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.

---

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

Comments

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...

Why study and write about Russian Mennonite history?

David G. Rempel’s credentials as an historian of the Russian Mennonite story are impeccable—he was a mentor to James Urry in the 1980s, for example, which says it all. In 1974 Rempel wrote an article on Mennonite historical work for an issue of the Mennonite Quarterly Review commemorating the arrival of Russian Mennonites to North America 100 years earlier ( note 1). In one section of the essay Rempel reflected on Mennonites’ general “lack of interest in their history,” and why they were so “exceedingly slow” in reflecting on their historic development in Russia with so little scholarly rigour. Rempel noted that he was not alone in this observation; some prominent Mennonites of his generation who had noted the same pointed an “extreme spirit of individualism” among Mennonites in Russia; the absence of Mennonite “authoritative voices,” both in and outside the church; the “relative indifference” of Mennonites to the past; “intellectual laziness” among many who do not wish to be distu...

Mennonite Literacy in Polish-Prussia

At a Mennonite wedding in Deutsch Kazun in 1833 (pic), neither groom nor bride nor the witnesses could sign the wedding register. A Görtz, a Janzen, a Schröder—born a Görtzen – illiterate. “This act was read to the married couple and witnesses, but not signed because they were unable to write.” Similarly, with the certification of a Mennonite death in Culm (Chelmo), West Prussia, 1813-14: “This document was read and it was signed by us because the witnesses were illiterate.” Spouse and children were unable to read or write. Names like Gerz, Plenert, Kliewer, Kasper, Buller and others. 14 families of the 25 Mennonite deaths registered --or 56%--could not sign the paperwork ( note 1 ; pic ). This appears to be an anomaly. We know some pioneers to Russia were well educated. The letters of the land-scout to Russia, Johann Bartsch to his wife back home (1786-87) are eloquent, beautifully written and indicate a high level of literacy ( note 2 ). Even Klaas Reimer (b. 1770), the founder t...

"Between Monarchs" a lot can happen (like revolt). A Mennonite "Accession" Prayer for the Monarch

It is surprising for many to learn that Russian Mennonites sang the Russian national anthem "God save the Tsar" in special worship services ... frequently! We have a "Mennonite prayer" and sermon sample for the accession of the monarch ( Thronbesteigung ) or its anniversary, with closing prayer-- and another Mennonite sampler of a coronation ( Krönung ) prayer, sermon and closing prayer ( note 1 ). After 70 years with one monarch, the manual is made for a time like this--try sharing it with your Canadian Mennonite pastor ;) Technically there is no “between” monarchs: “The Queen is Dead. Long live the King!” But there is much that happens or can happen before the coronation of the new monarch. Including revolt. Mennonites in Molotschna had hosted Tsar Alexander I shortly before his death in 1825. Upon his death in December, Alexander's brother and heir Constantine declined succession, and prior to the coronation of the next brother Nicholas, some 3,000 rebel (mos...

The Tinkelstein Family of Chortitza-Rosenthal (Ukraine)

Chortitza was the first Mennonite settlement in "New Russia" (later Ukraine), est. 1789. The last Mennonites left in 1943 ( note 1 ). During the Stalin years in Ukraine (after 1928), marriage with Jewish neighbours—especially among better educated Mennonites in cities—had become somewhat more common. When the Germans arrived mid-August 1941, however, it meant certain death for the Jewish partner and usually for the children of those marriages. A family friend, Peter Harder, died in 2022 at age 96. Peter was born in Osterwick to a teacher and grew up in Chortitza. As a 16-year-old in 1942, Peter was compelled by occupying German forces to participate in the war effort. Ukrainians and Russians (prisoners of war?) were used by the Germans to rebuild the massive dam at Einlage near Zaporizhzhia, and Peter was engaged as a translator. In the next year he changed focus and started teachers college, which included significant Nazi indoctrination. In 2017 I interviewed Peter Ha...

Russia: A Refuge for all True Christians Living in the Last Days

If only it were so. It was not only a fringe group of Russian Mennonites who believed that they were living the Last Days. This view was widely shared--though rejected by the minority conservative Kleine Gemeinde. In 1820 upon the recommendation of Rudnerweide (Frisian) Elder Franz Görz, the progressive and influential Mennonite leader Johann Cornies asked the Mennonite Tobias Voth (b. 1791) of Graudenz, Prussia to come and lead his Agricultural Association’s private high school in Ohrloff, in the Russian Mennonite colony of Molotschna. Voth understood this as nothing less than a divine call upon his life ( note 1; pic 3 ). In Ohrloff Voth grew not only a secondary school, but also a community lending library, book clubs, as well as mission prayer meetings, and Bible study evenings. Voth was the son of a Mennonite minister and his wife was raised Lutheran ( note 2 ). For some years, Voth had been strongly influenced by the warm, Pietist devotional fiction writings of Johann Heinrich Ju...

Eduard Wüst: A “Second Menno”?

Arguably the most significant outside religious influence on Mennonite s in the 19th century was the revivalist preaching of Eduard Wüst, a university-trained Württemberg Pietist minister installed by the separatist Evangelical Brethren Church in New Russia in 1843 ( note 1 ). With the end-time prophesies of a previous generation of Pietists (and many Mennonites) coming to naught, Wüst introduced Germans in this area of New Russia to the “New Pietism” and its more individualistic, emotional conversion experience and sermons on the free grace of God centred on the cross of Christ ( note 2 ). Wüst’s 1851 Christmas sermon series give a good picture of what was changing ( note 3 ). His core agenda was to dispel gloom (which maybe could describe more traditional Mennonites) and induce Christian joy. This is the root impulse of the Mennonite Brethren beginnings years later in 1860. “Satan is not entitled to present his own as the most joyful.” His people “sing, jump, leap ( hüpfen ) ...

1871: "Mennonite Tough Luck"

In 1868, a delegation of Prussian Mennonite elders met with Prussian Crown Prince Frederick in Berlin. The topic was universal conscription--now also for Mennonites. They were informed that “what has happened here is coming soon to Russia as well” ( note 1 ). In Berlin the secret was already out. Three years later this political cartoon appeared in a satirical Berlin newspaper. It captures the predicament of Russian Mennonites (some enticed in recent decades from Prussia), with the announcement of a new policy of compulsory, universal military service. “‘Out of the frying pan and into the fire—or: Mennonite tough luck.’ The Mennonites, who immigrated to Russia in order to avoid becoming soldiers in Prussia, are now subject to newly introduced compulsory military service.” ( Note 2 ) The man caught in between looks more like a Prussian than Russian Mennonite—but that’s beside the point. With the “Great Reforms” of the 1860s (including emancipation of serfs) the fundamentals were c...

A-Cases and O-Cases. After the Trek, 1944

Some 35,000 Mennonites evacuated from Ukraine by the retreating Reich German military in 1943-44 applied for naturalization /citizenship once in German-annexed Poland (mostly Warthegau). The applications made through the “EWZ” ( Einwandererzentralstelle ) are easy to attain today ( note 1 ). Much information may be new and useful for families; however just as much is disturbing, including the racial assessments, categorization, and separation of so-called “A-cases” from “O-cases.” What are they? The EWZ files contain the application for naturalization made by the head of a family unit, the certificate of naturalization, and sometimes correspondence/ claims regarding property and possessions left behind in Ukraine. Each form contains information about the applicant’s spouse and children, as well as a genealogy listing parents and grandparents, and those of their spouse as well; racial background is calculated by percentage (!). Applicants were asked about their citizenship, their e...

"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...

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog