Teaching Position or Conversation Starter’ The Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective and the New Mennonites of Southern California JEFF WRIGHT* Abstract: The Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference expanded rapidly through a strategy of leadership-based church planting in Southern California throughout the latter half of the 1990s. Nearly all of…
The Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective as a Living Letter THOMAS FINGER* Abstract: A confession of faith is not a static collection of statements, but an instrument for “confessing,” a dynamic activity that expresses commitments, actualizes self- and group-identities, and brings divine reality near. After considering four…
A Prescription for the Ills of Modernity? Understanding A. James Reimer’s Approach to Theology PAUL C. HEIDEBRECHT* Abstract: This essay seeks to engage Mennonite theologian A. James Reimer on his own terms, interpreting his theology as a response to his construal of modernity that has been shaped significantly by…
Destination Amish Quilt Country: The Consumption of Quilts in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania JANNEKEN SMUCKER* Abstract: During the late twentieth century, visitors flocked to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, often with the goal of purchasing an Amish quilt. As fine art, souvenir, commodity and symbol, these Amish quilts played a significant role…
Guy F. Hershberger’s War, Peace, and Nonresistance (1944): Background, Genesis, Message THERON F. SCHLABACH* Abstract: War, Peace, and Nonresistance, written by Mennonite social scientist and ethicist Guy F. Hershberger and published in 1944, was an uncommonly important work. In it, Hershberger both articulated a broad consensus among…
Contemporary Counsel on Mennonite Engagement with the State Anabaptist Advocacy J. DARYL BYLER* For a variety of reasons, some Mennonites choose not to vote or to engage in the political process. Others believe this is an important part of our faith witness. This essay assumes that some form of…
Mennonites, African-Americans, the U.S. Constitution and the Problem of Assimilation LEE ROY BERRY JR.* Abstract: European-American Mennonites and African-Americans are quite different from one another even though both are minority groups. These differences become especially evident in the issue of assimilation into mainstream American society. Mennonites have traditionally regarded…
Responses to Snyder MICHAEL G. BAYLOR[1] Confessionally and theologically based arguments have recently challenged the dominant historiography of Anabaptism. Since the 1970s, the prevailing interpretation of Anabaptist beginnings has emphasized, in a word, its “polygenesis.” On this view, Anabaptism arose from a variety of separate sources and initially…
Sebastian Franck in Strasbourg GEOFFREY DIPPLE* Abstract: Pilgram Marpeck’s confrontation with the Spiritualizers in Strasbourg between 1529 and 1531 is regarded as a defining moment in the history of the early Anabaptist movement. This study approaches this conflict from the perspective of a prominent, but frequently overlooked, participant: the Spiritualist…
Research Note: Further Notes on Abraham Isaak, Mennonite Anarchist STEVEN KENT SMITH* Readers of a 1908 edition of Emma Goldman’s journal, Mother Earth,[1] may have seen this announcement: ATTENTION A few comrades in New York have started a movement for the purpose of establishing a colony, perhaps…
