The American Mennonite Story, 1730-1930

How did Mennonite thinking develop in the two centuries after they arrived in North America? Edsel Burdge reflects on their concerns and the social conditions to which they responded.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The connection between the betweenthe individual
and the redeemed communityis not intrinsic, as it was among American
Mennonites in the 18th and early 19thcentury and, of course, early Anabaptists,
as it is in the German Awakening.
But this German awakeninggave rise to new groups
like the United Brethren, likethe Evangelical Association and so on.

(00:20):
And it's these groups that began to make
an impact on Mennonite communities
as they try to woo their young people away
from their communitiesinto into this new community and so on.
And that's what Christian Burkholderis writing against.

(00:44):
Welcome to Anabaptist perspectives.
We are here to discusstheological concerns
of Mennonites in Americafrom 1730 to 1930.
Our guest is Edsel Burdge.
So welcome, Edsel.
Can you introduceyourself to our audience?
Yes. My name is Edsel Burdge

(01:04):
Jr and I live in Shippensburg,Pennsylvania.
And I married my wife, Jennifer,and I've been married for,
42 years, and I have six children.
My oldest is, as, is teaching at FaithBuilders.
My youngest lives in Hagerstown.
And I have four,and those are both girls.

(01:25):
And I have four boys in between.
And I also have seven grandchildren.
All right, so there's the familial, dataout of the way.
I'm a member of ShippensburgChristian Fellowship, an unaffiliated,
conservative Mennonite congregation herein, Franklin County.
I did not grow up in a Mennonite home.

(01:47):
I started attendinga Mennonite church, was 15 years
old, and was baptizedand joined the church when I was 17.
And I have been,
part of a Mennonite congregationever since.
I attended Eastern Mennonite Collegegraduated with a B.A.
in history there.

(02:07):
I also, got a master's degree in historyfrom Villanova University.
I taught school for 12 years.
I worked on a number of researchand writing projects,
and in 2012,I started working at the Young Center
for Anabaptist and Pietist Studiesat Elizabethtown College.
And one of my primary dutiesthere is tracking statistical data

(02:29):
for various pain groups,particularly the Amish.
When people ask me,what do I do for a living?
And I, somewhat jokinglytell them, I count Amish.
And, it's sort of a joke,but it's actually not a joke because it
is actually what I do.
And I've been interested in Mennonite,Anabaptist,
Anabaptist, Mennonite history, really,since my college years.

(02:52):
One of the I wrote, co-wrote
a coauthored a book on called buildingon the Gospel Foundation.
The Mennonites of Franklin County,Pennsylvania,
Washington County, Maryland, 1730 to 1970.
And that's part of these studies inAnabaptist and Mennonite history series.
I also helped to edit the third volumeof documents of Brotherly Love,

(03:16):
Dutch Mennonite Aid to Swiss Anabaptist
which came out in 2023.
CurrentlyI'm involved in another project, new
translation of the Martyrs Mirror, and I'mon the editorial committee for that.
And my primary taskthere is to write the footnotes.
So does that cover the bases?

(03:40):
Certainly.
So thank you for that introduction.
In 2024, how many Amish are there?
Almost, over 400,000.
That includes members and unbaptizedchildren.
Yeah.
And they are located,primarily United States, some in Canada,
and a very small group in, Bolivia.

(04:03):
So that's I mean, that's notthat does not include,
like the various Amish Mennonite groupsor any of the car driving groups.
And of course, that also doesn't includethe horse and buggy Old Order Mennonites.
Horse and buggy.
Older Mennonites are probably around40,000, various conservative Mennonites
and Amish Mennonites,probably around 75,000.

(04:25):
So that kind of gives youand of course, all those
all those groupswould have come out of the,
Swiss Brethren traditionthat started in Switzerland.
And as people moved in, the Palatinate,of course, migrated to North America
at various points.
Many in the 18th century, some later onin the in the early 19th century.

(04:47):
But they all have that, Swiss backgroundas opposed to,
what we colloquially refer toas the Russian Mennonites
who actually have a Dutch Mennonitebackground by way of Prussia,
and then to and to then to Russiaand then finally to North America.
Here.
So, so what I have focused

(05:08):
on, is mainly groups that have this
Swiss Palatinate background
rather than the Dutch Russian background.
Yeah. And that's.
That's the stream or the traditionthat we are here to talk about today.
Specifically from 1730 to 1930,are the parameters that we are setting.

(05:32):
And by setting thosethat may seem a bit arbitrary,
but what I was aiming tocatch was the range.
Soon after Mennonites arrived in America.
Until the point wherenow living memory is very much fading.
So by setting at the
beginning of our range in 1730,we are only 11 years

(05:56):
after the constructionof the Hanser house,
and we're between the time thatChristopher Doc settled in Pennsylvania
and he wrote his bookon school management.
So in 1730, America
was still somewhat fresh for Mennonites.
And the end of our range being 1930.

(06:17):
This is the year that John F funk died,
and two years after Daniel Kaufmanpublished doctrines of the Bible.
And it's also at the edgeof living memory.
Few of us are still old enoughto remember the times before 1930.
Well,I think that even people born in 1930
would be scarcely able to remember it.
I mean, you're you're talkingabout people now in their upper 90s,

(06:41):
and I suppose a few souls are still aroundin their hundreds and so on,
but they would have been childrenduring that era.
It is interesting to note, however, that,you know, within my living memory,
I was able to talk to people, and at various points
in my research who lived in the 1890s,who I mean, who were born in the 1890s

(07:03):
and they did have, memories of the latterend of this period we're talking about.
Those interviewswere always very interesting.
So, yeah, so, in a sense,you know, if, if we had
if we had talked to the generation before,that's now has passed off the scene
and so on, there is sort of a connectionthere.

(07:24):
That we can, you know,can could have made if we, if we made it.
technically speaking, the, firstMennonite to arrive in North America
in Pennsylvania was in 1683,a man by the name of
John Linson, a, weaver.
He was one of,

(07:45):
13 families from northern Germany.
The Crow Field area.
And, most of the rest of them were Quaker.
Some of them had been raised Mennonite,
but had, left the Mennonite churchto become Quakers.
And so we have this one lonelylittle person.

(08:06):
We're not even sureif his wife was still living.
He there's a record of him being marriedand in, in Europe and,
and so on, but no referencerelate to his wife here
in, in Norfolk once he gets hereto North America, which is not.
Yeah. It's not surprising.
so we know, you know, virtually verylittle about him other than that he did.

(08:27):
He was part of the of what becamethe Germantown Mennonite congregation.
So over the next dozen yearsor so on, more Mennonites, most of them
actually from northern Germanyand from the Netherlands.
And so there was kind of a Dutch, North
German, Low German kind of qualityto the German town congregation,
which is a little bit differentthan, the later migrations, the later

(08:50):
migrations starting in 1709,when we first have a set of Palatinate,
persons from the Palatinatewho had this Swiss,
Brethren backgroundmigrate here to Pennsylvania.
Initially there was some tensionbetween these two groups, but they
they were able to work it out.
And then in the subsequentin the subsequent

(09:11):
decades, up to, let's say, the 1780s,
there's around it's estimated
between 3000 to 5000 Mennonites,
maybe around 500 Amish who migrate from,from Europe to North America settle
in Pennsylvania, during the 18th century,
some of them began to move downinto Maryland, into Virginia, and so on.

(09:33):
Established small communities down there.
So that's that's the and so they're they're bringing with them, for the most part,
a understanding that is formedby that early Swiss background.
But the other thingthat enters into the picture
is that in the,well, actually starting in the late,
16th century, in 1575, MennoSimon's writings were translated,

(09:58):
his Book, was translatedfrom Dutch into German, and other Dutch
Mennonite sources were translatedinto from some Dutch into German.
Dirk Phillips's first.
The first edition of Dirk's
writings came out in 1715, in German.
And then, of course,the very, very important

(10:23):
statement,
the Dordrecht confession,which was a Dutch Mennonite confession,
and was a confessionthat was drawn up to bring a,
a number of Dutch Mennonite groupstogether to reunite them.
In 1632 and 1660, a group of Swiss
brethren, leaders in the in Alsace,

(10:45):
at the time adopted that that, confessionand it was translated into German.
And, became a very important,very important document.
And in 1725, at a gathering of
Mennonite church leaders in Pennsylvania,they two
statement adopted it, made a statementthat this is our confession of faith.

(11:08):
And so Dordrecht, Even though it's Dutch,
has had a very significant, impact
on, on, Swiss Brethren background,
North American Mennonitesand their theological understandings.
It was used in catechism to instruct
instruct, new converts, and still among the old orders,

(11:32):
both the Amish and the Mennonites,it is used, as kind of a basis.
I know that there'sstill some Beachy Amish who use it,
and that way,so it's a very, very important document.
And any understandingof the American Mennonite scene
theologically always has to go backto what Dordrecht says.
The, the, the Dutch

(11:54):
seem toI mean, the, the North American Mennonites
seem to have read it kind ofthrough their Swiss brethren lenses.
For example,the there's when to talk about leaders.
It refers to the role of deaconessas well.
The Swiss brethren really didn'tpick up on that very much.
There was an odd case in the late, 19th, early 20th century where,

(12:19):
a Bishop down
in Virginia actuallydid ordain Deanonesses.
But that was kind of a, an anomaly.
And the other thingwas the whole question of the ban,
in of course Dordrecht does
does advocate the,the practice of avoidance,

(12:40):
and that and that, was becamea controversial issue,
even in the, in Europe, gave rise to the Amish, devision.
in which, Jacob Ammon, probably readingMenno Simons, maybe Dirk Phillips,
but the Dordrecht confession,all of which advocated the ban
and and his viewpoint as he looked aroundhim, I think particularly in Alsace there

(13:04):
where the, where the, brethren were facing some,
threats of acculturation.
He perceived that part of the problemwas, is that,
we that they had departedfrom what these earlier sources said.
Of course,
he didn't have the historical awarenessof knowing that, you know, this was,

(13:26):
what was happeningthere, that these were actually Dutch
thingsthat Swiss brethren people were using.
But I think and using kind of in a,
how should we say, reading themthrough their Swiss brethren lenses
and kind of, glossing over the partsthat really didn't fit with that.
So anyhow, my point, though,

(13:47):
is that the side that Dordrechtis very important for understanding
American Mennonite theological
understand and for, and so on.
Okay.
Yeah, that's very helpful context.
So I want to make sure I got the timelineright that you were describing.
Did I hear correctly thatthe Swiss brethren had already adopted

(14:10):
the Dordrecht Confessionprior to the migration to North America?
At least in the at least in the Alsaceand probably in the Palatinate,
I'm not sure so much up in Switzerlandif all of them did.
You know,that's always question, though, though.
In 1702, a ...
or collection of of writingswas, was published,

(14:33):
probably in the by the merkelpress, in, in Basel.
And this included a like,
letters of, of Michael Sattler and also, well known Dutch
Mennonite martyr,such, Thomas van Enbroek and so on.
And interestinglyenough, included the Dordrecht confession,

(14:54):
but it's, it's a Dordrecht confessionthat is, adapted.
I mean, it's the basic text thatDordrecht, but there's additions to it.
And one particular edition is I,extra article.
It actually has not 18 articles,but 19 articles, but an extra article
on the Holy Spirit,which is very interesting.
The other thingthat is interesting is that

(15:16):
that in talking about marriage,
it seems to come down much more stronglyagainst the whole idea of divorce
and remarriage
than, let's say, the Swiss brethrenor even the Dutch, early Dutch Anabaptists
did, and even the Hutterites,all of which, were using Erasmus's
Latin annotations of the New Testament.

(15:37):
Had had held to the idea
that adultery broke the marriage bond, and
and thus divorce and remarriagewere permissible for the innocent party.
Now, that's not a viewpoint I hold to.
I think, if, if ...
is moving it toward that direction,I think that's, that's a good thing.

(15:59):
But, you know, that's that isthat is the, the historical reality,
Dordrecht does have a, does have a,
have a, have a nichethere has a place there
for helping to understandthe are theological
what are the theological underpinningsof our faith.
And that was actually by the,

(16:20):
by the Pennsylvania Mennonitesin 1725 adopted it
because it's still in the popularimagination.
The ...
or Anabaptist, which is, you know,we all people like to use the term
Anabaptist today.
I think it's an awful term.
I, I'm not sure whywe all got stuck with it, but,
you know, we've got stuck with it.

(16:42):
It's inaccurate, etymologically.
So, you know, we're not rebaptizersis that's something that the,
our opponents accused us of, but,was still kind of a term of opprobrium.
And so, the the,
the American Mennonites,one of their purposes adopted, it was,

(17:02):
was so that they could,could give it to the English authorities.
Say, they'll saythis is what we believe were peaceful.
We though, aren't rebelliousor anything like that.
And interestingly enough, in 1712,
the Germantown Mennoniteshad asked the Dutch Mennonites
to translate the,Dordrecht confession into English

(17:23):
so that they could essentially,they weren't reading English.
They were using, Holland dutch, or maybeLowland German or even High German, but,
so that they could give itto their English neighbors
and to the authorities so they could see,you know, well, this is what we believe.
And the 1725,
gathering or some people refer to itas a conference,

(17:45):
of leaders adopted itand then it was published in 17.
Then the Dordrecht confession was againpublished in English in 1727.
Now it was published in German.
Okay, a number of different times.
And like I said, was often usedas kind of a framework for,
for catechism or,or instruction of converts
before baptism.

(18:09):
And the other thing
I should just mentionis, here I'm blathering on.
But the term Mennonite, when did we whendid these Swiss people become Mennonites?
Well, that happened in the Palatinatein the 1650s and 60s,
because as Swiss Brethren peoplemoved into moving into the Palatinate
and into Alsace,being pushed out of Zurich, primarily.

(18:32):
And this is on the, onthe end of at the end, at the termination
of the 30 Years War, which in whichthe Palatinate was a major battleground,
it was devastated.
The Elector of the Palatinate,Karl Ludwig,
needed warm bodies to farm his lands,and so he was not picky.
And so he actually granted in 1664, hegranted a, a concession to these folks,

(18:56):
but to get around the Holy Roman
Empires,ban of Anabaptist or Wiedertäufer,
He didn't call them Wiedertäufer,He referred to them as Mennonites.
And he did that
because the Dutch Mennonites you know,were these very prosperous, peaceful.
Well, evidently every could knowthey had a good reputation.
And so by this is this is not guiltby association.

(19:19):
This is, you know, innocence,by association.
These are folks are Mennonites.
And so that's when these Swiss Brethrenpeople became known as Mennonites.
It was there in the Palatinate.
And of course, they carried withand they accepted that.
They accepted that,
that, nomenclature and carried itwith them here to North America.
So that's how we how we Swiss, brethrenbackground folks became, Mennonites.

