What is the Church to Say? Letter 3 (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

Mennonite endorsement Trump the man

No one denies the moral flaws of Donald Trump, least of all Trump himself. In these next months Mennonite pastors who supported Trump will have many opportunities to restate to their congregation and their children why someone like Trump won their support. It may be obvious, but the words can be difficult to find. To help, I offer examples from Mennonite history with statements from one our strongest leaders of the past century, Prof. Benjamin H. Unruh (see the nice Mennonite Encyclopedia article on him, GAMEO). I have substituted only a few words, indicated by square brackets to help with the adaptation.

The [MAGA] movement is like the early Anabaptist movement! 

In the change of government in 1933, Unruh saw in the [MAGA] movement “things breaking forth which our forefathers in the 16th century had advocated” (note 1). Specifically, Unruh writes to a state official some years later, “Mennonites find much in the teaching of the [President] that which they had emphasized already in the 16th century, e.g., the emphasis on a practical Christianity” (note 2). Elsewhere Unruh would include freedom of conscience and separation of church and state. (Substitutions: National Socialism; Führer).

[Trump] can be evangelized! 

In 1936 Unruh was convinced that [Trump]'s “spirit is open to the truth of the gospel." However [Trump] “will never be able to perceive this gospel in its broad generosity unless a great redeeming word of the message comes to him by a "core group" of Christians (like the Mennonites) who can embody that good news of the gospel! Unruh was confident that Mennonite commitments to practical discipleship and dynamic understanding of church are timely (note 3). (Substitution: Hitler)

We can work with [Trump]! 

Church leaders critical of the new government are "headstrong and therefore ultimately unevangelical," according to Prof. Unruh. His own method has always been to trust in God, trust Christ, but also to work with influential authorities earnestly and without fear, and to trust them too (note 4). Those critical Mennonite voices that are all "whipped up," or the liberal or pietist Mennonite voices can have very little positive impact (note 5).  (Substitution: Hitler).

[Trump] is not pious, but like Mennonite leaders of old, he is a man of action! 

Prof. Unruh likened [Trump] to a [Mennonite] district mayor in Russia: usually a man of action who brought Mennonite settlements to the heights of development, though perhaps not always the most pious man. [Trump] is the man for [America], to whom the [American] people [will] owe their well-being.” Don’t worry; there are [MAGA] leaders with whom Unruh had talked who were fully committed to true Christian doctrine" (note 6). (Substitutions: Hitler; Germany, Nazi Party)

Give praise where praise is due! 

Prof. Unruh had opportunity to share his view with a government official: “[Donald Trump] wants nothing for himself, everything only for his [United States of America]. I honour him with my whole heart, and I love him as one can only love a sovereign … Only history will reveal what God through [Donald Trump] has granted the [American] people in its entirety … and what he will still also grant Europe and the world; [Trump] is the great combatant of [extreme socialists] (note 7). (Substitutions: Hitler, Germans, Stalin)

He is the carrier of America’s blessing to be a blessing. 

The great [presidents] like [Lincoln], “called by God, have passed, but now that hand of blessing is laid on [Donald Trump]’s head. That blessing comes from the depths! It has power” (note 8). (Substitutions: Hindenburg; Hitler)

In [Trump] there is joy! 

In 1936 Mennonite doctoral candidate Fritz Kliewer (Unruh’s protégé) returned from Paraguay to complete his studies. On the eve of the leader’s re-election, Kliewer described the euphoria: “When one witnesses such weeks in [America], one is involuntarily drawn into the [President]’s spell and you cannot help but profess allegiance to the [MAGA] movement. I listened to almost all of the [President]’s speeches. ... A response of indescribable jubilation roared out everywhere, which often did not want to end. All the speeches were imbued with a sincere will for peace. I particularly liked the parts where he spoke of his responsibility towards the [American] people and to the Almighty and “not to any international court” (note 9). (Substitutions: Germany, Führer, Nazi movement)

