Skip to main content

Clothing the Naked Anabaptist

The Naked Anabaptist: this title recommended by the editors of Stuart Murray’s book certainly helped sales for a text certainly worth reading (note 1).

Early Anabaptist beginnings have resonated with many twenty-first century Christians in the global north who seek new post-Christendom expressions of church.

Here is Murray’s summary of those sixteenth-century convictions:

  • to follow Christ in life whatever the consequences;
  • to regard the Bible as authoritative not only in debate, but also in living and with ethical issues;
  • to hold to the separation of church and state;
  • to live in mutual accountability with other baptized members of the community, which includes using church discipline to maintain distinctiveness;
  • to share resources;
  • to live non-violently and to tell the truth;
  • and to expect that suffering is normal for faithful disciples and is a mark of the true church (note 2).

Indeed, most of those themes can be found clustered together in some early Anabaptist communities, for example, in Bruges. While these communities were short-lived, they were never “naked.” Each came with unique cultural baggage; their members were as human as you or I, and their context determined how and why they "clothed" and presented themselves as they did.

Are the “clothed” Anabaptists—i.e., especially those “next generations” of Mennonites who actually did the work of experimentation and construction of Anabaptist models in their contexts and who passed on a tradition—at all helpful for post-Christendom recoveries?

At the very point when the Mennonite projects in Soviet Union had almost completely collapsed with Josef Stalin’s purges (1937), J. Winfield Fretz, America’s first Mennonite sociologist, concluded that the “Russian Mennonite” community had successfully developed “at least fifteen different types of mutual aid activities” in a unique attempt to build a “holy community,” that is, “economic and social institutions that were in keeping with their religious convictions.” These experiments were governed by “a commonly accepted ethic, the centre of which was the principle of mutual aid” (note 3).

The activities and institutions mentioned by Fretz included:

  • fire insurance;
  • schools and agricultural associations;
  • an orphan fund and credit banks;
  • mutual ownership of breeding stock;
  • financial assistance to younger generations;
  • care for the aged;
  • care for the village poor and assistance to widows;
  • medical assistance;
  • cooperative marketing of products;
  • co-responsibility for village problems;
  • cultural support with regard to schools, music, and gatherings for funerals and weddings.

Though not unique or original to Menno Simons, mutual aid or the idea of watching and caring for fellow travellers on the journey of faith “where no one is allowed to beg” (note 4) was a pillar of his teaching, and forms one of the most consistent threads in the Anabaptist–Mennonite story.

Of course, many of these Mennonite commitments in Greater Russia matured over time; and Fretz’s assumption that these developed with “complete freedom from interference by the State” is very far from accurate.

Yet Fretz noted correctly, however, that it was not church leadership that directly encouraged “the formation of mutual aid societies”—though it “exerts its influence” and is at the “centre of the community.”

Rather, when permitted, this is “the course Mennonitism will take where it is free to apply its principles, economic and social as well as political, to every-day life” (note 5).

While Fretz’s account of uniquely Anabaptist-Mennonite achievements in the Russian Mennonite story would require much more contextualization and demythologization today, it is a large and important claim—especially when some had long agreed that “[f]rom the standpoint of the vision of the Anabaptists, however, the Mennonite Russian experiment was a failure. It was a failure in so far as it depended largely upon cultural supports and ethnic lines of continuity instead of pure spirituality” (note 6).

That critique too is rooted in myth without context, assuming “naked” Anabaptists with a "pure spirituality."

Russia’s 100,000 Mennonites (pre-WWI pop.) pulled on some very important Anabaptist strands to develop their own "Anabaptist clothing" for a very unique and welcoming host community: a multi-confessional, multi-cultural Imperial Russia which was very different from Western Europe or North America.

Of course there were many inner-contradictions in what they developed, and gross failures along the way as well.

But when the context changed—e.g., with a very toxic and eventually brutal form of Soviet post-Christendom—there was consensus among those charged to bring the Mennonite experiment to end that the clothing was quite difficult to remove! Here a few examples:

1. 1925: Report by the Central Bureau of the German Section to the Communist Central Committee: The Mennonite population is uniquely “characterized by a narrow-national [German-Mennonite] outlook, lack of class stratification, [and a] passive attitude … toward Soviet social life”—which makes party and Soviet work among them “more difficult” (note 7).

2. 1925: Commission of the Presidium Commission: “It is extremely difficult to conduct [communist] party work in Mennonite colonies because it is carried out among a population saturated with religious fanaticism and caste isolation” (note 8).