(19:43):
It's, because of Charles Ludwig.
This is excellent in context.
Thank you for walkingus through this things.
And so,with our subject today, being Mennonites
in North America, what you're describinghappened only decades
priorto the the migration to North America.

(20:03):
So can you highlightsome of the theological,
the theological concerns among Mennonites
in North America during this era?
Well, okay.
One of the things that,
Well, one things you have to keep in mind
is that the sources forthat are very scarce.

(20:25):
There's not very much being written.
In fact,most of what we know is about folks,
can be, where they areand where they're located when they came.
And so on, are actuallyin public documents.
And so it, you know,there may be family Bibles
that have a family registryand maybe some comments and so on.

(20:46):
Not many letters.
So there were letters, okay.
There were letters, that, that survived,but not many of them.
I, we have sort of a hintthat there were more, but they were lost
over time.
Not much theological writing.
in 1744 there, Heinrich Funke,
a bishop in the Franconiaarea, wrote a mirror of baptism.

(21:10):
He wrote it in German,and he wrote it in response to,
the efforts of the of a new group,
a relatively new group that sometimesreferred to as the Schwarzenaur brethren,
what we would refer to as the German Baptist brother and the Alexander Mac people.

(21:31):
Who were a
very, very small group in Germanystarting in 1708,
most of them migrated to Pennsylvania.
Yeah.
Starting in 1719, set up congregations here in Pennsylvania.
But they were also very evangelistic.
And they,they considered Mennonites to be decayed.

(21:53):
You know, they had lost,
and one of their main critiques wasthat they didn't baptize the right way.
Because, the Schwarzenaur brethrenthrough reading Gottfried Arnold's
church history came the conclusionthat immersion baptism was correct mode.
And of course, Mennonites,baptized by pouring.

(22:13):
And so, there was a, okay,it was his name, its last names price.
But he's a German German Baptist leaderin Heinrich Funke's community.
And he is working zealously to convince, young people from Mennonite homes
that really, theyif they want to be where,
where it's going,they ought to join the brother.

(22:34):
And the baptismis the main, one of the main issues.
And so Heinrich Funke
writes this, mirror of baptism,
as kind of a counter or as a defense,
the Mennonite practice of pouring,
and it's,
it's actually a very well argued treatise.

(22:56):
It's not very long.
But is is the most significant, probably
one of the most significant thingswritten by 18th century Mennonite.
But in the course of it,he does explain to us
what his understandingof, of conversion is,
what his understanding of salvation is,how how, what Jesus did for us.
And the cross connectsto how we're supposed to live.

(23:18):
And he does a very clever job in my mind,defending, pouring by
and of course, the,the German Baptist argument for pouring
other than, the supposed argumentthat Gottfried Arnold gave that
that was the practice of the church
was based onhow they read the various metaphors.
And so, Heinrich

(23:40):
Funke uses, essentially different metaphors,
from Scripture to, to demonstrate that
that, pouring is a legitimate way of,of doing water baptism.
So it's a very interesting argument.
But I think more importantly,in the course of his arguments,
he does talk about what does it mean, tohow does one become a Christian?

(24:04):
How is one how salvation,
implemented, what's our response?
And so on.
And so he actually talks about the baptismof the spirit, the baptism of water,
and the baptism of fire.
A baptism of the spirit is foundational.
And there he talks about the workof the Holy Spirit on a person's life
bringing conviction,convicting them of sin,

(24:25):
the necessity for repentance, and then,of course, the pouring out of the spirit.
There's this imagerythat he likes to really use, the pouring
out of the spirit and the whole process ofconversion and the new birth.
and that's a very, very importantconcept.
In Anabaptism is, is the new birth
and the impact of the new birth,the change that happens.

(24:48):
And then of course, he talksabout the baptism of water.
And of course, he sees that as a symbol.
He sees it as, as, you know,not that the water,
changes you, but it's not just a symbol.
It's also a, a witness,a testimony of a good conscience.
It's a declaration of,of commitment to Christ.

(25:11):
It's an open declarationof commitment to Christ.
And of course, it isalso the the means by which one is united
are incorporated into the physical bodyof Christ, into the church.
so, you know, I think that some people,and particularly,
it seems to be kind of popular these daysto, to, talk about,

(25:32):
you know, baptismand I know some early church,
advocates have really brought inand have even criticized Mennonites,
symbolic understanding of baptism.
But I think that's because they onlypick up on the idea that,
of the symbol
and it is symbol, it is symbolic,it is representative.

(25:52):
But it's more than that.
But it is the it's as even as the earlyAnabaptists would have argued, okay,
it's the blood of Christ that washes awayour sin, not the water of baptism.
Okay.
And it is the it is theit is the the Spirit of God
that makes a change in us.
And that's conditioned on our response.

(26:13):
And baptism is a testimony.
It's a it's a it's a commitment.
It's a sign,and it's also an act of obedience.
And of course, all that is tied into it.
And of course, with them, they don'tthey don't see salvation as being event.
They see it as being a process.
And so, you know, you one could say, okay,well, baptism is part of that process

(26:33):
of, of salvation, which, you know,has a beginning when one first says
yes to God, but then has a continuationuntil the final day when
until
our last breath, or until the final day,when when everything is, is,
wrapped up as it should be.

(26:53):
So but then there's the baptism of fire.
Now, that's an early Anabaptist concept,
and they normally connected itwith the whole idea of suffering,
being persecuted,being martyred and stuff like that.
But with Funke, He's he's moved now.
Now, there was somethere was some straightening.

(27:14):
There was some sanctioning.
In 18th century
Europe, particularly the platinum isstill up, still in Switzerland and so on.
And that's part of the push that, that,that, as far as I can see, actually pushes
most of the Mennonitesin the Palatinate over across the North
America, over the course of,

(27:37):
of about half a century.
And they but
but they, they even though there'ssome economic straightening and some legal
straightening and so on, they're, narrowing and, and and crimping and so on.
They aren't
they aren't being persecutedlike they were in the 16th century

(27:57):
or even even in Switzerlandand the, 17th century,
which was part of what pushed a lotof them out of that, particularly Zurich.
And then out of Bern during thethey're in the 17th century
into the Palatinateand into, into the Alsace.
Here they are in North America,things are relatively good.
This is a good land.

(28:17):
As James Lemons called it, it'sthe best man's best poor man's country.
This is a land where, they can buy land.
This is a colony where they can buy land.
They can farm with,
relative.
No, no, interruption
now, in later on in the 1750s,

(28:38):
you know, you're going to be, facing,the, the,
French and Indian War and then, of course,the American Revolution.
But in 1744, things are lookingpretty good.
So how do you take thistheology of baptism by fire?
And, and, you know,what do you do with it?
Because that's an early concept.
Well, what he does with it is that hehe describes

(29:01):
it as essentiallythe baptism of self-denial.
Now, that is that is part and parcelof the earlier understanding, too.
Okay. It's part and parcel of it.
But experientially,existentially, here in North America
in the 1740s,Mennonites are not being persecuted.
So is the whole baptism of firestill legitimate?

(29:22):
And Funke says, yes, it is becausewe all have to fight against the evil one.
We all have to fightagainst our own lusts.
We all have to say no to towhatever is bad, okay?
And that that is athat is that is a purging
a a a growth and so on.
And he describes it
as, as this is the baptism of fireis the baptism of self-denial.

(29:46):
And that's, that's all part of this, salvation process.
So let's say I say he doesn't seesalvation is simply an event,
but sees it as a process to the end.
And of course, the
thing is, he brings in all the thingsabout nonresistance, about,
about
church and everything like thatin this little book.
It's a really a lovely little book,and you can read it today.

(30:08):
I mean, the Church of God, ChristMennonites, publishing
House keeps it in print.
then in 1804,
there's another really important,
book written by a Lancaster conference.
Bishop by the name of ChristianBurkholder, and he himself was a migrant.
Came herewhen he was 18 years old with his mother

(30:30):
and widowed mother and older siblingssettled in
in Lancaster County. And,
he wrote a book, which
in English we can translate as an addressto the youth.
And he actually wrote it in 1792

(30:51):
and but it wasn't printeduntil it wasn't published until 1804.
And it addresses a different situation.
Again,you know, we have Funke’s writing is
is a response to German Baptists,proselytizing efforts.
And in a sense, Burkholder’s

(31:12):
is also, a response to efforts of, another religious movements,
efforts to essentially, win the childrenor even the adults of,
Mennonite families here in Pennsylvaniaand elsewhere,
in this particular case,it's a new religious movement

(31:32):
starting in the 1770s, that historiansrefer to as the German Awakening.
And it was, a generation laterthan the quote unquote Great Awakening
that swept through, essentially the Calvinist churches here
in North America with associated peoplelike Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield
and stuff like that.
But it's a similarkind of thing in the sense

(31:54):
of how it talks about conversion,how conversion happens, and so on.
And then at the same time,we have the first Methodists
coming to North Americaand working and and so on.
And then we just have also this, this,
immigrant pieties tradition,
okay, that, that,

(32:16):
you know, every Germanspeaking group in Pennsylvania
in some way or another was impactedby Pietism,
the Lutherans, the reformed, the church,the brethren, of course,
were very much formed from out of Pietism,and so on, the Moravians and so on.
But even Mennonites,you know, were impacted by pieties.

(32:38):
I mean, back in the old country.
And this is reflected primarilyin some things that they're reading
and they're singing, they're usingthey're singing pietistic hymns,
and so on.
They'renot just singing the Asplund hymns,
but they're also singingthese new hymns, these pieties hymns.
And so it has an impact on it

(32:59):
and so on. But,
one of the things that that
the German Awakening emphasizes is.
A particular kind of
of of conversion experience,
okay, a crisis conversion experience.

(33:20):
And which one is, it's very muchin the kind of this pulls from the Pietist
thing of it very much emphasizesfeelings,
emotions, affectations,
and so on.
And it's not that that isn't presentamong, and, in Anabaptism
and so on,

(33:40):
even early Anabaptism.
But, it is very muchthis idea that one is brought
to, to, through anxiety and anxiousnessand a sense of, of dread
that one is brought to a placewhere you are undone and you
simply have to cast yourself on, on Christand His merits and what he did the

(34:03):
theological understandings that undergirdthis are essentially Protestant.
And, it's very much concernedwith justification,
which is really not reallynot an Anabaptist concern.
Really not a really not an early,
Mennonite concern here in North Americaand so on.

(34:24):
That is pretty much a Protestant thing.
They're much, much more concernedwith the idea of regeneration, of,
salvation being connectedwith with the idea of the new birth.
And the creation is something new.
And of course, it does tiein with the whole thing of what Jesus did
for us in the cross, that he is his workin the cross has washed away our sins,

(34:48):
and so on.
And the other interesting thing is
that, in these early Anabaptist
writings, you're not going to see anythingreferencing,
referencing the idea that very protestant
idea that somehow or another,it's not just Protestants,
also Roman Catholic,that Jesus satisfied the wrath of God.

(35:09):
That's not really there.
They talk about Jesusgiving his life as a ransom for many.
They talk about about the factthat he paid the price of our sins.
They they talk about the fact that youknow, that his blood washes our sins away.
They talk about the fact that,you know, Jesus's death on the cross

(35:30):
rescued us from the power of Satanand everything like that.
So their understandingof what Jesus did, is different
than, let's say,a Presbyterians understanding
or even or Lutherans understandingor even some pietist understanding.
Then certainly the the Christ, thethis German awakening thing.
Now, having said that,the German awakening did have a very,

(35:53):
a very, strong
emphasis on on how one lived.
Okay. And Pietism did too.
Okay Pietism did too.
But the connection between the betweenthe individual
and the redeemed communityis not intrinsic, as it was among American

(36:13):
Mennonites in the 18th and early 19thcentury and, of course, early Anabaptists,
as it is in the German Awakening.
But this German awakeninggave rise to new groups
like the United Brethren, likethe Evangelical Association and so on.
And it's these groupsthat began to make an impact
on Mennonite communitiesas they try to woo their young people

(36:34):
away from their communitiesinto into this new community and so on.
And that's what Christian Burkholderis writing against.
So you spoke of
the Pietists and
the brethren or the German Baptiststo Funke and Burkholder, who
were writing

(36:55):
to try to protect the Mennonites against.
Was the resistance successful,
or did the Pietists and the
German Baptist,the United Brethren and others
end up affecting the
Mennonite consensus on theology
in the sense of did they win

(37:16):
Mennonites over to their perspectivesin any ways?
Yes. They did.
I mean, the very fact that these writingsexist, you know, and in response to,
I mean, no, they've been, Burkholderwould not have written it probably if,
if all this stuff, all this efforton the part of the United Brethren
and other German awakening personshadn't had any impact.

(37:39):
They did.
They were successful in wooing personsaway from the Mennonite community.
And the other thing, though, with Pietism,is that
primarily, Pietism impacted American Mennonites
and also European Mennonites
through its literature,through its devotional literature.
And they read Johanna's aurnts

(38:02):
true Christianity and they,they also read to Ter Steigan’s
letters and so on and and but primarily through the Hymnody.
Okay. Primarily through the Hymnody.
But my, my sense is that, you know,if they
if they were singing a song, okay,they were singing a hymn,

(38:23):
even if it's a pietistic hymn
that they put in their own kind of
they, they contextualize it
in a sense and their,their theological framework,
in a sense, imbued itwith a Mennonite understanding.
Okay.
And so you could say these words, okay,you sing these words
and so on, and doesa, does a Mennonite singing,

(38:48):
let me see.
What was a common hymn?
Spare your repentance.
Not while one day leads to another,
a very common hymn is written,I think, by reformed person.
And so, didwhat did that mean to a Mennonite?
And what did that mean to a Lutheranor to reformed or, you know, our

(39:09):
to an evangelical,association person, United brethren,
I think the what they brought toit was their own framework, their own,
theological understandingsimbued that him
with a certain contextand, and understanding.
So I think that, you know,I think that for Mennonites, particularly

(39:29):
for Mennonites who practice believersbaptism, spare your repentance.
Not while one day leads to anotheris a call to to its initial call
to, surrender to Christand to and to repent.
And of course, that ties inwith the Anabaptist understanding that,
you know, you go to thatwhich you go into the world,

(39:52):
you preach the gospeland and those who believe,
who repent and believe,those are the ones you you think,
Lutheran singing that songis not going to have that context or
he's not going to bring that to that song?
And so the the hymnody itself
could, I think, be
contextualized by whatever communitywe are coming to.

(40:15):
It's when, as as Martin Baim,a Mennonite Bishop
and William PhilipOtterbein and reform minister,
met in 1770at Isaac Long's barn at a big meeting, and
they embraced each other and they said,we are brothers and we are brothers.
Based on the fact that we both havehad this crisis, new birth experience,

(40:38):
that's the foundation and that's andand actually,
the Mennonites had no problem necessarilywith crisis conversion experiences.
They just didn't think that they werethe only way one could be converted.
Okay.
But when you began saying that
that particular new birth,the way in which the new birth
has to happen in this particularkind of experiential way is necessary.