[Trump] is God-sent

“And as Prof. Unruh has aptly said,” Fritz Kliewer wrote to the Mennonite paper in Paraguay, “‘[Donald Trump] is the great opponent of [radical left-wing socialists],’ and that is why he is also the God-sent leader of the [American] people” (note 10). (Substitutions: Adolf Hitler; Stalin, German)

Being true to God equals being true to [America]

Prof. Unruh reminded his readers in the Canadian paper Der Bote that Christians never live in a vacuum, but that they are always situated in a “people,” and that and each people has its unique divine mission. “Being true to God implies being true to one’s people, which in turn requires faithfulness to the nation,” as Frank H. Epp summarized Unruh’s Bote arguments (note 11). (Substitution: Germany)

In 1936, Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung employed the term Ergriffenheit—of being seized or possessed—to describe this eruption of the collective unconscious of a people with “one man who is obviously possessed” and who “is possessing a whole people to such an extent that everything is set in motion and has started rolling, and is slipping unstoppably out of control" (note 12).

            ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Benjamin Unruh, in Erich Göttner, “Zur Kirchenfrage der Mennoniten: Außerordentliche Kuratoriumssitzung der Vereinigung der Mennonitengemeinde im Deutschen Reich in Berlin vom 17. –19. November 1933,” Mennonitische Blätter 80, no. 12 (December 1933), 114. https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/newspapers/Mennonitische%20Blaetter/1933-1941/DSCF0887.JPG.

Note 2: Benjamin Unruh to SS-Hauptsturmführer Walther Kolrep, January 30, 1940, 1, letter, MS 295, folder 13, Mennonite Library and Archives—Bethel College. https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_295/folder_13/SKMBT_C35107061214280_0001.jpg.

Note 3: B. H. Unruh to Christian Neff, October 5, 1936, 1, 2b, Schowalter Correspondence 1929–1945, from Mennonitische Forschungsstelle Weierhof (hereafter MFSt)

Note 4: B. Unruh to Abram Braun, Feb. 5, 1944, from Vereinigung Collection, MFSt.

Note 5: B. Unruh to Christian Neff, October 5, 1936, 1, 2b.

Note 6: N. J. Neufeld (Winnipeg), “Unsere Rückreise von Europa nach Amerika,” Mennonitische Rundschau 59, no. 47 (November 18, 1936), 13. https://archive.org/details/sim_die-mennonitische-rundschau_1936-11-18_59_47/page/n11/mode/2up.

Note 7: B. Unruh, December 8, 1934, extracted in B. Unruh to Major Reitzenstein, January 29, 1937, 6f., from Bundesarchiv, copy in MS 416, from MLA-B. https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_416/potsdam%20microfilm%20selections/69558-142.jpg.  

Note 8: Menno-Blatt, 6, no. 5 (May 1935), 3.  https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/newspapers/Mennoblatt/1930-1945/1935-1940/DSCF7169.JPG

Note 9: Fritz Kliewer, “Aus Deutschland,” Kämpfende Jugend (Menno-Blatt) 3, no. 5 (June 1936) 3. https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/newspapers/Mennoblatt/1930-1945/1935-1940/DSCF7222.JPG.

Note 10: Fritz Kliewer, “Aus Deutschland,” Kämpfende Jugend (Menno-Blatt) 3, no. 5 (June 1936) 4.

Note 11: Cf. Frank H. Epp, “An Analysis of Germanism and National Socialism in the Immigrant Newspaper of a Canadian Minority Group, the Mennonites, in the 1930’s,” PhD dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1965, 227, 228, 229.

Note 12: Carl Gustav Jung, Essays on Contemporary Events: The Psychology of Nazism, translated by R.F.C. Hull (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), 16. Trans. altered.

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To cite this page: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, "What is the Church to Say? Letter 3 (of 4) to American Mennonite Friends," History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), November 17, 2024. https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2024/11/what-is-church-to-say-letter-3-of-4-to.html