3. 1926: German Section of the Zaporozhye Okrug Committee: “Extraordinary difficulties” are reported in the Chortitza Colony, where authorities are having little success in drawing Mennonites “to active participation in the construction of the Soviet order” and into “the public life of village clubs and [communist] reading rooms.” The committee concludes that the youth are both “restrained by parents” and “by preachers in meeting houses [churches]” (note 9).

By 1937-38 when the terror and executions reached their peak in the Mennonite communities, there were again many naked, severely tested Anabaptists—with only a few bare (but critical) threads of the tradition left; arguably these were enough to survive and begin anew to cloth another generation.

While the “clothing” of the Russian Mennonite experience and heritage was certainly stitched with cloth patches from the sixteenth century, as it were, it also offers modern Anabaptists a broader “wardrobe” of important options to try on and adapt for their own more or less toxic post-Christendom contexts.

            ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Stuart Murray, The Naked Anabaptist: The Bare Essentials of a Radical Faith (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 2010).

Note 2: Murray, Naked Anabaptist, 152f. The necessity of suffering was a unique emphasis amongst the Bruges Anabaptists like de Roore. Cf. Martha J. Reimer-Blok, “The Theological Identity of Flemish Anabaptists: A Study of the Letters of Jacob de Roore,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 62, no. 3 (July 1988), 318–331; 326f.; 331.

Note 3: J. Winfield Fretz, “Mutual Aid Among Mennonites (I),” Mennonite Quarterly Review 13, no. 1 (1939), 28–58.

Note 4: Complete Writings of Menno Simons, edited by J. C. Wenger (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1984), 558.

Note 5: Fretz, “Mutual Aid Among Mennonites (I),” 36; 58.

Note 6: J. Lawrence Burkholder, The Problem of Social Responsibility from the Perspective of the Mennonite Church (Elkhart, IN: Institute of Mennonite Studies, 1989), 144. Cf. also (no author given), Russian Mennonites (Ephrata, PA: Eastern Mennonite, 2002), 49f.: “The Mennonites who went to Russia desired to preserve their faith, their German language, and their agricultural way of life. Yet, from the very beginning, they forfeited aspects of the early Anabaptist view of the church.” See also Robert Kreider, “The Anabaptist Conception of the Church in the Russian Environment, 1789–1870,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 25, no. 1 (January 1951), 17–33.

Note 7: “Minutes of a joint session of the Central Bureau of the German Section of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine with German sections of okrug committees about work with Mennonites November 10–12, 1925,” in J. Toews and P. Toews, Union of Citizens of Dutch Lineage in Ukraine (1922–1927): Mennonite and Soviet Documents, translated by J. B. Toews, O. Shmakina, and W. Regehr (Fresno, CA: Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies, 2011), 318–324, https://archive.org/details/unionofcitizenso0000unse.

Note 8: “Conclusions of the Commission of the Presidium Commission following inspection of the Union of Citizens of Dutch Lineage, Late July 1925,” in J. Toews and P. Toews, Union of Citizens of Dutch Lineage, 291–296; 294.

Note 9: “Report of the German Section of the Zaporozhye Okrug Committee, January 4, 1926,” in J. Toews and P. Toews, Union of Citizens of Dutch Lineage in Ukraine, 324–329.

Note 10: Thieleman J. Van Braght, The Martyrs’ Mirror: The Story of Fifteen Centuries of Martyrdom (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 2001), 655f., https://archive.org/details/TheBloodyTheaterOrMartyrsMirrorOfTheDefenselessChristians/page/n653.

Note 11: Most famously a "Group of 12" Anabaptists were martyred in Bruges in 1561. A hymn was written to remember these “twelve friends killed in Bruges”; the entire story is sung in twelve verses and each martyr is individually named. Cf. hymn in Philipp Wackernagel, Lieder der niederländischen Reformierten aus der Zeit der Verfolgung im 16. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt, 1867), 130, https://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10591883_00156.html.

---
To cite this post: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, “Clothing the Naked Anabaptist,” History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), July 12, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/07/clothing-naked-anabaptist.html.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Swiss and Palatinate Connections

Sometime after 1850 Andreas Plennert and his family immigrated to South Russia from the Culm Region of West Prussia. Though there was at least one Mennonite “Plehnert” who had already immigrated to Russia in 1793, it is not a very common Prussian-Russian Mennonite name. As such, however, it is easier to trace than many and offers a minority narrative and identity within the longer and broader Russian Mennonite story. The account below is adapted largely from information in Horst Penner, Die ost- und westpreußischen Mennoniten , vol. 1, though I have expanded upon his work to offer a slightly different narrative. In 1724 there was a group of Mennonites forced out of the Memel region in East Prussia for political and religious reasons and were given assistance to resettle back to West Prussia in areas populated by Mennonites. Among the 23 households that went to the Stuhm region there is one Plenert listed, namely Christian Plenert. We know that Mennonites entered the Memel region ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Catherine the Great’s 1763 Manifesto

“We must swarm our vast wastelands with people. I do not think that in order to achieve this it would be useful to compel our non-Christians to accept our faith--polygamy for example, is even more useful for the multiplication of the population. … "Russia does not have enough inhabitants, …but still possesses a large expanse of land, which is neither inhabited nor cultivated. … The fields that could nourish the whole nation, barely feeds one family..." – Catherine II (Note 1 ) “We perceive, among other things, that a considerable number of regions are still uncultivated which could easily and advantageously be made available for productive use of population and settlement. Most of the lands hold hidden in their depth an inexhaustible wealth of all kinds of precious ores and metals, and because they are well provided with forests, rivers and lakes, and located close to the sea for purpose of trade, they are also most convenient for the development and growth of many kinds ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Selbstschutz (Self-Defence Units) and Benjamin H. Unruh

Abram Kröker, editor of the Molotschna (South Russia/ Ukraine) -based Mennonite Friedensstimme , wrote that Mennonites are “predestined to foreshadow … even in an imperfect way, the great peace among nations in the Thousand-Year-Reign [of Christ].” And among all denominations, “it has pleased God,” according to Kröker, to “present and manifest” through the Mennonites this “pearl of evangelical truth gained at great cost by our fathers” ( note 1 ). And it is because of this theological hope and inheritance that “our youth are raised differently,” Kröker reminded his readers; “not military bravery or fighting are presented as the highest civic virtues, but rather sacrifice, suffering and renunciation for the sake of others. In all our schools, non-resistance is explicitly taught and impressed [upon students] according to the Mennonite catechism” ( note 2 ). But taking up arms in self-defence was nuanced differently by his colleague and influential 37-year-old teacher and theologian Benja...
Post a Comment
Read more

Quiet in the Land: Peter Fast, 1932-2010

My father Peter Fast passed away in January 2010. The years have given me many opportunities to reflect on his life and impact. He was a gentle and good person--and could work like horse. He was born into poverty in 1932 in Paraguay. His parents were pioneers, first in Fernheim and then (1937) in Friesland. He liked to tell me that he ate manioc root for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I was never sure if that was true, and it didn’t help to convince me to eat things I didn’t like. His mother died when he was fourteen; the basic medical aid she needed was out of reach. His new step-mother was a complex person who made life difficult for him and others. Dad only finished the 6th grade in Friesland. He was more than happy to get off the school bench and onto a horse. I don’t think I ever saw him write a complete sentence in my life, whether in English or in German. He had no interest in history, let alone reading—though over time he read the local city paper. Nothing I’ve written on...
Post a Comment
Read more

Jews and Mennonites Together in Danzig's Suburbs

There has been very little reflection on the relationship of Jews and Mennonites in the suburb of Schottland (or Alt-Schottland or Stare Szkoty) where Mennonites first settled in the mid-1500s. Here Mennonites and Jews lived in the small community together for two centuries, quite literally on the margins outside the gates of the city of Danzig. Many historic maps that include Alt Schottland have become available in recent years ( note 1; pic ). H.G. Mannhardt’s book on the Danzig Mennonite church community plus some archival membership lists are our best sources for the Mennonite experience, while illustrations from the day bring many of those episodes of prosperity, repressions, war, plague, emigration, flooding etc. in an urban environment to life ( note 2 ). Peter J. Klassen’s writings on Mennonites in Poland and Prussia also present newer research on Mennonite life in and around Danzig in helpful ways ( note 3 ). There is one small sentence in Klassen’s larger volume that sugg...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mennonite-Designed Mosque on the Molotschna

The “Peter J. Braun Archive" is a mammoth 78 reel microfilm collection of Russian Mennonite materials from 1803 to 1920 -- and largely still untapped by researchers ( note 1 ). In the files of Philipp Wiebe, son-in-law and heir to Johann Cornies, is a blueprint for a mosque ( pic ) as well as another file entitled “Akkerman Mosque Construction Accounts, 1850-1859” ( note 2 ). The Molotschna Mennonites were settlers on traditional Nogai lands; their Nogai neighbours were a nomadic, Muslim Tartar group. In 1825, Cornies wrote a significant anthropological report on the Nogai at the request of the Guardianship Committee, based largely on his engagements with these neighbours on Molotschna’s southern border ( note 3 ). Building upon these experiences and relationships, in 1835 Cornies founded the Nogai agricultural colony “Akkerman” outside the southern border of the Molotschna Colony. Akkerman was a projection of Cornies’ ideal Mennonite village outlined in exacting detail, with un...
Post a Comment
Read more

