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

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

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 Heub

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 and address the matter in congregations. It will be difficult to find words. How can 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. Adaptations are mostly underlined, with the key at the bottom of the post. ------ Retired [American] Pastor and co

Russian and Prussian Mennonite Participants in “Racial-Science,” 1930

I n December 1929, some 3,885 Soviet Mennonites plus 1,260 Lutherans, 468 Catholics, 51 Baptists and seven Adventists were assisted by Germany to flee the Soviet Union. They entered German transit camps before resettlement in Canada, Brazil and Paraguay ( note 1 ) In the camps Russian Mennonites participated in a racial-biological study to measure their hereditary characteristics and “racial” composition and “blood purity” in comparison to Danzig-West Prussian, genetic cousins. In Germany in the last century, anthropological and medical research was horribly misused for the pseudo-scientific work referred to as “racial studies” (Rassenkunde). The discipline pre-dated Nazi Germany to describe apparent human differences and ultimately “to justify political, social and cultural inequality” ( note 2 ). But by 1935 a program of “racial hygiene” and eugenics was implemented with an “understanding that purity of the German Blood is the essential condition for the continued existence of the

High Crimes and Misdemeanors: Mennonite Murders, Infanticide, Rapes and more

To outsiders, the Mennonite reality in South Russia appeared almost utopian—with their “mild and peaceful ethos.” While it is easy to find examples of all the "holy virtues" of the Mennonite community, only when we are honest about both good deeds and misdemeanors does the Russian Mennonite tradition have something authentic to offer—or not. Rudnerweide was one of a few Molotschna villages with a Mennonite brewery and tavern , which in turn brought with it life-style lapses that would burden the local elder. For example, on January 21, 1835, the Rudnerweide Village Office reported that Johann Cornies’s sheep farm manager Heinrich Reimer, as well as Peter Friesen and an employed Russian shepherd, came into the village “under the influence of brandy,” and: "…at the tavern kept by Aron Wiens, they ordered half a quart of brandy and shouted loudly as they drank, banged their glasses on the table. The tavern keeper objected asking them to settle down, but they refused and

Simple Refugee Wedding: My grandparents (1931)

My father was born less than a year after these 1931 wedding photos. Jacob Fast and Helen Janzen had been in Paraguay less than 8 months—see the MCC telegram—and tragedy had already struck both refugees families. Jacob’s first wife and a daughter became victims of the epidemic that ravaged the new colony of Fernheim in those first months. He was now a widower at age 39—with an infant and other children without a mother. Helene was single and 29 years old. Her mother too had died from the same epidemic; her father was partially crippled. They had come from southern Ukrainian community of Spat, Crimea; Fast was from Ural Mountains area in Russia where South Russian Mennonites had created a “daughter colony” a generation earlier. Each had siblings who fled to Moscow in 1929 with them and who were accepted by Canada in 1930. My grandparents however were rejected—she was a single woman with frail parents; he was a man with an ill child. Perhaps in contexts like these the falling-i

“Operation Chortitza” – Resettler Camps in Danzig-West Prussia, 1943-44 (Part I)

In October 1943, some 3,900 Mennonite resettlers from “Operation Chortitza” entered the Gau of Danzig-West Prussia. They were transported by train via Litzmannstadt and brought to temporary camps in Neustadt (Danzig), Preußisch Stargard (Konradstein), Konitz, Kulm on the Vistula, Thorn and some smaller localities ( note 1 ). The Gau received over 11,000 resettlers from the German-occupied east zones in 1943. Before October some 3,000 were transferred from these temporary camps for permanent resettlement in order to make room for "Operation Chortitza" ( note 2 ). By January 1, 1944 there were 5,473 resettlers in the Danzig-West Prussian camps (majority Mennonite); one month later that number had almost doubled ( note 3 ). "Operation Chortitza" as it was dubbed was part of a much larger movement “welcoming” hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans “back home” after generations in the east. Hitler’s larger plan was to reorganize peoples in Europe by race, to separate

Volendam and the Arrival in South America, 1947

The Volendam arrived at the port in Buenos Aires, Argentina on February 22, 1947, at 5 PM, exactly three weeks after leaving from Bremerhaven. They would be followed by three more refugee ships in 1948. The harassing experiences of refugee life were now truly far behind them. Curiously a few months later the American Embassy in Moscow received a formal note of protest claiming that Mennonites, who were Soviet citizens, had been cleared by the American military in Germany for emigration to Paraguay even though the Soviet occupation forces “did not (repeat not) give any sanction whatever for the dispatch of Soviet citizens to Paraguay” ( note 1 ). But the refugees knew that they were beyond even Stalin’s reach and, despite many misgivings about the Chaco, believed they were the hands of good people and a sovereign God. In Buenos Aires the Volendam was anticipated by North American Mennonite Central Committee workers responsible for the next leg of the resettlement journey. Elisabeth

"Anti-Menno" Communist: David J. Penner (1904-1993)

The most outspoken early “Mennonite communist”—or better, “Anti-Menno” communist—was David Johann Penner, b. 1904. Penner was the son of a Chortitza teacher and had grown up Mennonite Brethren in Millerovo, with five religious services per week ( note 1 )! In 1930 with Stalin firmly in power, Penner pseudonymously penned the booklet entitled Anti-Menno ( note 2 ). While his attack was bitter, his criticisms offer a well-informed, plausible window on Mennonite life—albeit biased and with no intention for reform. He is a ethnic Mennonite writing to other Mennonites. Penner offers multiple examples of how the Mennonite clergy in particular—but also deacons, choir conductors, Sunday School teachers, leaders of youth or women’s circles—aligned themselves with the exploitative interests of industry and wealth. Extreme prosperity for Mennonite industrialists and large landowners was achieved with low wages and the poverty of their Russian /Ukrainian workers, according to Penner. Though t

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog