What is the Church to Say? Letter 2 of 4 to American Mennonite Friends

Irony is used in this post to provoke and invite critical thought; the historical research on the Mennonite experience is accurate and carefully considered. ~ANF

In a few short months the American government will start to fulfill its campaign promises to round up and deport undocumented immigrants. The responsible cabinet members have already been appointed. By early Spring 2025, Mennonite pastors/leaders who supported Trump will need to speak to and address the matter in their congregations. It will be difficult to find words. How might they prepare?

Sometimes a template from the past is helpful. To that end, I offer my summary of a text by retired Mennonite pastor and conference leader Gustav Kraemer. (There is a nice entry on him in the Mennonite Encyclopedia, GAMEO).

My summary is faithful to the German original, 1938. With only a few minor changes, it could be useful for the coming year. Adaptations are mostly in square brackets, with the key at the bottom of the post.

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Retired [American] Pastor and conference leader [__] was invited by the Mennonite congregation [__] to speak on Mennonites and [America]. He structured his talk along the [MAGA] platform. He was preaching to the converted: “We” Mennonites, should have nothing less than deep gratitude and praise for the [President] who answered the call “to lead our people out of the darkest night and into the light of a new morning.”

Under the previous administration, millions of [Americans] were unemployed, without hope and destitute, Pastor [__] reminded the congregation. But now the economy is strengthening and [Americans] have work again. With the new [President], we have been spared the “hellish chaos of the radical left.” And [America] will no longer be taken advantage of by its enemies on the world stage either. We are strong again because of our [President] and his faith in a higher justice, in destiny, and in the [American] people, according to Pastor [__].

But [MAGA] is much more than a political and economic movement, the retired denominational leader told the congregation. It is a social and cultural movement in which virtue and values are rooted in [America]—the wellspring of the health and renewal of our families and people. Once again, young men will be trained to be clean, honest, hard-working, healthy, and close to nature. Our young [American] women too, rich or poor, will be not shy away from the high calling of motherhood. New maternal health regulations are designed “to promote” healthy childbearing in [America] and keep out “bad genes.” With the new [President], [America] is a new community of destiny with equal rights and responsibilities to the benefit of all hard-working [Americans].

The [swamp] is already being [drained]. Arts and media funding is being purged, no longer “dependent on the praise or ridicule of [woke] media bandits” or subject to “the defilement and devastations of perverse demons.” It will reflect the cultural heritage of all [Americans].

Our Mennonite divisions and our differences as [American] Christians too are yielding to the common destiny and goal of renewal in line with the [MAGA] platform, namely, to “defend the freedom for all religious denominations, provided they do not endanger the existence of the State or offend the concepts of decency and morality of the [American] way of life.”

In his address, Pastor [__] recognized that [undocumented immigrants] and their families are now being excluded from the new [America]. He reminded his listeners that any revolutionary movement like [MAGA] must take risks—in doing so, some errors will certainly be made. However, judgements should only be passed on the basis of the goals, highest desires, program, and direction of the [MAGA] movement. It is within that broader context and in view of the great crisis that [America] was facing under the previous regime that the “[undocumented immigrant] question” must be understood, according to Pastor [__]. In this regard the international media criticism of [America] has been one-sided for years; [Americans] suffered and no one said a word in the main-stream media. But now, suddenly, “if [undocumented immigrants] are somehow impacted,” they “know how to scream” according to what one [immigrant] told the pastor, and the “world press” takes notice. Again, no one highlighted the suffering [Americans] endured because of the [undocumented immigrants], many of whom are criminals.

Of course, there are “decent and base elements” in every community, including with the [undocumented immigrants]; “personal hatred against individual [undocumented immigrants]” cannot be what this about for Mennonites. Pastor [__] refused to endorse the claim that “every [undocumented immigrant] is a demon.” No, no! Nonetheless, the “fate” of individual illegal [immigrants] must be seen within the larger developments, intentions, and goals of [MAGA]. Its platform is not [anti-immigrant], according to Pastor [__], but [illegal immigrants] are crippling [Americans] and our businesses. Like “parasites,” [undocumented immigrants] have choked us economically. Whenever [undocumented immigrants] take a job, real [Americans] lose. [Illegal immigrants] have shown hatred and contempt towards all of us. They will do whatever it takes to suck benefits from [America]. [American]-Christian "idealism" once extended safety and hospitality to [undocumented immigrants], “but unfortunately without the desired results.” That our [open border] has been abused and misused is well-known, according to the pastor; the complaints and cries of those who [entered illegally] are full of political lies and “impudent mockery of all that is [American] and Christian.”

While Pastor [__] knows and respects many [Americans] whose parents or whose spouse is an [undocumented immigrant], and while he feels very sorry for their individual lot, he also understands that this “hard battle” to remove and expel them is necessary. The tone of this does not suit him; the “sound” of deportation does not make “for beautiful, harmonic music,” but it is necessary. At first, the new [anti-immigrant] laws “appeared very brutal and unjust to me too, but later I could appreciate that … in the ordering of this world, which of course is God’s order … we live as members of a community, in both good times and in bad.” And in this case too, the children are punished for the sin of the parents “to the third and fourth generation” (Exodus 34:7). The pain of exclusion will fall upon the decent and innocent individuals as well. [Undocumented immigrants] have sinned against a nation that offers hospitality. Again, the Mennonite pastor stated, he really is “very saddened for individuals” impacted, but what is necessary for [America], and the “private happiness” of the [undocumented immigrant] are two very different things. “Great floods engulf the guilty and the innocent alike in the life of a people,” the retired conference minister reminded the congregation. But in the case of [undocumented immigrants], it is mostly “evil seed sown that is now being reaped.”

This should be an important reminder to Christians who tend to focus piously on their own souls and the afterlife, and who define “kingdom work” very narrowly. Rather, we all do well to see in the intentions and work of our federal troops what they are really doing: “casting out demons” and creating space and form for the good, "just as Jesus did."

--Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

This is my summary of Pastor Gustav Kraemer’s text Wir und unsere Volksgemeinschaft (We [Mennonites] and our National Community). It was well received by the denominational chair, Elbing Pastor Emil Händiges, who recommended it to all churches.

I have only changed a few words from my original summary of the German (square brackets: Jew / undocumented immigrant; Nazim / MAGA; Führer/ President; Germany/America, etc). It is, however, faithful to the German text.

At the time, Kraemer was Pastor Emeritus of the Krefeld Mennonite Church. He delivered the guest presentation at the Heubuden Mennonite church in West Prussia, on January 25, 1938 in advance of the fifth anniversary of Hitler’s seizure of power (Jan. 30). It was published by the Krefeld congregation later in the year in time for the "Fifth Annual German Mennonite Gathering.” Here is the German original: https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/books/1938,%20Kraemer%20Wir%20und%20unsere%20Volksgemeinschaft/.

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To cite this page: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, "What is the Church to Say? Letter 2 (of 4) to American Mennonite Friends," History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), November 14, 2024. https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2024/11/what-is-church-to-say-letter-2-of-4-to.html

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