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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