(41:00):
Okay.
And then when you beginto make common cause with other traditions
or other people who are not non resistant,who baptize babies, who,
do who swear oaths, okay,
then it becomes problematic.
And that's where Martin Beam, eventually, the other Mennonite bishops

(41:21):
had to put him out of the churchbecause he was saying,
this is really the basis of my fellowship.
And of course, he becomes a bishop in thein the United.
What becomes the United Brethren?
So, you know, I think sometimes,
you know,
reading literature and songcan introduce us to new ideas.
When we read something,what do we bring to it?

(41:44):
Do we read it through our own framework?
Do we imbued with a meaningthat maybe not the writer had originally,
or a context that originallythe writer himself did not have,
but we bring to that into those,into those texts, our own understandings.
And they can,they can assist our understanding.

(42:05):
And I one of the thingsI like to think about is,
is that it seems to methat whenever, in a sense,
new ideascome in to into Mennonite communities
or into Amish communities and so on,they come across conceptual bridges.
Okay,there's something in in the tradition
that connects with somethingthat this new other tradition is same,

(42:29):
and there's a similarityand they can kind of cross over.
All right. So
that's what I would, would observe here.
And you know old order Mennonites
today, use the ...
songbook, which was a new hymn bookthat Lancaster Conference put out in 1804.

(42:50):
And most of the hymns are pieties hymns.
It has so about 80 of the Ausbund hymns.
It has maybe 20 other hymns written by,you know, 18th,
19th century Mennonite authors,including Christopher Doc and so on.
But most of the hymns are Pietist hymns,and they're hymns that Lutherans
and reformed and andand the brethren particularly, I mean most

(43:12):
almost all the brethren hymnalwas was pietist And the interesting thing
is, is that the impartation also
includes, hymns by Brother.
Okay.
Because there were some brethrenhymn writers in the 18th century
who are writing hymns, and some of thosehymns made their way into, into the ...

(43:33):
the songbook.
And that songbook is still what is beingused by the old order Mennonites.
The Groffdale conference today,the ones who are still using German.
So I think
it's one thing to read
and to use these sort
these texts as kind of inspirationand so on like that.

(43:55):
It's another thing though.
When you say, okay, we are now brethren,
and that's always been a problem.
And, and,and the other thing I would observe
is that up until the 1860s,for the most part,
okay, when one could push back and say,maybe the 1840s,

(44:16):
but up until the 1860s,
all these, these,
these other groups who, forwant of a better term, you could describe
as evangelical, though,that's kind of imposing
a 20th century category on it,
they're trying to win young people

(44:37):
or people away and incorporate,you know, into their churches
and the the Mennonite church’sstance is one of resistance
of not, not accepting these ideas and so on.
Like that,
starting particularly in the 1860s.
All right.
We began to see a change

(44:58):
of accepting new methodologies,
things like Sunday school,
and so on, and then later
on, protracted or revival meetings,
an interest in mission work and outreach,
and even some kind of reframing,under theological understandings.

(45:20):
Now, some of this has to do with the factthat they are
also transitioning from English,from German to English.
And so how do you how do you translatesome of these, these concepts
that are in German, into Englishand so on?
And a person who's a prime,a prime person involved in this,
this whole new kind of approachis John F funk,

(45:42):
who you mentioned, died in 1930.
Him he lived up into his 90s.
He really had not been that active,
for almost
25 years before his death on so on.
But he is a pivotal personin American Mennonite history.
He actually deserves, a full fledged biography.

(46:02):
And he's never had one.
But but he's an interesting personbecause,
he, he really he feels as though,like particularly about Sunday school.
His argument is,
you know, of course, a lot of people
resisting the idea of Sunday schoolbecause it's coming
from these Protestants, it's comingfrom these worldly churches and so on.

(46:23):
And of course, that's one of the thingsgives rise to the old order movement.
And, and so on.
But his argument is, yes, yes,we know these early churches
use Sunday school, but can'twe have Mennonite Sunday schools in which,
in our in our Sunday schools,they can be taught quote unquote.
And he says it's Mennonite Doctrine. Okay.
Mennonite teachings,
that this is just a, in a sense,a different venue for teaching.

(46:46):
Now, the other interesting thingthat happens is, course, is that,
it increasesthe role of laity in teaching.
All right.
Up to this particular point, it'sthe or it's the leadership, the appointed
leadership who do the teaching,the servants of the word, and so on.
Other than the teaching that’ssupposed to happen, in
individual households, you know,by the father and so on like that.

(47:10):
And of course, that is the argumentthe old orders make, you know,
any teaching that happensother than what we hear in the preaching
should be done at homeby the by the parents and so on.
So, in the
latter part of the 19th century, we,we have
new ideas being introduced,new methodologies

(47:32):
being introduced, and there is resistance.
Okay. There is resistance.
And there is also,
there's there's not one approachto how much of this to take in
somebody like John F funk is actually
called is a cautious innovator.
All right.
So the younger generationthat that was sort of

(47:54):
his proteges are less cautious,are very much, become very much caught up
particularly,you know, when they're going to
they're getting education
and sometimes they're goingto evangelical churches in the 1890s.
There are some of themwho actually go to the Moody Bible
Institute and pick upin, pre millennial dispensationalism,
which is the greatest heresy everto hit the Mennonites.

(48:17):
But anyhow, well, one of them. Okay.
But anyhow,they pick up on this kind of stuff.
All right.
and become less cautious
and how much to look at.
So, for example, if you,
if you look at an early mission
urban mission in Chicago,the Chicago mission,

(48:38):
I think it's starting in the 1890s, it'sbasically using kind of the
the typical Protestanturban mission thing.
You know, we think oflike the Bowery Mission and so on.
That's kind of its approach, okay.
But it gets these people and so they,you know, they send people there,
they have resident missionaries,
and they do the kind of thingsthat Protestants,
evangelical schools have done in urbanmissions and stuff like that.

(49:02):
But then they try to dress them upin plain clothes.
And some of that is because,
because they're not,
I think it's sometimes because they thinkthat that's what they should do.
But sometimes I think it's also, a means
by which to deflect criticismof what they're doing.

(49:24):
All right.
Because, you know, if they can getthese converts to dress plain.
All right,
you know, then that will
will silence the, the, the, the,their critics.
Now, that might be a topicfor the next, next or another, podcast.
But along with this comes some, some,
some newer theological understandings.

(49:47):
Now, one of the thingswe do have to keep in mind is that
there's still this very strong
emphasis that salvation
and how you live are connected.
My personal opinion is that the older way,
looking at Funk and Burkholderand then, Samuel Gotch,

(50:09):
there's another writer,Peter Burkholder in Virginia, who writes,
and it's nine Reflections of Bishopand Virginia is published in 1837.
This older way of looking at thingshas it makes a more intrinsic connection
between salvation and how we live.
I would say thatand I think funk still had that,

(50:30):
you know, I think he still had that,that intrinsic connection
And I think most Mennonitesemphasize, yes, this is important.
This is important. Okay.
In fact, their criticism of evangelicalismis that they're not doing that.
And of course, they're still very strongagainst not about Nonresistance
funk himself wrote the first first book.

(50:51):
Our booklet
defending Nonresistance or
arguing for Nonresistance, writtenby an American Mennonite in 1864.
Warfare's it's evils, our duties,and it's a scathing critique.
It's writtenright in the middle of a civil war.
It's a scathing critique of Christiansgoing off to war.
And how that is, is counter to everythingJesus taught.

