u00a0 There are, today, about 400,000 Mennonites, of whom roughly 320,000 live in North America.\u00a0 However, their service as missionaries and relief workers has begun to create a worldwide following.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Posted from Phoenix, Arizona<\/p>\n
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\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 I published the column below in the Provo Daily Herald around 29 April 1999: \u00a0 \u201cAmong the existing heretical sects,\u201d wrote the Catholic scholar Franz Agricola in 1582, \u201cthere is none which in appearance leads a more modest, better, or more pious life than the Anabaptists.\u00a0 As concerns their outward public life, they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8498,8484,8481,8478,4820,8496,8487,8490,8493],"class_list":["post-82941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-amish","tag-anabaptist","tag-menno","tag-mennonite","tag-protestant","tag-quaker","tag-reformation","tag-simons","tag-zurich"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![Mennonite \"chapel\" from 18th century](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2020\/02\/1599px-1760_White_House_Mennonite_Meetinghouse.jpg\")
<\/a>