THE ANABAPTIST VISION:

MENNONITE MANIFESTO OR IMMODERATE MYTH?

January 22nd, 2006
Jonathan Seiling

Texts:     Psalm 118:1-6
Mark 1:14-20
2 Corinthians 6:1-10
Q: For those who are parents here: If you had to fill out a form about your children who are not yet baptized, (e.g. school), and it asked a question about the child’s religion or religious identity, what would you say, regardless of the age of your child?

Who would write “NO RELIGION WHATSOEVER”?
Who would write “Christian” or “Mennonite”?

If you chose to write “Mennonite”, at what point does that presumed identity run out? When your child turns 35, for example, is she still presumed to be Mennonite even if she haven’t been baptized?

Now the problem is this: If you ask a child the same question, if he chooses to identify somehow with being Mennonite, at what point is he told he cannot unless he’s baptized? Who decides that and who gets to tell him he’s not really a Mennonite? And are they right in doing so? I’d be curious to know if those parents who weren’t raised as Mennonites would lean more toward not identifying their children as Mennonites until they themselves choose to be baptized. A question perhaps for later discussion.

So the question we confront is: Does the Mennonite Church pass on any sort of identity to those who grow up in it, but have not chosen to join? As I’m guessing you’d all agree that the problem arises when those not-Mennonite-by-faith-Mennonites encounter those who have chosen to become Mennonite, supposedly in the manner that the original Anabaptists chose to take on a new identity. These two groups quickly recognize that they mean very different things when they say that they’re Mennonite; One group points to a confession of faith, the other points to a cookbook, a quilt pattern or an ability to speak a German dialect that no one else in the world understands except certain Mennonites.

The role of historians in trying to reshape the church, to redefine Mennonite identity, has had an enormous impact on the above issues. There were those who did history in order to find what they were hoping to find, and without dismissing the huge contribution many of these scholars made, it now appears as though they were a little too eager to find what they were hoping to find, while ignoring the stuff they wished wasn’t there. Their approach was one of holding a mirror up to the church to see how far it had erred from what they believed the original Anabaptists envisioned, or, at least, what certain Anabaptists wanted. These historian-leaders of the last century wanted to present a unified vision of what the original Anabaptist movement ACTUALLY was, in the purity of its early stage, in order that we might do our best to emulate them. By silencing and marginalizing certain voices from the original movement they were able to present a rather ideal picture of a movement that was conveniently similar to what these 20th century leaders wanted the Church to become.

I’m here today to propose a counter idea. How would it serve the Church today if we stopped trying to find a united, consistent group that perhaps existed almost 500 years ago? But rather, let’s say we admit to ourselves that there was some considerable dissent in the original movement, that there was conflict and even a lack of unity among them. This is what many of the most rigorous historians of the past few decades have stressed. Is it possible that by embracing the real diversity of the movement that we could find a better model for the Church today? In order to illustrate this, largely in preparation for adult education class where we’ll discuss aspects of the Anabaptist Vision, I have prepared a sermon that includes the words of the early Anabaptists themselves — since they were much better sermon writers than I’ll ever be — and you’ll see that these voices I’ve chosen to include don’t really agree with each other on some pretty key issues. I’ve picked a few topics, paraphrased and updated the language a bit, and I’m offering you NOT a symphony of different voices, but something of a cacophony. We’ll have time later on to discuss what it means to listen to a cacophony rather than a symphony, but later on I’ll even suggest it may be more helpful for our task as a Church today. Please join me in listening to these various voices from our past.

If I were an Anabaptist today, what might I say about Scripture? I might say something like:
Human writing and divine writing are two, totally different, almost opposite things. Nothing matters except what’s written in Bible.
That seems pretty close to what many of us probably heard described as the Anabaptist view of Scripture. But what if other Anabaptists thought differently? In fact many did and you could hear them say things like:
Holy Scripture may be the greatest of all human treasures but the Bible is not as important as the inner Word of God. The true, inner Word of God cannot be written on paper, but it has been written with spiritual ink into the hearts of those who fear and love God. Believe in God to save you, not in the Bible. It doesn’t save. No matter how much of the Bible you memorize you’ll still be as evil as you ever were without it!
[not something you want children to hear if you’re trying to encourage them to memorize Scripture passages for homework — apologies to the Sunday school teachers!]

If we look further to other questions about how the Bible was used and read, we’d probably be surprised at what they wrote. One Anabaptist wrote that the Old Testament is only of use in those places where it tells us something about Christ. Another held fast to the whole of Scripture, both the New and Old Testament, which contain many instructions for how to live and believe correctly. However, several voices like the one above, who emphasized the inner Word over the so-called outer Word, when faced those who argued such and such “because the Bible said so”, they would back off from their literalist commitment to the Scriptures and put more faith in the authority of the Holy Spirit than the authority of the Bible.

