The Mystery of the Mark Anabaptist Mission Work under the Fire of God Peter Hoover Freedom from Copyright: The text of this book, in line with the ethics it teaches, is in the public domain. It may be copied, quoted, and reproduced in any way—in its entirety or in part. Only, if portions of it get edited or revised, they should no longer be published under the author’s name. Photo Credits: Unless specified, photos are original or in public domain and not copyrighted. Some of the following however, are copyrighted and their use is gratefully acknowledged: Photos on pages 19, 53, 62, 94, 131 and 209 were taken by Dr. Hans Gschnitzer (who does hang gliding over the valleys of South Tyrol, and literally gets the “bird’s eye view”). Photos on pages 31, 130, and 133 are from the Landesstudio Tirol, and those on pages 41, 130, and 172 are from the Tirol Atlas. Eduard Geissler took the photo of the Proslhof on page 97, and the photos on pages 206 and 207 are of the visit to South Tyrol by members of Canadian communities in 2007. Translations: All translations in this book are original. For readability and to fit them into a book this size, all of them have been abridged. To read the full text in German, follow the references indicated. Published originally by: Elmendorf Books Mountain Lake, Minnesota Rocky Cape, Tasmania 2008 This edition by: www.PrimitiveChristianity.org Contents: 1 Jakob and Trindl 1 2 The Work 7 3 The War 67 4 The Gospel 113 5 Trouble 135 6 The Family 162 7 The Offering 200 8 The Takeover 214 9 Back to the Field 241 Acknowledgements: This book is written in grateful respect for the formal apologies and efforts at restitution offered in May 2008, by the state governments of South Tyrol (Italy), and Tyrol (Austria), as well as the Roman Catholic bishoprics of Innsbruck, Bozen and Brixen, for atrocities committed against Anabaptist believers. Without the help of Eduard Geissler in Innsbruck, Elmar Perkmann of Völs am Schlern, Dieter Thaler of Sterzing and the competent help of the staff at the state archives of Innsbruck and Bozen, this book could not have been what it is. My sincere thanks to them, as well as to the large number of friends and fellow believers that reviewed the manuscript, made necessary corrections, and helped me get the job done (John Jones from New Zealand, Patrick Murphy from Canada, Marcus Rohrer from Mexico, Eugen Schütz from Germany, Kees Scheepens from the Netherlands, to name a few). Above all I thank the brothers and sisters in our communities at Rocky Cape in Tasmania and Elmendorf in America without whose encouragement and support this book would not exist. It is to you, very particularly to the boys and girls I taught in our community schools in Australia and America—my own children included—that I give this book. It is your story. Do not lose it! For more translations of the writings from South Tyrol and Moravia, the source material used in this book, write to Elmendorf Books 42668, 600th Avenue Mountain Lake, Minnesota, USA, 56159 or Island Books 19509 Bass Highway Detention River, Tasmania, Australia, 7321 [email protected] Dear Friends, Not long ago my wife gave me a glossy Christian paper, a ladies’ magazine. In it a believing mother (who herself was converted from a godless background) described how she raises her family. Of well over fifty children and young people she and her friend have kept in their homes, she writes, the majority have gone into full or part-time mission service. All her grown children, beaming from photos around the page, serve somewhere overseas. How did she accomplish that? The sister describes, step by step, how she and her husband prepared their children for God’s work. Praying for missionaries, saving pennies for missions, special dress-up nights and exotic dinners (children cutting green leaves from construction paper, laminating them, and learning how to eat from them with their fingers). In a special “bush week” her children camped in a back paddock boiling their water, cooking over charcoal, and walking miles to a friend’s place “to market” in a little recreation of life in Africa. The article comes with a list of 121 “inspiring missionary stories” to read to children, and a poem written by the author’s daughter, now serving in Africa herself: I’m thinking of a far-off place Across the ocean’s waves, Where dark-skinned natives cry and sigh, They’ve never heard that Jesus saves. This is Africa! I’m walking through a mud village, The people are so poor, There’s filth, disease and nakedness; Of dreaded death there’s more and more, This is Africa! ii The Mystery of the Mark . I’m walking down a jungle path, To villages unknown, To reap a harvest, golden grain From seed which God alone has sown, This is Africa! We’re giving of ourselves and time For Christ has done the same! We want to spread his kingdom far, We’ll give our lives in Jesus’ name, For Africa! Some time before this I listened to an elderly man, an American Mennonite, describing his ministry. As a youth he had served (contrary to his church’s teaching) in the US army. Riding into Manila harbour on the night of the Allies’ attack he stood on the deck of a destroyer, cradling his gun, watching the city go up in explosions of light, the thunder of incessant bombing, and flames. Praying to God, thanking his Saviour, Jesus, for the New Testament in his shirt pocket that had stopped a bullet from entering his heart, he vowed he would someday return to Manila with the Gospel instead of a gun. He did. Because he only knew English and Plattdeutsch, he wrote up the “sinner’s prayer” and had it translated into Tagalog. With this he went up and down the streets of Manila, making friends, and getting people to read the prayer with him. Everywhere he went, in Manila and throughout the islands, he “led hundreds to the Lord.” Then, when he realised how God was using him, he began to make more and more trips to the Orient, to Eastern Europe and what had been the countries of the Soviet Union. On his last trip to Ukraine, he told the audience, he had led over a thousand people to the Lord, and that without speaking their language! All he used was signs and gestures and a printed card with the sinner’s prayer in Ukrainian. Introductory Letter iii This way or that, “mission work” is getting accomplished in our time. But is it accomplishing the mission on which Christ sent his church into the world? What are the fruits of the last 150 years of mission work, worldwide? Without question, God deserves the praise and all nations stand indebted to courageous missionaries that have spread the knowledge of Christ around the world. By translating the Bible into hundreds of languages, braving wild frontiers, they have brought new light to tribes and cultures long in spiritual darkness. But in how many cases has evangelical mission work actually “spread the kingdom of God” throughout the earth, as the above poem suggests? Would you, or would the missionaries you support, know for sure what that kingdom is—where it begins and ends, and how it should look on the earth today? All sensational mission reports notwithstanding, the whole world has been moving steadily further from Christ during the last one hundred years. This, in spite of the fact that it has gotten fuller and fuller of Christian churches. In spite of Christian radio and TV, Christian web-sites beyond number, reaching more and more people and leading millions every year to pray the sinner’s prayer and “get saved.” For the faster world Christianity— evangelical “mission-minded” Christianity—spreads, the faster it comes apart at the seams and rots. “Mission work,” we must conclude today, has brought the Bible to the world, but to a large extent it brought neither Christ nor his kingdom. To the contrary, the more missionaries have gone out, the more churches and towns and nations have turned into trade fairs of the Antichrist behind them. Look at what happened to Africa or Latin America. For every mission that depends on capitalist prosperity to support itself spreads the germ of Western iv The Mystery of the Mark . imperialism and corruption (the survival of the fittest, “happiness” through getting more stuff) like an evil virus along with it. The poverty and misery such missions hope to eliminate being more often than not the tragic result, the “other side of the coin,” of the independent affluent lifestyle (every family with its house and car) their workers enjoy at home.1 So, what in the light of all this is the church’s mission, your mission from Christ, today? On what type of missionary service do you want your children to go? Questions like these led to the writing of this book, and I pray that the witness of Truth shining through it will not only help you accomplish Christ’s mission for eternity but bring you face to face with the reality of his kingdom today. Peter Hoover Detention River, Tasmania 20 September 2008 1 In a book I just picked up at a Christian mission in Australia, Rich de Vos, one of the wealthiest men on earth and “a radiant Christian,” describes how “compassionate capitalism” (involving as many people as you can in your money-making schemes) is not only financially sound, it is our hope for the future, the salvation of the human race, and the end result of the Christian Gospel that produced the American Way (Rich being the founder of Amway Corporation).