(51:15):
All right.
And then what's interesting,though, is too, that
this, this kind of this new projectthat he's launched
and which he's, in a sense,trying to update the Mennonite church
but still keep it Mennonite,
still keep that some of those olderunderstandings, importances and so on,
I would say with one of his chiefand a sense almost mentor,

(51:37):
but certainly a compatriot is the OhioBishop, John M Brennaman.
A man of who had great statureamong among Mennonites in the
in the middle of the 19th century,wrote for Funke’s
Herald of Truthand some of his articles combined into,
into, booklets and so on.

(52:00):
He at Funke’s urging, he wrote
and the second Mennonite tract
or booklet on nonresistancecalled, Christianity and War again.
Very well ably argued.
Exposition of,
of of a Christian Mennoniteunderstanding of of war

(52:23):
and why we why we should why Christiansshould not participate in war and so on.
But he he's
he's a personwho is very much rooted in the older
understandings,but is open to some selective innovation.
All right.
and he's probablyin the middle of the 19th century,

(52:44):
one of the most, along with funk, actually,
he wrote more than funk did,theological kind of articles,
most of which,of course, appear in Funk's,
Herald or Truth,both the German and the English versions.
Now, if one looksat at Brenneman’s letters,
particularlyas letters written in English,

(53:05):
but the English is a little rough.
Okay.
And so I suspect that funke, who was
who had gone to a, what we would referto as kind of a high school
in seminary in his homearea in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
He had more educationthan most Mennonites of his day.

(53:26):
Did I have a suspicion that funk,you know, did him a good work
over, did a good editing of thosewhich which Brennaman was, was fine with?
You know, he was fine withhe had no problem with that.
But, Burkholder wrote on salvation,he wrote on
he wrote on Christianity and warand then probably his seminal

(53:48):
is most important.
One is pride and humility.
And, maybe that'll be, again,a topic for another.
For another, the cover that otherwise. But,
and I would say that
in, Brennan's understanding,I think he does still pretty well.
Hold in tandem the idea of,

(54:11):
how we become Christians,
how salvation happensand how we're to live.
Okay, he does a pretty good.
I still think he still doesa pretty good job of that.
And again,you know, his understanding of atonement
is really reflectsthat older understanding.
He talks about ransom, talksabout our sins being washed away.
He talks about, about the workof the Holy Spirit in our lives.

(54:34):
And so I think really,even though he's open
to some innovation, it'scautious and it's cautious
and, it's still is pretty well rootedin that older understanding.
And funk is still too.
But he's more open to innovation,maybe some newer ideas coming in.
And I would say it's the next generationthat that becomes even more pronounced.

(55:00):
This isa very helpful survey of the ideas,
the theology, the personalities,the prominent personalities
influencing Mennonite theologyduring those two centuries.
So I observe that
today, many of the variousMennonite groups in North America,

(55:21):
at least among the Swiss,originated from divisions
and disunity that happened in the midto late 20th century.
And there are, of course, exceptions.
You mentioned the old ordersand some of the things that led to their
the difference of perspectivesin their early days.

(55:42):
is our state of being distributed
across numerous affiliations, conferences,networks and fellowships.
Novel.
How does this compare and contrastto the experience of Mennonites
during the first two centuriesin North America?
Well, okay.
So if you look at. If you look at,

(56:06):
At, let's say 18th century, okay.
North America.
Now, first of all,I think I should frame that by saying
that 16th century Anabaptist,this is not a monolithic movement.
There are various kinds of Anabaptistsin the 16th century.
Okay. We'reI talked about the Swiss and the Dutch.
There's also the Hutterites,but then there's some other ones.

(56:27):
There's some graduationsbetween those, or sort of
not exactly eitherSwiss nor Dutch nor Hutterite and so on.
So the diversity, Anabaptistfrom the very beginning
was a somewhat diverseand one could say, fragmented movement.
And now there were groupings,and the Swiss Brethren is one grouping.

(56:50):
But of course, in 1693 94,we have a major schism
among the Swiss brethren that resultsin the formation of the Amish.
And there the issue has that again,has the issues
have to do with questionsabout essentially church order,
you know, how to practicethe ban is avoidance, to be used or not?

(57:11):
The Swiss Brethren traditiondidn't really include avoidance.
But, Amman, reading the Dordrechtconfession, reading Menno Simons
and so on, came to conclusionthat that should be practiced.
Okay.
And so we have a division, a
fairly significant divisionshappening in 1694.
so severe that,when they were kicked out of Zurich

(57:33):
in the 1670s, the Amish and, and the ...
parties,which was the other group was called,
wouldn't really talk with each othereven if they were on the same boat,
going down the, the, Danube,I mean, the Rhine River.
so the Amish come here
and Mennonites come here.
And then, of course, if you want to thinkabout the German Baptist

(57:56):
being a new Baptist, group,
who have a lot of commonality with,
with the Amish and with the Mennonites.
I mean, Alexander Mac was readingMenno Simons.
He knew Mennonites and essentiallytheir understanding of church
and of of how one should livethe Christian life is very, very similar

(58:19):
to to what Mennonites understanding wouldbe or what Amish understanding would be.
Okay.
And so and it's interestingbecause the, the German Baptist brother
had this kind of ideathat they were the church,
and they also had a theology of baptismthat was really tied up with the mode
that made it important for your salvationthat you were baptized the right way.

(58:42):
But I don't think they always knewwhat to do
about these Mennonites in their presencewho were so much like them.
I think that's still the case
of German Baptist
that they really don't know what to dowith plain Mennonite, so and so on,
because we don't baptize the right way.
But but there's sort of this,sort of this thing which the, the,
the reality of the situationkind of downplays that a little bit.

(59:07):
All right.
Even though theologicallythat would be kind of where they are.
So anyhow, so my point is, yes.
In the, in the 18th century,
okay, you began to
I mean, you have two groups, basically,
of Swiss brethren, the Amish,
and what becomes known aswhat was referred to as Mennonites.

(59:30):
All right.
Starting in the 19th century,you have new groups being formed.
Okay.
The first one is the Reformed Mennonites,John Herr, who never joined
the Mennonite church.
His father had been a Mennonite minister,but had left and had meetings on his own.
And, John Herr
came convincedthat the old Mennonite church was corrupt.

(59:51):
And and so he started a new groupand initially were called New Mennonites.
Interesting enough,he picked up on the practice of avoidance
and something like that.
And that's a whole discussion.
I could go on and on for that.
About the reformed Mennonites, I find themin an incredibly interesting, movement.
And the interesting thing is they wroteso much for such a little group.

(01:00:13):
They actually produced more written stuffthan the old church.
They left, during the 19th century.
But as far as written,
material goes, in the 1840s,
you have two splitsthat are on opposite sides.
Okay. Are two different things.
One is in 1845, you have a group leavingLancaster Conference led by Jacob Stoffer,

(01:00:38):
a minister, and, and and I thinkI think it's in the Weaver land.
Yeah.
Weaver in that area in rural township.
And it has to do with a whole, set,a very complicated story.
But again, that has to do with,
with a case of church disciplineand so on.
But again, this is a groupthat pulls out an interesting enough.

