I think an early Swiss brethren, person, leader

2

00:00:05,255 --> 00:00:07,048

could have written that if

3

00:00:07,048 --> 00:00:08,049

they weren't writing in German.

4

00:00:08,925 --> 00:00:10,510

I mean, I think this is really, my personal

5

00:00:10,510 --> 00:00:13,054

feeling, this is really a good statement, okay?

6

00:00:13,430 --> 00:00:15,014

It covers a lot of bases.

7

00:00:15,807 --> 00:00:18,560

It deals with salvation as, in a sense, as an

8

00:00:18,560 --> 00:00:20,186

ongoing process that has a

9

00:00:20,186 --> 00:00:22,856

beginning in the work of the Holy Spirit,

10

00:00:23,940 --> 00:00:25,734

And then it lives a life of victory over the

11

00:00:25,734 --> 00:00:26,943

flesh of the world and Satan.

12

00:00:32,991 --> 00:00:34,617

Welcome to Anabaptist Perspectives.

13

00:00:35,535 --> 00:00:38,663

We are here with Edsel Burge to talk about 20th century

14

00:00:38,663 --> 00:00:40,290

Mennonite confessions of faith.

15

00:00:40,790 --> 00:00:41,416

Welcome, Edsel.

16

00:00:41,416 --> 00:00:41,750

Thank you.

17

00:00:42,459 --> 00:00:44,961

The plan that I have in mind is to start by

18

00:00:44,961 --> 00:00:47,172

giving some background about

19

00:00:48,256 --> 00:00:49,299

three confessions of faith.

20

00:00:49,799 --> 00:00:52,010

The one from 1921, the one

21

00:00:52,010 --> 00:00:56,139

from 1963, and the one from 1964.

22

00:00:57,307 --> 00:00:59,267

So we'll give the background information and talk

23

00:00:59,267 --> 00:01:01,603

about these and how they came about,

24

00:01:02,562 --> 00:01:03,521

then talk about ways that

25

00:01:03,521 --> 00:01:04,731

the confessions have been used.

26

00:01:05,148 --> 00:01:07,692

Then finally, talk about some possible good ways

27

00:01:07,692 --> 00:01:11,446

and bad ways to think about these statements now.

28

00:01:11,780 --> 00:01:12,155

Okay.

29

00:01:13,072 --> 00:01:17,118

So this is Edsel's third episode with us.

30

00:01:17,619 --> 00:01:20,789

Earlier in 2025, we did two episodes, one about

31

00:01:20,789 --> 00:01:23,374

being plain and one about

32

00:01:23,374 --> 00:01:26,252

North American Mennonites.

33

00:01:26,294 --> 00:01:28,421

From 1730 to 1930.

34

00:01:30,715 --> 00:01:33,259

So today we're focusing on 20th century,

35

00:01:33,593 --> 00:01:36,387

primarily so our listeners can go back and listen

36

00:01:36,387 --> 00:01:38,181

to the previous history one if they want.

37

00:01:38,765 --> 00:01:40,433

Some details about what happened in the two

38

00:01:40,433 --> 00:01:41,643

centuries in North America prior

39

00:01:41,643 --> 00:01:43,269

to what we are talking about today.

40

00:01:45,522 --> 00:01:47,774

So let's begin by talking about

41

00:01:47,774 --> 00:01:50,860

the 1921 Garden City confession.

42

00:01:52,070 --> 00:01:54,697

It's still widely used among Mennonite churches

43

00:01:54,697 --> 00:01:59,702

and at the same time from some places it often

44

00:01:59,702 --> 00:02:03,248

receives heavy critique as a fundamentalist

45

00:02:03,248 --> 00:02:04,707

distortion of Anabaptism.

46

00:02:05,208 --> 00:02:07,126

So there's some critiques that I

47

00:02:07,126 --> 00:02:08,628

have in mind when I bring it up.

48

00:02:09,379 --> 00:02:13,132

One example critique has been offered by John D.

49

00:02:13,132 --> 00:02:15,134

Martin, who notices that non-resistance and

50

00:02:15,134 --> 00:02:17,220

non-conformity are placed

51

00:02:17,220 --> 00:02:19,514

in the restrictions section.

52

00:02:20,974 --> 00:02:23,059

So maybe we can talk about that, but let's start

53

00:02:23,059 --> 00:02:24,394

by talking about its origins

54

00:02:25,186 --> 00:02:27,522

and how and why it was made.

55

00:02:28,314 --> 00:02:28,606

Okay.

56

00:02:29,107 --> 00:02:31,442

Well, one of the things you have to understand is

57

00:02:31,442 --> 00:02:35,321

that in the, let's say the last decade of the

58

00:02:35,321 --> 00:02:39,826

19th century, it's really a pretty pivotal decade

59

00:02:39,826 --> 00:02:41,161

for the Mennonite church.

60

00:02:41,161 --> 00:02:44,789

This is when some of the, we have kind of the

61

00:02:44,789 --> 00:02:46,499

sloughing off of the old orders.

62

00:02:47,542 --> 00:02:51,921

We have Mennonite church getting into new

63

00:02:51,921 --> 00:02:54,716

methods, new methodologies that bring some

64

00:02:54,716 --> 00:02:57,343

different kinds of theological emphasis to them.

65

00:02:57,343 --> 00:03:00,388

So they're interested in Sunday school,

66

00:03:00,889 --> 00:03:02,223

protracted meetings,

67

00:03:03,683 --> 00:03:05,476

missions and stuff like that.

68

00:03:06,185 --> 00:03:10,023

And at the same time, you have a set of young

69

00:03:10,023 --> 00:03:14,444

leaders who I would say really it's the first

70

00:03:14,444 --> 00:03:19,115

generation of any "educated leaders."

71

00:03:19,741 --> 00:03:21,993

You have people like Daniel

72

00:03:21,993 --> 00:03:24,746

Kauffman, who was converted in the 1890s.

73

00:03:25,455 --> 00:03:26,539

He had gone to normal

74

00:03:26,539 --> 00:03:28,166

school, trained to be a teacher.

75

00:03:28,166 --> 00:03:30,251

He was a principal in a public school who was

76

00:03:30,251 --> 00:03:34,172

converted after as an adult.

77

00:03:35,924 --> 00:03:38,509

And one of the things that I think I have noticed

78

00:03:38,509 --> 00:03:44,223

is that the normal schools were institutions that

79

00:03:44,849 --> 00:03:46,893

were geared toward training school teachers.

80

00:03:46,893 --> 00:03:48,061

They weren't colleges.

81

00:03:48,353 --> 00:03:48,853

Okay.

82

00:03:50,146 --> 00:03:52,065

Later in the 20th century, they morphed into

83

00:03:52,065 --> 00:03:54,484

colleges and so on, but they had

84

00:03:54,484 --> 00:03:56,819

a particular pedagogical purpose.

85

00:03:57,612 --> 00:04:00,865

And I think some of the ways in which people like

86

00:04:00,865 --> 00:04:05,995

Daniel Kauffman and so on formulated things

87

00:04:05,995 --> 00:04:09,749

reflect the pedagogical methodologies that they

88

00:04:09,749 --> 00:04:11,084

were taught in normal school.

89

00:04:11,084 --> 00:04:12,877

So it's a much more organized,

90

00:04:12,877 --> 00:04:15,546

systematic sort of approach to knowledge.

91

00:04:16,673 --> 00:04:19,634

Whereas before, you know, if a Mennonite preacher

92

00:04:19,634 --> 00:04:21,636

was preaching a passage of Scripture, he would

93

00:04:21,636 --> 00:04:22,845

have a text and he would kind

94

00:04:22,845 --> 00:04:24,055

of work down through the text.

95

00:04:24,097 --> 00:04:27,016

And depending on the skillfulness of the preacher

96

00:04:27,016 --> 00:04:29,936

and so on, it may be kind of a rambling [discourse].

97

00:04:29,936 --> 00:04:31,270

It may be something's held together.

98

00:04:31,270 --> 00:04:34,816

But with this new generation of young leaders, we

99

00:04:34,816 --> 00:04:41,072

begin to have sermons that are more topical, more

100

00:04:41,072 --> 00:04:45,410

have an outline to them point by point and so on.

101

00:04:45,702 --> 00:04:47,787

And for many young people,

102

00:04:48,037 --> 00:04:49,580

particularly, this was very captivating.

103

00:04:49,914 --> 00:04:52,041

I mean, they were hearing something that, you

104

00:04:52,041 --> 00:04:55,378

know, probably was akin to what they've gotten

105

00:04:55,378 --> 00:04:56,546

when they were in school

106

00:04:56,546 --> 00:04:59,090

themselves, that kind of and so on.

107

00:05:00,842 --> 00:05:06,848

And so I think that that pedagogy was really an

108

00:05:06,848 --> 00:05:10,351

important thing for thinking about how to

109

00:05:10,351 --> 00:05:12,103

formulate what you think, how to formulate

110

00:05:12,103 --> 00:05:13,229

knowledge, how to communicate.

111

00:05:13,980 --> 00:05:14,939

And that's really

112

00:05:14,939 --> 00:05:18,651

reflected in Daniel Kauffman's work.

113

00:05:18,693 --> 00:05:23,281

And in 1897, he wrote this really interesting

114

00:05:23,281 --> 00:05:25,408

book called Manual of Bible Doctrines.

115

00:05:26,159 --> 00:05:30,163

And if you go to the table of

116

00:05:30,163 --> 00:05:34,709

contents, he has a chapter on creation.

117

00:05:35,043 --> 00:05:36,502

He has a chapter on the fall of

118

00:05:36,502 --> 00:05:39,255

man on sin, on faith, on repentance.

119

00:05:40,465 --> 00:05:42,216

He goes into conversion, regeneration,

120

00:05:42,633 --> 00:05:45,261

justification, redemption of man, the ministry,

121

00:05:45,887 --> 00:05:48,347

members in the church, baptism, communion, foot

122

00:05:48,347 --> 00:05:52,226

washing, the woman's prayer head covering, and

123

00:05:53,478 --> 00:05:55,813

the...salutation of the Holy Kiss,

124

00:05:56,189 --> 00:05:59,233

anointing with oil, marriage, nonconformity to

125

00:05:59,233 --> 00:06:02,236

the world, nonresistance, swearing to oaths,

126

00:06:02,236 --> 00:06:03,404

going to law, secret

127

00:06:03,404 --> 00:06:05,865

society, sanctification and prayer.

128

00:06:05,865 --> 00:06:07,325

So those are the topics that you're covering,

129

00:06:07,325 --> 00:06:10,495

covering them in a very systematic kind of way.

130

00:06:10,703 --> 00:06:12,622

This became a very popular book.

131

00:06:13,247 --> 00:06:14,332

Okay, it's very accessible.

132

00:06:14,499 --> 00:06:16,000

It's pretty readable, actually.

133

00:06:16,876 --> 00:06:18,419

He was a good communicator.

134

00:06:19,253 --> 00:06:22,048

So this introduced some, you know, a more a

135

00:06:22,048 --> 00:06:25,301

different way of kind of approaching knowledge

136

00:06:25,301 --> 00:06:28,429

and theological understandings and so on.

137

00:06:28,429 --> 00:06:31,516

And it wasn't necessarily off kilter.

138

00:06:32,517 --> 00:06:33,601

Okay, it wasn't necessarily off

139

00:06:33,601 --> 00:06:34,894

kilter what had happened before.

140

00:06:35,394 --> 00:06:37,438

But it is a different kind of approach.

141

00:06:37,814 --> 00:06:38,106

All right.

142

00:06:39,482 --> 00:06:44,237

Well, in 1911, the Menonite, the general

143

00:06:44,237 --> 00:06:46,280

conference of the Menonite Church, which had been

144

00:06:46,280 --> 00:06:50,159

formed 1898, I think, or maybe 97.

145

00:06:50,159 --> 00:06:51,327

It's a pretty new organization.

146

00:06:52,078 --> 00:06:55,665

And it was something that was was created by the

147

00:06:55,665 --> 00:06:58,584

Menonite conferences in the West, primarily.

148

00:06:59,794 --> 00:07:02,547

Lancaster, Franconia, Washington, Franklin

149

00:07:02,547 --> 00:07:04,423

Conference really didn't- wasn't

150

00:07:04,423 --> 00:07:06,050

too much interested in it.

151

00:07:06,050 --> 00:07:07,510

They weren't really that much

152

00:07:07,510 --> 00:07:09,011

interested in a general conference.

153

00:07:09,470 --> 00:07:10,471

But Virginia was,

154

00:07:10,721 --> 00:07:12,473

Virginia very much was involved.

155

00:07:12,849 --> 00:07:16,435

Actually, 1911, after the old order split

156

00:07:16,435 --> 00:07:17,812

happened in Virginia,

157

00:07:17,812 --> 00:07:20,148

which I think is 1903, 1904.