One of them wrote:
Whoever does not search for God by God and with God, will always search and still find nothing…. and very many think they know this or that, but they are simply blowing hot air. And when one asks them, Dear sirs, from where do you know that? Then they answer with aplomb: “I read it in the Holy Scriptures, here and here, in this or that chapter.”
You can hear the writer almost mocking the literal use of Scripture.

Many of them emphasized that we can only learn the true Word of God in the “school of Christ”, in which we are taught by living out God’s word, not simply believing rightly or arguing from Scripture, but actually applying those things we understand God calls us to do, and then seeing how this will inevitably lead to suffering, and after that, spiritual growth. It’s not simply a matter of trying to live out what the Bible said; much more, it is surrendering our will to God’s, giving our bodies over to God’s work, and letting our selves be instruments through which the inner Word can be heard more clearly by others.

They, in a sense, believed that although the Bible could be interpreted to some degree, the Word of God needed to be interpreted in the lives of those who believed. Our lives, not our mouths, must serve as the interpretation of the Word of God.

Some tried to present what they thought was the core meaning of the Bible in a nutshell, to provide something as a lens to interpret the rest of the Bible, which could be summarized as:
Honour and fear God the Almighty in Christ his Son. This is the beginning of all wisdom. And as Christ was obedient to the Father and fulfilled his will, we too should fulfill his will with trembling and quaking. Those who understand this and prove it by their deeds have understood the whole Scriptures.
Some argued that the Bibl
e overall is perfectly clear and needs no interpretation.

Some Anabaptist leaders focused on teaching people the written Word of God. They successfully implanted large amounts of the biblical text into the heads of those who desired to learn what the Bible could teach us on many different topics. When brought to trial some of these Anabaptists, many of whom were women, many of whom couldn’t read, had massive chunks of texts swirling around their heads that they could recite from memory when asked to justify their position on various issues.

Others weren’t generally satisfied with the approach of some preachers of the day. They sought primarily to listen to the inner word, spoken by God to our hearts, which is heard in the “abyss of our soul”, a phrase they liked to use. One wrote:
The audible, spoken Word, preached on street corners or in secret meetings in caves, is an important sign that points to the true, living Word of God, that inner word. A true preacher will pay very close attention to this inner word, before opening his or her lips to express it to others. Through laying our entire lives down before God, in his service, sacrificing our will for God’s will, we will free ourselves from the bondage of this world, and live as messengers of his Word, of God’s love.
Some were very harsh in their criticism of those so-called evangelical preachers of their day whose sole purpose was to cut down other leaders in order to drum up support for themselves like so many a Canadian politician whose greatest hope for election lay in smearing enough mud on the face of his opponent. Yes, some Anabaptists smeared mud, some were smeared upon, and others denounced the use of mud for smearing.

Although their use of the Bible is an important issue, few issues were more important for them than the practice of baptism. So if I were an Anabaptist preacher, what would I say about baptism itself?

Although there was some disagreement on certain details concerning baptism, one thing they agreed on was that infant baptism was not legitimate. One early writer referred to it as “the root and the tree from which all desolation and abomination developed, and just as the roots and tree spoiled, the fruits spoiled likewise.”

Many of them talked about a three-fold baptism. Do you know what three baptisms there were? Spirit, water, blood.

Baptism, simply put, was for those who desired from that hour on to improve themselves, by believing in the power of the Holy Spirit. Exactly how the water was connected to the Spirit was a matter of discussion.

One key idea was that the Spirit’s presence in your life meant that you had surrendered your life to God. As a sign of this commitment water baptism was used to seal it, like a covenant. There were pretty harsh consequences for those who were found by their fellows to have broken the covenant to live in full surrender to God’s Word. Enter stage left, the ominous Ban, shunning and the like. In its original conception the idea was that the community was responsible to God to make sure each individual was remaining within the covenant of obedience.

It was obvious to those in the early movement, like it should be obvious today, that when we fully surrender our lives to God, we will suffer to various degrees. The baptism of blood meant that ultimately our lives were God’s property to be used to demonstrate his love, his way. One early leader called the baptism of blood the “daily mortification of the flesh even unto death.” Martyrdom was a possible consequence, but it also meant that even if we didn’t die a martyr’s death, we’re to give our whole lives to God each day, or to mortify our flesh voluntarily, as they would say. In this way the baptism of blood wasn’t just for those who died as witnesses, but also for those who lived as witnesses.

Despite the practice of the Ban, another emphasis was on making sure that people could hold religious beliefs with a free, individual conscience. If I were an Anabaptist, what would I say about the rights of those from other religions to believe and practice freely?