Invitation to the Russian Consulate, Danzig, January 19, 1788

B elow is one of the most important original Mennonite artifacts I have seen. It concerns January 19. The two land scouts Jacob Höppner and Johann Bartsch had returned to Danzig from Russia on November 10, 1787 with the Russian Immigration Agent, Georg von Trappe. Soon thereafter, Trappe had copies of the royal decree and agreement (Gnadenbrief) printed for distribution in the Flemish and Frisian Mennonite congregations in Danzig and other locations, dated December 29, 1787 ( see pic ; note 1 ). After the flyer was handed out to congregants in Danzig after worship on January 13, 1788, city councilors made the most bitter accusations against church elders for allowing Trappe and the Russian Consulate to do this; something similar had happened before ( note 2 ). In the flyer Trappe boasted that land scouts Höppner and Bartsch met not only with Gregory Potemkin, Catherine the Great’s vice-regent and administrator of New Russia, but also with “the Most Gracious Russian Monarch” herse...
Post a Comment
Read more

Snapshots of Danzig Mennonites, late 1600s & early 1700s

A picture can be worth a thousand words. We do not have photographs, but we have a few colour paintings of life in and around Danzig in the late 1600s and early 1700s, as well as maps. We also have a limited number of "textual snapshots" of Mennonites at this time and place, which offer an instructive window into that foreign world. These snapshots of work, worship, health, education, community relationships, smaller repressions, and security can contribute to the creation of a larger collage of Mennonite life in Danzig and Polish Prussia.  Snapshot 1 : In 1681 there were approximately 180 Mennonite families who lived in the “gardens” or villages outside Danzig, with 113 of those families within the jurisdiction of the city. At this time Mennonites were barred from owning houses within the walls of the city. Of these 113 family heads, we know: 43 were retailers of spirits, 24 merchants, 9 lacemakers, 7 dyers, 3 silk dyers, 3 pressers, 2 brokers, 2 treasurers, 2 waitresses, et...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mennonites in Danzig's Suburbs: Maps and Illustrations

Mennonites first settled in the Danzig suburb of Schottland (lit: "Scotland"; “Stare-Szkoty”; also “Alt-Schottland”) in the mid-1500s. “Danzig” is the oldest and most important Mennonite congregation in Prussia. Menno Simons visited Schottland and Dirk Phillips was its first elder and lived here for a time. Two centuries later the number of families from the suburbs of Danzig that immigrated to Russia was not large: Stolzenberg 5, Schidlitz 3, Alt-Schottland 2, Ohra 1, Langfuhr 1, Emaus 1, Nobel 1, and Krampetz 2 ( map 1 ). However most Russian Mennonites had at least some connection to the Danzig church—whether Frisian or Flemish—if not in the 1700s, then in 1600s. Map 2  is from 1615; a larger number of Mennonites had been in Schottland at this point for more than four decades. Its buildings are not rural but look very Dutch urban/suburban in style. These were weavers, merchants and craftsmen, and since the 17th century they lived side-by-side with a larger number of Jews a...
Post a Comment
Read more

"They are useful to the state." An almost forgotten Prussian view of Mennonites, ca. 1780s-90s

In 1787 Mennonite interest for emigration was extremely strong outside the quasi independent City of Danzig in the Prussian annexed Marienwerder and Elbing regions. Even before the land scouts Johann Bartsch and Jacob Höppner had returned from Russia later that year, so many Mennonite exit applications had flooded offices that officials wrote Berlin in August 1787 for direction ( note 1a ). Initially officials did not see a problem: because Mennonites do not provide soldiers, the cantons lose nothing by their departure, and in fact benefit from the ten-percent tax imposed on financial assets leaving the state.  Ludwig von Baczko (1756-1823), Professor of History at the Artillery Academy in Königsberg, East Prussia, was the general editor of a series that included a travelogue through Prussia written by a certain Karl Ephraim Nanke. Nanke had no special love for Mennonites, but was generally balanced in his judgements and based his now almost forgotten account of Mennonites on perso...
Post a Comment
Read more