Featured Baptists and Anabaptists

Here's a website you might find interesting for doing research on the "Mennonite Wing" of Anabaptists: http://mennohistsoc.mennonite.net/

WPE3BQL was once a Mennonite. Not the ones who wear the distinctive dress but what we used to call "New" Mennonites. IOW, their dress wasn't any different than your typical Lutheran or Presbyterian (or Baptist).

The "New" Mennonites split from the "Old" ones about 1867. There were secondary issues, I'm sure, but the principal one was over BUTTONS!

Yep, that's NOT a typo! Buttons were developed sometime in the middle 1700's, and their first major use was on military uniforms. A person doing combat could easily put on or take off his coat by means of buttons. Evidently it was Napoleon I who really made use of them in his efforts to conquer Europe (including the area where most Anabaptists originated [modern-day Germany, Netherlands, etc.]).

Since the Mennonite branch of Anabaptists were traditionally pacifistic ["Non-resistance" was their way of identifying it.], anything having to do with the military was looked upon in a rather negative light.

So, that's how "New Mennonites" came to be here in the USA.

This isn't to say that the Old and the New never cooperated on anything. The Mennonite Central Committee was formed to act on issues in which there seemed to be a general unifying consensus.

And, not too long ago, both Old and New merged, since after about 125 years of being separate, they "buried the hatchet."

My particular "New" Mennonite church was as liberal as the day is long. The pastors would read some selected passages from the NT from one pulpit and then walk over to another pulpit to pontificate on the necessity of maintaining "good works."

Salvation by grace through faith in the Blood of Jesus Christ was never mentioned.

The last pastor of this church learned his theology from Harvard Divinity School, which wasn't that much of a bastion of Bible thumping, sin hating, evangelism. The pastor previous to him left the church to pastor some liberal Lutheran church in the Midwest.

That was my experience with "Church & Religion" until about late 1965. About six months later, I received Christ as my Savior.

 

FWIW, Two of the men listed in my previous post RE: The Mennonite Historical Society are rather well-known historians among the Mennonites.

John Ruth was (maybe still is) a very good historical writer of my "home area." ZIP 18964.

Among his local history works are 'Twas Seeding Time (the history of the Mennonites in/around SE PA during our War for Independence); the historical text of 18964's Centennial (1887-1987) book Seeing Souderton; and the book about Union National Bank's centennial, The History of the Indian Valley & its Bank, 1876-1976.

John Ruth is also credited for writing a cantata, Christopher Dock, about a famous Mennonite educator [Christopher Dock Mennonite School is named in his honor.], and an oratorio Martyrs' Mirror, the Anabaptist "equivalent" to Foxe's Book of Martyrs.

 

I'm thankful too! :godisgood:

OTOH, I don't despise genuine pacifists/non-resisters, etc.

Most people who've seen the horrors of war (be they military or civilian) are, in their hearts, "against" war.

To me, war ought to be the very last option that a sovereign nation ought to take, and even then it needs to be "studied" quite comprehensively, and be in FULL compliance with Article I, Section 8, Clause 12.

The last time that the Congress of the USA declared war was in December, 1941.

Every subsequent military action that the USA has been (or is now in) has NOT been a declared war! Korea is still officially a UN-sponsored "police action." Vietnam began as a response to the Tonkin Gulf "Incident." Subsequent military actions were/are (at least in theory) in some compliance with the War Powers Act (e.g., Operation Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom, etc.).

An Act of Congress does NOT have the same legal weight as a part of our Constitution!

It was POTUS Dwight Eisenhower who was the last Commander-In-Chief who led the US military into combat and witnessed first-hand the horrors of war.

President/General Eisenhower hated war, and it was he who warned the USA of the dangers of an ever-encroaching "Military-Industrial Complex."

I may not have agreed with everything POTUS Eisenhower did or advocated, but on this, he was "spot on"!! :applause:

---WPE3BQL, retired USAF / TN ANG [23 years net total of service]

 

I'm still in the process of gleaning and/or recalling what little I know of how the Anabaptist Mennonites came to be and what their influence(s) may have been upon the people we now refer to as Baptists.

One simple way to approach this subject is to glean from Cornelius J. Dyck's An Introduction to Mennonite History: A Popular History of the Anabaptists and Mennonites, which is now in its 3d Edition (1993).

I had an earlier edition (probably the 2d one) but I don't remember what happened to it.

The book is published by Herald Press in Scottdale, PA & Waterloo, Ont., & is available via Amazon (ISBN 0-8361-3620-9).

Not surprisingly, the greatest concentration of Mennonites in the USA is still in SE PA, which I'd mentioned before in my 6/16 post as being where I was born/reared until 1964.

I didn't know that in Canada their greatest concentration is in (1st) Winnipeg, Manitoba & (2d) the southern half of neighboring Saskatchewan.

I suppose that makes some sense because these two areas are fairly good farming areas, which was historically the Mennonites' principal means of making a living.

Just thought y'all'd like to know.

 

McCree79: Thanks for your short history of the Mennonites. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Mennonites get their name from a Menno Simons?

How did Menno Simons fit into the history of the Mennonites?