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

Vaccinations in Chortitza and Molotschna, beginning in 1804

Vaccination lists for Chortitza Mennonite children in 1809 and 1814 were published prior to the COVID-19 pandemic with little curiosity ( note 1 ). However during the 2020-22 pandemic and in a context in which some refused to vaccinate for religious belief, the historic data took on new significance. Ancestors of some of the more conservative Russian Mennonite groups—like the Reinländer or the Bergthalers or the adult children of land delegate Jacob Höppner—were in fact vaccinating their infants and toddlers against small pox over two hundred years ago ( note 2 ). Also before the current pandemic Ukrainian historian Dmytro Myeshkov brought to light other archival materials on Mennonites and vaccination. The material below is my summary and translation of the relevant pages of Myeshkov’s massive 2008 volume on Black Sea German and their Worlds, 1781 to 1871 (German only; note 3 ). Myeshkov confirms that Chortitza was already immunizing its children in 1804 when their District Offic...

What is the Church to Say? Letter 4 (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 Preparing for your next AGM: Mennonite Congregations and Deportations Many U.S. Mennonite pastors voted for Donald Trump, whose signature promise was an immediate start to “the largest deportation operation in American history.” Confirmed this week, President Trump will declare a national emergency and deploy military assets to carry this out. The timing is ideal; in January many Mennonite congregations have their Annual General Meeting (AGM) with opportunity to review and update the bylaws of their constitution. Need help? We have related examples from our tradition, which I offer as a template, together with a few red flags. First, your congregational by-laws. It is unlikely you have undocumented immigrants in your congregation, but you should flag this. Model: Gustav Reimer, a deacon and notary public from the ...

Sesquicentennial: Proclamation of Universal Military Service Manifesto, January 1, 1874

One-hundred-and-fifty years ago Tsar Alexander II proclaimed a new universal military service requirement into law, which—despite the promises of his predecesors—included Russia’s Mennonites. This act fundamentally changed the course of the Russian Mennonite story, and resulted in the emigration of some 17,000 Mennonites. The Russian government’s intentions in this regard were first reported in newspapers in November 1870 ( note 1 ) and later confirmed by Senator Evgenii von Hahn, former President of the Guardianship Committee ( note 2 ). Some Russian Mennonite leaders were soon corresponding with American counterparts on the possibility of mass migration ( note 3 ). Despite painful internal differences in the Mennonite community, between 1871 and Fall 1873 they put up a united front with five joint delegations to St. Petersburg and Yalta to petition for a Mennonite exemption. While the delegations were well received and some options could be discussed with ministers of the Crown, ...

"A Small Town near Auschwitz” – Chortitza Mennonite Refugee/ Resettlement Camps

Simple proximity to a place of horrors does not equal knowledge or complicity. Many Gnadenfeld-area Mennonite refugees were, for example, temporarily housed 20 km. away from the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp where 15-year-old Anne Frank died ultimately of typhus ( note 1 ). The day after liberation by British troops on April 15, 1945, camp survivors began to flow through neighbouring villages. “What a sight they were! They had been tortured and starved, and were swollen from lack of food. … We could hardly believe that the glorious country of Germany could commit such crimes against people,” Susanna Toews wrote ( note 2 ). My mother was only seven, but she remembers overhearing shocking descriptions given by their host family’s teenaged girls forced by the British to clean some of the camp buses. What about the much larger death camp at Auschwitz? There is a book entitled: A Small Town near Auschwitz: Ordinary Nazis and the Holocaust. It is about an administrator living near the ...

