MENNONITE LIFEMARCH / JUNE 1996 Memndnite Life MENNONITE MENNONITE LIFE LIFE 5 0th Anniversary Edition In This Issue This double issue commemorates the 50th anniversary of “Where Have All the Lovers Gone?” by Vincent Harding Mennonite Life, which began publication in January 1946. illustrates the strong impact of the 1960s, even on Menno­ At the age of 50, Mennonite Life has undergone a reorgani­ nite Life. Harding was at the time professor of history at zation of editorial staff and a return to its roots in terms of Spelman College. editorial content. Readers will see more of these changes in “H. R. Votli: Ethnologist” by Fred Eggan, from the June the upcoming September issue. 1982 issue, illustrates another prominent focus of Menno­ This issue looks back over the last 50 years by reprinting nite Life's attention, missions and missionaries. Eggan is a certain characteristic articles from the five decades of the (non-Mennonite) researcher of Hopi culture. journal’s existence. There is no way to represent all of the John Ruth’s poem “Lecture for a Limited Audience” many facets of Mennonite Life's content through the years, from the March 1983 issue exemplifies all too briefly the but these reprinted articles give a few glimpses of the varied fine arts interests of Mennonite Life. Ruth is well known and changing focus of attention over half a century. as an author, film maker, and pastor from Harleysville, We begin with a new essay by Wynn M. Goering, aca­ Pennsylvania. demic dean at Bethel College, on trends and patterns in “Dying to be Pure: The Martyr Story” by Melvin Mennonite Life's fifty years. Goering has led the way in Goering, from the December 1992 issue, was written in reorganizing the journal’s administration and inspiring response to James C. Juhnke’s play about the martyr Dirk vision for the future. Willems, “Dirk’s Exodus.” Goering’s essay, in addition to “Active or Passive Christianity” by Cornelius Krahn was continuing the arts theme, represents Mennonite Life's the lead article in the first issue of Mennonite Life, setting commitment to debating theological and ethical issues in a the tone for the new journal. Krahn was the founding editor Mennonite context. Goering, a former philosophy and is remembered by many as a Bethel College history professor, is CEO of Prairie View, Inc., a Mennonite- professor, director of the Mennonite Library and Archives, related mental health center in Newton, Kansas. and active promoter of Mennonite history and identity. Mennonite Life has traditionally published an annual “Destruction and Reconstruction of Mennonite Churches Mennonite Bibliography, attempting to apprise its readers in Holland” by S. H. N. Gorter also comes from the first of recently published material of interest to Mennonite issue of January 1946. It is a good example of the post-war studies. The first bibliography, from the April 1947 issue, focus of the early years of Mennonite Life. Gorter was, at comprised a page and a half and is reprinted here. Then the time, pastor of the Mennonite church in Rotterdam and follows the 1996 edition of the bibliography, 8 pages in active in Dutch Mennonite relief work. much smaller type, compiled by Barbara A. Thiesen, “The Mennonite Community at Meade” by J. W. Fretz, Technical Services Librarian and Co-director of Libraries from the July 1951 issue, is a sample from a long series of at Bethel College. articles in the 1950s profiling Mennonite communities This issue also includes several new book reviews, throughout North America. These articles described another long-standing Mennonite Life feature. These prominent families, schools, churches, farms, businesses, reviews come from our considerable backlog awaiting and homes with a sense of accomplishment and future publication. promise. Fretz was professor of sociology at Bethel College At this 50 year anniversary, we have also compiled a 50 and later became president of Conrad Grebel College in year cumulative index. Since this index is much too large Waterloo, Ontario. to publish in an issue of the journal, it is available as a “What of Mennonite Broadcasting?” from the July 1952 separate volume for $ 10.00. Please contact us if you want issue consists of four short opinion pieces nicely illustrating a copy. the different perspectives of Mennonite groups contributing to Mennonite Life. John D. Thiesen Managing Editor 1 MENNONITE LIFE MENNONITE March/June 1996 Vol. 51 No. 1 & 2 LIFE Managing Editor and Book Review Editor 'My heart leaps up': Mennonite Life at 50 4 John D. Thicsen Wynn M. Goering Editorial Assistant Barbara Thicsen Active or Passive Christianity 6 Cornelius Krahn Front Cover The front covers o f nine previous issues of Mennonite Life. Jan. 1946: a typical Mennonite farm in Eastern Pennsylvania, Farm Security Destruction and Re-construction Administration photo. July 1957: Sarasota (Florida) Jungle Gardens. of Mennonite Churches in Holland 8 Jan. 