Some would say that it’s ridiculous to suggest that even if those of other religions truly fear God, for example, Muslims, Jews, or any other religions for that matter, that they should be treated as our brothers and sisters in the faith. Surely we don’t believe that people could know Christ in their hearts if their ears or eyes hadn’t seen witness of the Christ we know through Scripture. Again, this sounds more like the outer Word argument.

Those who stressed the Inner Word of God, believed that we can’t really know whether the Inner Word has spoken to someone of another religion. And we certainly don’t have any business as Christians trying to coerce or to ask our governments to coerce people of other faiths.

Although some early leaders thought that God wanted to bring down the present regime and bring in a new political order, it seems that very few of the Anabaptist leaders were against having a political order. If I were an Anabaptist, what would I say about the role of government?

Some would say that since the time of Adam government had been instituted by God. Although it should depend on God as the authority, government has become selfish. Since it serves itself and not its God-given purpose it no longer has the authority to judge all the words and deeds of humankind like it did in the Old Testament. Insofar as we sin against others, and sin against the State, it has the right to punish us. But it doesn’t have the right to punish us when we sin against God, or when it thinks we’ve sinned against God. Since it also sins against God, that would be like the blind leading the blind.

Then the question arose whether a Christian could function as an employee of the government if it meant that we would participate in restraining the evil of this world by using force. It would mean punishing others on the government’s behalf. On one level the question went back to whether we had the right to admonish one another, since we were all sinful, while others felt that if we worked for the government with a sort of what-would-Jesus-do attitude, then it was possible to serve both God and the State as a Christian.

One obvious issue that arose was whether could Christians “bear the sword”, or use force that was violent. Through a rather complicated turn of events, Anabaptists eventually came to identity largely with non-resistance, or a pacifist ethic although the early movement had some serious disagreements on this issue. But on the question of the government’s use of force, there was a diversity of opinions.

If I were an Anabaptist today, I might argue that those who call themselves Christians should NOT resist being conquered by another nation. Even to defend ourselves against a foreign empire, be it Hitler’s Nazis or whichever terrorist threat captivates us today. At the same time there was an admission that the sword WAS ordained by God for use outside the perfection of Christ, for non-Christians to use in warding off the enemy. This opinion virtually rejected the idea of a Christian government.

Or as an Anabaptist I might believe that government, and taking care of society in general is something that we should pray is done by Christians, who we hope and pray would be more just than non-Christians. Since God ordained government, and it needs people to work in it, if the shoe fits, wear it, but wear it so that people know you’re a Christian.

Many of these issues about Christian participation in government became irrelevant very quickly to the original Anabaptists. They weren’t exactly invited to be part of governments, but were usually hunted down by them. In 1529 the canonical law against re-baptism was re-invoked throughout most of Europe and it became illegal to be among those who rejected the traditional baptism of the Catholic Church and practiced re-baptism and refused to let their infants be baptized. Many underwent sever
e persecution at the hands of both Protestant and Catholic governments. Some recanted.

Some believed this baptism of blood would plant seeds of new life for the true Church. These seeds would grow into a vineyard that would bear many different types of fruits. Let’s keep in mind that it wasn’t a single seed that was planted back in the Reformation. There were many different seeds. The seeds produced what at times has been a jungle, rather than a nicely hoed field, as we sometimes imagine the church was in the past.

If someone were to say to you, “the blood of these martyrs flows through your Mennonite veins” it’s possible that some of you would remember the stories of the martyrs you’ve heard, and feel your connection with that cloud of witnesses. Some of you might just be grossed out by those words and the image it invokes. But then, stepping back a moment to reflect on what it means, perhaps we could agree that it is by faith in the particular witness of these martyrs, and faith in the truth of their witness, that we become joined by means of a tradition, a blood-line, so to speak. If we think it’s something that runs through DNA, we’re kidding ourselves. On the other hand if we think that we can construct a fellowship and an identity based on how we see ourselves merely at this present moment, divorced from the length of the blood-line, and the historical context and reality out of which it grew, I think we’re also kidding ourselves. On this point we can be sure: The original Anabaptists did not believe in baptism THROUGH blood, or through ethnicity or heritage.

Rather than having faith void of tradition, and rather than having faith in tradition itself, let us have faith that the tradition in which we stand has sought to be faithful to God, even though we’ve had different understandings of what “faithfulness to God” has meant throughout our diverse tradition. Above all, may we find our vision in God, by God and with God.

In the words of one Anabaptist leader: The foundation of faith must be firm. Then the building will stand, in spite of wind and water. This firm foundation has been laid by God. Seek the foundation in the temple and seat of divine glory, that is, in your heart and soul. Amen.