(01:01:01):
It also picks up on Menno Simons and
the practice of avoidance
and incorporates that into their,into their practice and so on.
And we refer to those todayas the Stauffer Mennonites.
And but then on the oppositeend of the spectrum,
you have this group and Franconia,led by John Oberholtzer,

(01:01:22):
who really believesthe church needs to update things.
so, in 1847,
he breaks with Franconia Conference.
He leads a fairly good portion, not allabout maybe a third of the conference.
Away fromthat has some leaders supporting him.
And so in in southeastern Pennsylvania,there is the Franconia Conference.

(01:01:44):
And then there's,
what becomes is initially calledthe Eastern Pennsylvania conference.
Okay.
Distinguished from our currentEastern Pennsylvania Mennonite church.
Okay.
And later on, in the 1860s, joins
a new organization called thethe General Conference Mennonites.

(01:02:06):
Okay.
And it becomes the Eastern Districtof the General Conference.
Mennonites. Again,this is a group that is pretty well.
Is somewhat impacted by evangelicalism.
But I also would say that that Oberholtzer
Oberholtzer, thought that
that how things should be runshould be more formalized.

(01:02:28):
He advocated, thethe drawing up a constitution
for the church that would define rolesand everything like that.
I mean, it's it's almost more
not so much evangelical,but almost very American kind of way
of thinking about how to associateand what are the what's
kind of the the basis of our associationand stuff like that.

(01:02:51):
Now, inthe 1870s is when the Russian Mennonites,
come here, migrate here
and most of them settle out in the West.
Most of those, not all of them,but most of those joined this, this,
this General conference Mennonite.
All right.
And that that introducesa whole new element

(01:03:12):
we're not going to talk about here.
So you have you have that happening.
And then during the 19th century,
you have among the Amish,sorting out between
what becomes known as Amish Mennonitesand what becomes known as Old Order.
And again, some of the same issueslike that Sunday schools.

(01:03:32):
What about the translation into English?
What about the adoptionof other practices?
The old order say no, we want to stickby the old way of doing things.
Okay.
One of the things that's interesting,though, is,
is the issue of stream baptism.
All right.
Some, some of the Amish,

(01:03:53):
and I think that this is probablya response
to the impact of the German Baptiston on Mennonites.
It's a whole question of how to baptize.
And some begin to actadvocates stream baptism,
which meant that you went downto the stream and the person
being baptized knelt down in the stream,and the bishop
reached down and brought water upand poured it over their heads.

(01:04:17):
Now that's a really interesting wayof doing things.
And and some Amish began to advocate thatthose who were more
of the old order minded said, no,that's not how we've done it.
That's not.
And so there was resistance to that.
So that's, that's an issue that over I mean, sort of a,
how do you kind of a catalyst,for the whole thing?

(01:04:38):
I don't think later on it became much,
I don't think that even the AmishMennonites really that was an issue.
It wasn't that all of them advocated
doing that personally,but some of that was the big deal.
They want to do it that way. That's okay.
And so on.
But the Old Order said no to that.
All right.
So now the difference between the Amish

(01:04:58):
and the and the AmishMennonite separations is that
because of the structure of the Amish,
the the, the church structure
of the Amish, which is really focusedon the congregation
being ultimately the place of authority,where decisions are made and so on.
And so you have kind of a networkof congregations that work together.

(01:05:21):
And sobut there's really no, umbrella thing
where they all meet togetherand they try to make decisions, now
as this as these issues developed
in the 1840s and 50s.
And I think it's the beginning,in the late 1850s, in the 1860s,
that going into the 70s,there is a series of ministers meetings

(01:05:43):
held in different localities in whichthey try to solve some of these problems.
And, and come to some decisions.
I think that inreality, what they simply did
was theysolidified what the differences were.
And but what happened then is that
in various areas, okay.

(01:06:04):
The, the Amish, Mennonite and Old Order
separations didn't happen.
It didn'tthey all didn't happen at once, but
they happened at different timesin different places.
All right.
And, and they,
impact in different communities,in different ways.

(01:06:25):
For example, in Illinois,almost all the Amish,
not quite all, but most of the Amishwent with the Amish Mennonites.
Okay.
In Pennsylvania, in Lancaster County,most of the Amish stayed Old Order.
Now there was a group that did gowith the Amish Mennonites in Ohio.
It was a mixed bag.
Okay.

(01:06:45):
In Iowa, it's a it's a mixed bag,but it's actually over about a 30,
40 year period that this whole thing isthey sort themselves out
into Amish, Mennonite,into an old order groupings and so on.
now with the old Mennonites,and now they're called old Mennonites
because we had the Reformed Mennonites,who initially referred

(01:07:06):
to as New Mennonites.
Then we had the Oberhausen Mennonites,who are also called New Mennonites
So we had these various new Mennonitegroups and people
are referred to as New Mennonites.
But the Old Mennonites,okay are organized and conferences.
And these, these conferences,
the bishops and ministers and the deaconsget together once or twice a year.
They talk about issues,

(01:07:26):
they make decisionsthat are binding on the whole conference.
And so when a when issues come up,that's where it's discussed.
It's discussed at the conference level.
And oftentimesbecause of that, there is kind
of almost a recognizable break, okay.
Because the break normally happensas a result of what had happened

(01:07:47):
in a particular conference meeting,how things are decided or not decided.
Okay, so in 1872, we have an, Indiana.
We have an old order group leaving
or breaking with the larger Indiana,
Michigan conference and becomes
known as the Whistler, namedafter Jacob Whistler.

(01:08:10):
In the 1880s, a similar thing happens
in Canada in the 1890s.
A similar thing happens in LancasterCounty,
Pennsylvania, and then in 1904,I think it is,
there's a similar thinghappening in Virginia.
Okay.
and also,I should just mention among the Amish

(01:08:30):
Mennonites,they're not all at the same place either.
Okay.
Because, you have
you have kind of a mainstreamof Amish Mennonites,
but then you have groups, sometimesreferred to as the Stuckey Amish,
led by by a bishopwho was more progressive minded.
And a whole bunch of congregations,particularly in Illinois, went with him.

(01:08:53):
Interesting enough, in the 20th century,
though, his group had assimilatedto the point that they actually joined
the General ConferenceMennonite Church, right.
You have the Egly Amish,who were very heavily impacted
by Protestant revivalismand even holiness teaching later on.
All right.
And, they become knownas the Mennonite Brethren in Christ.

(01:09:17):
Up in Canada you have a similarthing happened with Daniel Hawke,
and then referred to as the Hawkeor the High Mennonites and so on.
So in the 19th century,you have all this happening, and it's
mainly a responseto the introduction of new
methodologies and ideas.
All right.
And, and it doesn't all sort itself out.

(01:09:40):
Not, it's, it's not just binary.
It, it's it can,it can have kind of graduations to it.
Actually the period
as far as, as old man knights go,
the period from, from,
let's say 1900 to 1950,

(01:10:03):
there's very few splits there among
what becomes knownas the Mennonite Church.
Well, that is very helpful.
Thank you for giving us an overviewof those divisions. And.
You know, just in general in this episodeI'm wondering if we have bitten off an

(01:10:24):
era that is much larger than wellto follow the idiom
can be chewedin an episode of this length.
I imagine so.
You've mentioned numerous thingsthat I would like to ask more about, but
we should begin to bring this episodeto a close.

(01:10:45):
And so at this point, I'll askif there is anything more
that you think must be saidbefore we end this conversation.
guess that, just briefly,I should address the whole question
about Daniel Kaufman.
I right?
I mean, you okay,you mentioned, you mentioned,
you know, the doctrines of the Biblecame out in 1927.