1929 Flight of Mennonites to Moscow and Reception in Germany

At the core of the attached video are some thirty photos of Mennonite refugees arriving from Moscow in 1929 which are new archival finds. While some 13,000 had gathered in outskirts of Moscow, with many more attempting the same journey, the Soviet Union only released 3,885 Mennonite "German farmers," together with 1,260 Lutherans, 468 Catholics, 51 Baptists, and 7 Adventists. Some of new photographs are from the first group of 323 refugees who left Moscow on October 29, arriving in Kiel on November 3, 1929. A second group of photos are from the so-called “Swinemünde group,” which left Moscow only a day later. This group however could not be accommodated in the first transport and departed from a different station on October 31. They were however held up in Leningrad for one month as intense diplomatic negotiations between the Soviet Union, Germany and also Canada took place. This second group arrived at the Prussian sea port of Swinemünde on December 2. In the next ten ...

Landless Crisis: Molotschna, 1840s to 1860s

The landless crisis in the mid-1800s in the Molotschna Colony is the context for most other matters of importance to its Mennonites, 1840s to 1860s. When discussing landlessness, historian David G. Rempel has claimed that the “seemingly endemic wranglings and splits” of the Mennonite church in South Russia were only seldom or superficially related to doctrine, and “almost invariably and intimately bound up with some of the most serious social and economic issues” that afflicted one or more of the congregations in the settlement ( note 1 ). It is important from the start to recognize that these Mennonites were not citizens, but foreign colonists with obligations and privileges that governed their sojourn in New Russia. For Mennonites the privileges, e.g. of land and freedom from military conscription, were connected to the obligation of model farming. Mennonites were given one, and then later two districts of land for this purpose. Within their districts or colonies , villages w...

What is the Church to Say? Letter 1 (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 accuarte and carefully considered. ~ANF American Mennonite leaders who supported Trump will be responding to the election results in the near future. Sometimes a template or sample conference address helps to formulate one’s own text. To that end I offer the following. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Mennonites in Germany sent official greetings by telegram: “The Conference of the East and West Prussian Mennonites meeting today at Tiegenhagen in the Free City of Danzig are deeply grateful for the tremendous uprising ( Erhebung ) that God has given our people ( Volk ) through the vigor and action of [unclear], and promise our cooperation in the construction of our Fatherland, true to the Gospel motto of [our founder Menno Simons], ‘For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.’” ( Note 1 ) Hitler responded in a letter...

Widows, refugees, the unchurched, orphans and decommissioned soldiers: Building Church in Neuland, Paraguay

They were in unchartered waters when the Neuland (Colony) Mennonite Church in Paraguay was organized on November 12, 1947 under the innovative leadership of Hans Rempel (1908-2001). Rempel was ordained during German occupation of Ukraine, when “simple, untrained men and women called the believers together, read the Word, sang, and prayed” ( note 1 ). And for the others? In resettlement camps in Warthegau (annexed Poland) Rempel was encouraged by Heinrich Winter, the "last elder of Chortitza" to “make a new beginning ... like a farmer breaking up hard unplowed ground” (Jeremiah 4:3). After the refugees arrived in Paraguay in 1947, the church issues were many and the need for innovation was urgent. First , what should be the role of women in church leadership ? The tradition was very restrictive. The men however were largely missing and many of the women had experience of leadership in the re-establishment of church services during the German occupation of Russia. Innov...

Village Reports Commando Dr. Stumpp, 1942: List and Links

Each of the "Commando Dr. Stumpp" village reports written during German occupation of Ukraine 1942 contains a mountain of demographic data, names, dates, occupations, numbers of untimely deaths (revolution, famines, abductions), narratives of life in the 1930s, of repression and liberation, maps, and much more. The reports are critical for telling the story of Mennonites in the Soviet Union before 1942, albeit written with the dynamics of Nazi German rule at play. Reports for some 56 (predominantly) Mennonite villages from the historic Mennonite settlement areas of Chortitza, Sagradovka, Baratow, Schlachtin, Milorodovka, and Borosenko have survived. Unfortunately no village reports from the Molotschna area (known under occupation as “Halbstadt”) have been found. Dr. Karl Stumpp, a prolific chronicler of “Germans abroad,” became well-known to German Mennonites (Prof. Benjamin Unruh/ Dr. Walter Quiring) before the war as the director of the Research Center for Russian Germans...

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog