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Mennonites and South Africans MENNONITE LIFE MARCH 1 975 Is reflected an emerging Men- IN THIS nonite interest in southern Africa. John de Gruchy, theo­ ISSUE logian of the University of Cape­ town and former staff member of the South African Council of Churches, visited North American Mennon- ite schools and churches in early 1975. The interview with de Gruchy in this issue suggests several natural points of common interest between Mennonites and South Africans. Cf The choices of Mennonites in Rus­ sia a hundred years ago—to migrate Eastward, West­ ward, or to stay at home, were celebrated as options of contemporary relevance in the Bethel College Men- nonite Church centennial worship service. Christine Siemens Lautt, Bethel College senior art major, de­ signed three banners symbolizing the choices: the apocalyptic East (rising sun), the progressive West (wheat), and the embracing Home (roots). Another Mennonite centennial is being celebrated in 1975— the 450th anniversary of the Anabaptist origins in Switzerland. William Keeney’s article on the relation­ ship of the Swiss Brethren to Menno Simons was pre­ sented in January at Bluff ton College as part of a series of four meetings in celebration of this anniver­ sary. (Q It has been two years since the last “Men­ nonite Bibliography” appeared in Mennonite Life, but it is the editors’ intention to include this feature in the March issue each year. This bibliography, completed for this issue by Cornelius Krahn, remains the most thorough listing of current research and publication in the fields of Anabaptism, the Radical Reformation, and Mennonite history. Readers who are aware of items to be included in the bibliography are invited to send the information to Mennonite Life. MENNONITE March 1975 Volume ■10 Number 1 An Illustrated Quarterly Published by Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas CONTRIBUTORS An Invitation to the Editorial Desk 4 ROBERT KREIDER is Director of Mennonite By Robert Kreider Library and Archives at Bethel Collette. JOHN DE GRUCHY teaches religion at the Uni­ Mennonites and South Africa 8 versity of Cape Town in South Africa. By John de Gruchy JAMES JUHNKE teaches in the history depart­ ment at Bethel College. JUSTIN A WIEBE CLAASSEN'S father was on the East West and Home 10 Mennonite migration to Central Asia. She and her husbnnd, Ernest Chinesen, live on a farm near By James Juhnke, Justina Claassen, Elbing, Kansas. John Linscheid and Julie Gradert JOHN LINSOHEID, great grandson of Cornelius ■Tanzen, is a senior religion m ajor a t Bethel Col­ lege. Anabaptism Confronts Menno Simons 15 JULIE NEUFELD GRADERT works at Prairie By William Keeney View Mental Health Center in Newton. WILLIAM KEENEY is Director of Experiential Radical Reformation and Mennonite 19 Learning at Bethel College. Research 1973-1974 CORNELIUS KRAHN edited Mennonite Life 194 G- 1971 and continues research and writing at By Cornelius Krahn Mennonite Library and Archives. Radical Reformation and Mennonite Bibliography 24 COVER By Cornelius Krahn The front and back cover pictures nre examples of Afrikaner folk art. They celebrate in tapestry some Boer pioneer ideals reminiscent of Mennonite Books in Review 31 experience. By John F. Schmidt, J. B. Toeivs MENNONITE LIFE is an illustrated quarterly magazine published in March, June, September and December by Bethel College, North Newton, Kan­ sas. Second class postage paid at Newton, Kansas 67114. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: One year, §4.00; Two years, $7.00. EDITORS Statement of ownership and management as re­ quired by the Act of Congress of October 23, 19G2, Robert Kreider Section 4369, Title 39. As of March 1, 1975, MEN­ NONITE LIFE is owned and published quarterly James Juhnke by Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas. The owning corporation is a nonprofit educational or­ ganization, has no stock and security holders and carries the publisher's own advertising. Editors Robert Kreider and James Juhnke, North Newton, Kansas, Signed Garold Burkholder. Business Man­ ager, N orth Newton, K ansas 67117. An Invitation to the Editorial Desk By Robert Kreider On a winter weekend I stacked around me the These past three years Robert Schräg, editor of twenty-nine volumes of Mennonite Life and hour the Mennonite Weekly Revieiv, which has the largest after hour I paged through this remarkable record circulation of any Mennonite publication anywhere, of a people called Mennonite. Within these 116 issues has also served as editor of Mennonite Life. With I rediscovered a treasure house of information. My joint promotion with the Review the number of sub­ mind wandered. If all books and records by and about scribers of Mennonite Life grew. After living for Mennonites were destroyed and only these 116 issues more than three years with a second set of publish­ survived, here would be a comprehensive and sig­ ing deadlines, Robert Schräg asked to have the edi­ nificant record of this people, their history and self torial responsibilities returned to Bethel College. understanding, their life and faith. Now James Juhnke and Robert Kreider, historians Volume I, Issue 1 appeared in January 1946 only both and perhaps ones who had long nourished secret a few months after the end of World War II. Here hopes of editing some journal, have taken up where was a pictorial quarterly which was committing itself Cornelius Krahn and Robert Schräg have left off. “to present . the problems of our churches and They begin by asking questions about Mennonite communities of the past and present—both here and Life—its past, its present, its future. Who have been abroad.” The editors proposed “with Jesus Christ as its readers? Who are and will be the new readers? the foundation” that this new publication was “to be What is the mission of Mennonite Life? What shall a contribution to a greater and more abundant be its style? How does it define its calling in rela­ realization of Mennonite life as it should be.” From tion to other Mennonite publications? What are to the beginning Mennonite Life set for itself a task be its gifts? Shall it emphasize continuity or a break of mirroring the life of a people, critically analyzing with the past? Inquiries have gone out to members that life, but also calling for renewal of life. of the editorial board inviting their counsel. The Particularly intriguing was that the editor of this responses have helped shape the editorial expecta­ new quarterly was one, Cornelius Krahn, who had tions for Mennonite Life which are emerging in our arrived in North America less than nine years before minds and to which we invite the response of our speaking little or no English. lie had been a refugee readers. from the Ukraine in South Russia. He had earned We wish to reaffirm the purpose of Mennonite a doctorate in church history at Heidelberg Uni­ Life as being “a quarterly magazine focusing on the versity in Germany on his pilgrimage westward and Anabaptist-Mennonite heritage and its contemporary had written a definitive history of the life of Menno expression.” Simons. Mennonite Life is to be seen in continuity with a With him as editorial colleagues in this new pub­ 30-year record of publication: lishing effort were Abram Warkentin, Bennie Bargen —a publication which treats the Anabaptist heri­ and C. Henry Smith, all three now gone, and J. tage with high seriousness and which recognizes Winfield Fretz and Melvin Gingerich, both of whom how far contemporary Mennonites have often have been present at the creation of so many insti­ “strayed as lost sheep” from their Anabaptist tutions and scholarly endeavors of the Mennonites origins. during the past generation. —a publication which reflects that which is hap­ With the rise, decline, and fall of other pictorial pening to Mennonite people across a broad range publications—Life and Look—the capacity of Men­ of concerns of faith and culture and which acts nonite Life to continue to hold a substantial reader- as critic and interpreter of these experiences; a ship and to survive—this is a minor publishing publication which presents with candor this people miracle. in all its varied forms. 4 MENNONITE LIFE —a publication which continues to wrestle with operating from the base of a particular college and the question of Mennonite purpose and identity—- a particular conference, it will continue to seek to be refusing to separate body from soul, faith from inter-Mennonite in content and spirit. life, word from work and yet constantly strug­ Mennonite Life can be expected to reflect some gling against an idolatrous attitude toward the shifting shades of emphasis: ethnic; a publication which describes in loving detail the life of Mennonites and yet seeks to view —focusing on the transcultural, particularly in the with prophetic detachment the waywardness of context of world Mennonite peoplehood. this people. —a reaching out for linkages of understanding From the pages of Mennonite Life come these with other ethnic minority groups which have a words: high sense of group identity and mission: the Quakers, the Brethren, the Mormons, the Dutch “There can be no such thing as a sifting of Reformed, the non-establishment Lutherans, the faith from culture. Culture is to faith as body Swedish Covenant, intentional communities and is to soul; they can be distinguished verbally many others. but never separated. A faith removed from its culture either dies or creates another culture; —an accent on the story form—the diary, the a culture robbed of its faith either dies or finds biography, the autobiography, the song and the a substitute faith . John Howard Yoder hymn, the photo essay, the poem, the drama, the —a publication which continues to celebrate with interview, and also the anecdote and the humorous joy Mennonite peoplehood, viewing with delight —all this to illustrate the Mennonite search for and gratitude the unique, the concrete, even the mission and identity.
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