1962: Joy o f Youth (detail), wood block by Franz Neudlinger, from the Gift of Gratitude by the German People to the Mennonite S. H. N. Gorier Central Committee. Apr. 1962: Christ Crowned with Thorns by Titian. Jan. 1967: Martin Luther King, Jr., and William G. Anderson being arrested by the Albany, Georgia, police chief in voting rights protest. The Mennonite Community at Meade 13 Sept. 1975: group of Mennonite draftees at Camp Funston, Kansas, at J. W. Fretz a Sunday morning worship service in 1918. Sept. 1977: Cornelius Krahn in Wernigerode, Germany, 29 Sept 1926. June 1981: “White Shield's children,” probably in Oklahoma. Dec. 1995: Barn Birds by What of Mennonite Broadcasting 19 Becky Mast Nordvall, pen and ink, 11" x 14". John Thiessen, Paul Erb, J. W. Fretz, Melvin Gingerich Back Cover The back covers of the same nine issues. Jan. 1946. July 1957: Old North Holland Bridal Costume. Jan. 1962: Settin 'in the Wood by Where have all the lovers gone? 21 Luther F. Kepler, Jr. Apr. 1962: Dove o f Peace by Picasso. Jan. 1967: Vincent Harding school segregation protest in Crawfordville, Georgia. Sept. 1975: World War I Mennonite conscientious objectors on farm deferment at Odebolt, Iowa. Sept. 1977. June 1981: Panel of Spanish conscientious H. R. Voth: Ethnologist 30 objectors in the first project at Can Serra in 1976, from John Paul Lederachs research on COs in Spain. Dec. 1995: unidentified Fred Eggan Christmas scene, ca. 1920?. Lecture for a Limited Audience 37 Photo Credits John Ruth Please refer to the original issue of publication for photo credit information. Dying to Be Pure: The Martyr Story 42 MENNONITE LIFE (ISSN 0025-9365) is an illustrated quarterly Melvin Goering magazine published in March, June, September, and December by Bethel College, 300 East 27th, North Newton, Kansas 67117-0531. Second Class postage paid at North Newton, Kansas 67117, Mennonite Bibliography, 1946 49 POSTMASTER: Send address changes to MENNONITE LIFE, Melvin Gingerich and Cornelius Krahn Bethel College, 300 East 27th, North Newton, Kansas 67117-0531. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: U. S. one year, SI8.00; two years, S27.Ü0. Mennonite Bibliography, 1995 51 Foreign one year, S21.00; two years S30.00 (U. S. funds). Compiled by Barbara Thiesen Indexed with abstracts in Religion Index One: Periodicals, American Theological Library Association, Chicago, Illinois; Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life, ABC-CIio, Book Reviews 59 Santa Barbara, California. MARCH /JUNE 3 4My heart leaps up’: Mennonite Life at 50 by Wynn M. Goering It’s a scholarly truism that the most important date in any drama of salvation. For Krahn, that meant that Mennonite book is the date of its publication. Historians, theologians, Life should present “the problems of our churches and com­ philosophers, poets—we are all, ineluctably, creatures of our munities of the past and present—both here and abroad,” for times. So it is that the articles reprinted in this 50th anniver­ “we have no choice but to confront them.” sary issue of Mennonite Life bear the peculiar imprints of Initially Mennonite Life showed a preference for first-per­ their days. The marks are clear and easily discernible through son accounts of activism, starting with Albert Gaeddert’s the lens of time. query, “What Have We Learned from Civilian Public Ser­ But if you start at the beginning of Mennonite Life, with vice?” (June 1946). Experiences with racism suffused the the first edition of January 1946, and page through all 197 1960s: Anna Marie Peterson, a senior at Bethel College, de­ issues to the present one, you sense also something unchang­ scribed her year at Spelman College in Atlanta in the article, ing. Mennonite Life has a fundamental personality, a set of “I Attended a School for Negro Women” (January 1961); two passions and habits of mind that have characterized it from other Bethel students, David Janzen and Kay Peters, reported its inception. Some of these traits are predictable, while oth­ on their adventures in “Students Protest in Washington, D.C.” ers are surprising and counter-intuitive. (April 1962); and Vincent Harding, then a member of the 1. From the start, Mennonite Life was an immodest under­ History Department at Spelman College, provided a sober­ taking. ing look at justice and nonviolence in “Where Have All the The frontispiece of the very first issue informed readers Lovers Gone?” (January 1967). that Mennonite Life would be “published in the interest of Later volumes reflect a more scholarly approach, but the the best in the religious, social, and economic phases of tone of purposeful aggressiveness remains. Keith Sprunger’s Mennonite culture” (emphases added). Part of striving for article in an issue focusing on Vietnam, “Learning the Wrong the best, certainly, was to involve the great minds of the Men­ Lessons” (April 1968), or James Juhnke’s bi-centennial ar­ nonite world: C.