(01:11:07):
DanielKaufman was the editor of that book.
He wasn't now,he did write some of the chapters, but he
it was not all his work.
He was the editor. And it actually,
it actually had a
predecessor in 1914, book
had come out called Bible Doctrinesand some of the, some of the chapters

(01:11:28):
in in doctrines of the Bible
originated as chapters in Bible doctrines.
Okay.
Now there was some revisionand so on of that,
in that book.
So in some sense,the Bible, the, Bible doctrines book,
it's really
where some of the language that is framed.

(01:11:51):
But even before that, okay,even before that, Daniel Kaufman himself
did write a book called Manual of BibleDoctrine.
Okay.
And it's a much smaller bookand some of the theological categories
that he is using at that particular point
show up in the later works.

(01:12:13):
One of the things that he talks about is
he he has thiscategory called restrictions.
Okay.
And this primarily dealswith nonconformity issues.
And,and this language that then is used later.
Okay.
And interestingly enough, in 1921when the Mennonite

(01:12:35):
when the General Conferenceof the Mennonite Church, not to be
confused with the General ConferenceMennonite Church, okay.
But the General Conferenceof the Mennonite Church, which was
the various conferences of the Mennonitechurch, sent delegates to this
representatives of thisand it it started in the in,

(01:12:56):
I think, around 1899.
I might be wrong there by a yearor two, but,
in 1921 they adopted at Garden
City, Missouri, where the conferenceis being held that year.
The the Mennonite Fundamentals.
And interesting enough,this was a document
that actually originated in Virginia,
and it was a documentdrawn up primarily by some

(01:13:21):
what I would describe as fundamentalistMennonites, people like J.B.
Smith and A.D Wanger and George R Bronk.
The first and this all, bythe way, were pre millennials.
So, you know, but,
so they'resuspect from the very beginning.
But, that's a whole different podcast.

(01:13:45):
But they,
but they, they do real.
And of course, the other thing to keep inmind is that this is in the midst
of the whole modernist fundamentalistcontroversy in Protestantism in,
among Protestant churchesin North America, to start with.
And it is also in the context

(01:14:06):
and I think Nathan Yoder's, dissertation, whose title I can't right
pull off right now, but his dissertationdoes a really good job.
It's a shame it wasn't ever published,
but it does a really good jobof describing this period of time.
And one of the thingsthat a lot of the older scholarship,
you know, in 1923,Goshen College was closed down.

(01:14:29):
And Daniel Kaufman played a major rolein closing that that was closed down
for a period of timebecause of theological liberalism.
Now, some people have argued that reallythe question was not theological
liberalism actually revolved around aroundnonconformity issues.
But as Nathan and and,
and nonconformity issuesindeed were part of the part of the issue.
But I came across a number of years ago,at the Mennonite Historical Association,

(01:14:54):
the Cumberland Valley Archives,
a small collection of the Bishopand our area buddy, and George Keener,
who was a bishop from 1899
or something like that, to the 1930s.
And then it was this mailing,I think it was something was sent out
to Mennonite ministers across the countryand had these postcards in and

(01:15:14):
and this is like in the early 20s,okay, for, for discussion.
And it showed
it showed a photographof a theater production
put on at Goshen College and shows the
the student actors there dressed upin their theatrical costumes.
And I would just say,any Mennonite minister.

(01:15:38):
No, I should say most Mennonite ministersin North America,
if they saw that in 1920s,they would have been troubled.
Okay.
They would have been troubledI was troubled when I saw it.
I said, well, this is really does showwhat was going on here.
These folks had somethingto be concerned about.
But as Nate Yoder shows,
as Nate Yoder, shows,there was also theological.

(01:16:01):
I mean, the earlier scholarshipsaid, no, there's no theological.
This, liberalismsome, Nate Yoder has shown there actually
was theological liberalism there in the insome of the faculty
who were using modernist text
in Bible classes and stuff like that.
And so,one of the most interesting persons,

(01:16:21):
again, he's somebody who really deservesa, biography is John Horst,
this immigrant who came over in the 1880sfrom Bavaria
and got involved with John F Funk’spublishing and so on,
and also is probably the the
the founder of Mennonite historyStudies here in North America,

(01:16:43):
wrote about, wrote and wrotemuch about, early Anabaptist, and so on.
He becomes
really much taken upwith this whole modernist, fundamentalist
controversy and writes, writesbooks and pamphlets about it and so on.
But anyhow, this is
what happensis that some of these people now, John,

(01:17:06):
I should mention thatthat John Horst was not a pre millennials.
Okay.
So you could be
you don't have to be a pre millennialist to be concerned about some of this stuff.
Okay.
but what happens thenis that these folks are reading
essentially fundamentalist literature.
And some of them have gone to MoodyBible Institute

(01:17:27):
and other fundamentalist colleges,our Bible schools and so on.
And so they're carrying with themsome of this,
some of this language,okay, some of this language.
And then that is reflected in the 1921,
confession of faith,
which is adopted there, at Garden City.

(01:17:47):
And, at the, at the General Conferencemeeting and so on.
Now, interestingly enough,
I would say that actually,when it comes to terms of Daniel Kaufman,
he in a sense is kind of the JohnF funk of his day.
He's cautious.
He is a genuinely conservativeminded person,

(01:18:10):
concerned about traditional definitionsof nonconformity and stuff like that.
But there does seem to be okay.
There does seem to be in his writings,the beginnings of a kind of a
a dividebetween their theology of salvation.

(01:18:30):
How long becomes a Christian,how one is quote unquote saved and their
the way they live,what the person is supposed to live.
Okay.
and I would say also,there are other persons
for whom that divide becameeven wider and wider and wider.
And I would saythat each successive generation,

(01:18:50):
okay, each successive generationafter that, the gap
became wider and wider and wider and wideruntil you have
the situation, have todayand the assimilated Mennonite groups.
I haven't said everything I
would like to say about Daniel Kaufman,because that would be a podcast in itself.
I like Daniel Kaufman, I really do.

(01:19:11):
I like him, he washe was a mediating force.
He was a man who was always seeking,in a sense,
the various groupings and ideas and so on,
getting them together to work things outfor the good of the church.
He was a very conservativeminded person in many ways,

(01:19:32):
a very strong advocate of nonresistance,nonconformity and so on.
And through his editorship of the GospelHerald for almost 30 years,
I would say 30 years, hehe had a major impact on the church.
He was he was a giant.
And, you know,we don't have giants anymore.
Like Daniel Kaufman.
Maybe we shouldn't have had one back then,I don't know, but he certainly was

(01:19:54):
a giant.
And I,
I was able to talk to people, back in the, in the, 1890, I mean,
in the 1990s, who, as young personsheard Daniel Kaufman preach.
In fact, one olderwoman told me about how she responded
at a meeting, a series of meetingsthat Daniel Kaufman held

(01:20:16):
and made her initial Christian,decision. So,
that's probably enough said.
Okay.
Well, well,thank you for introducing us to him.
Giving a brief overview.
Again like you mentioned this,
this deserves much more timethan we're able to give it here today.

(01:20:37):
So let's end the episode here in hopes
of being able to some timecome back and revisit,
some of these topics that you saidreally do deserve more time
and focus on folkslike Daniel Kaufman with
greater clarity and at greater length.

(01:20:57):
So thank you so much for joining usfor this conversation, Edsel.
Really appreciate it.
Thank you. Farewell.
Thank you so much for listening
to this episode of Anabaptist Perspectiveswith Edsel Burdge.
If you would like to hear another episodewith Edsel Burdge, we expect to publish
one in the coming months.
So subscribe for a complete collectionof episodes.

(01:21:20):
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