158

00:07:20,898 --> 00:07:24,235

After that split happened in Virginia, there's

159

00:07:24,235 --> 00:07:27,864

more of a closer alignment with these more,

160

00:07:29,740 --> 00:07:31,951

again, what Daniel Kauffman referred to as

161

00:07:31,951 --> 00:07:33,119

aggressive conservatives,

162

00:07:33,744 --> 00:07:37,957

people who are conservative in their practice,

163

00:07:37,957 --> 00:07:39,375

particularly when it comes to issues of

164

00:07:39,375 --> 00:07:40,209

nonconformity,

165

00:07:40,209 --> 00:07:41,711

nonresistance, and so on like that,

166

00:07:42,086 --> 00:07:45,840

but are really interested in outreach, in

167

00:07:45,840 --> 00:07:51,554

missions, in a more to use Theron Schlabach's

168

00:07:51,554 --> 00:07:54,390

terminology, a more quickened church life.

169

00:07:55,391 --> 00:07:57,268

Church life is a little fast paced, has a little

170

00:07:57,268 --> 00:07:59,937

bit more activity and stuff to it, actually quite

171

00:07:59,937 --> 00:08:01,731

a lot more activity to it.

172

00:08:02,273 --> 00:08:08,404

But in 1911, at the general conference of the

173

00:08:08,404 --> 00:08:12,033

Mennonite Church, they said that we feel the need

174

00:08:12,033 --> 00:08:14,493

for a book, a good book of doctrine.

175

00:08:14,827 --> 00:08:16,454

And they referenced this book.

176

00:08:16,454 --> 00:08:17,288

They said, "Manual of

177

00:08:17,288 --> 00:08:20,750

Doctrine has been good for us."

178

00:08:20,750 --> 00:08:23,836

But they wanted something that was more detailed.

179

00:08:24,253 --> 00:08:26,714

And they said, "We don't mean this to replace our

180

00:08:26,714 --> 00:08:27,757

confession of faith," which

181

00:08:27,757 --> 00:08:28,883

was the Dordrecht confession.

182

00:08:29,675 --> 00:08:32,011

They don't mean this to replace the Dordrecht

183

00:08:32,011 --> 00:08:37,266

confession, but we mean it to expound upon it, to

184

00:08:37,266 --> 00:08:38,351

give more detailed explanation.

185

00:08:38,851 --> 00:08:41,479

And so what they came up with was this book

186

00:08:41,479 --> 00:08:46,817

called Bible Doctorines and came out in 1914.

187

00:08:48,611 --> 00:08:49,362

It's interesting.

188

00:08:51,072 --> 00:08:52,073

So that's where it is.

189

00:08:52,240 --> 00:08:54,200

Daniel Kauffman was the editor.

190

00:08:54,408 --> 00:08:56,077

He didn't write all the chapters.

191

00:08:56,118 --> 00:08:59,205

He wrote some of them, but it was actually, there

192

00:08:59,205 --> 00:09:02,750

are about 10 or so authors who wrote or assigned

193

00:09:02,750 --> 00:09:04,377

chapters and wrote them.

194

00:09:05,711 --> 00:09:07,880

And he was the editor and oversaw

195

00:09:07,880 --> 00:09:10,383

the project and it came out in 1914.

196

00:09:11,008 --> 00:09:12,885

Now, was it based upon his earlier book?

197

00:09:13,094 --> 00:09:14,595

There's parallels to it.

198

00:09:14,845 --> 00:09:16,806

There are parallels to it, in a sense.

199

00:09:18,266 --> 00:09:20,184

But this Manual of Bible

200

00:09:20,184 --> 00:09:21,978

Doctrines is solely his work.

201

00:09:22,895 --> 00:09:25,940

There are parallels to it, but of course, this is

202

00:09:25,940 --> 00:09:28,567

a much bigger book, goes into more topics.

203

00:09:28,901 --> 00:09:31,612

I mean, so you can look at...

204

00:09:32,238 --> 00:09:34,156

So we have a chapter on

205

00:09:34,156 --> 00:09:36,200

God, creation, man, angels.

206

00:09:36,450 --> 00:09:38,327

That was really what I found interesting.

207

00:09:38,828 --> 00:09:41,789

A number of years ago, I had a friend of mine who

208

00:09:41,789 --> 00:09:42,999

was asked to teach at a Bible

209

00:09:42,999 --> 00:09:45,751

school, and his one class was on angels.

210

00:09:45,751 --> 00:09:48,045

And he called me up and said, "Edsel, I have a

211

00:09:48,045 --> 00:09:48,879

teaching this thing on

212

00:09:48,879 --> 00:09:50,172

angels. What do you think?"

213

00:09:50,214 --> 00:09:51,173

And I said, "Angel, you're

214

00:09:51,173 --> 00:09:52,591

teaching a class on angels?"

215

00:09:53,926 --> 00:09:55,177

I said, "Well, that's really..."

216

00:09:55,469 --> 00:09:58,639

And what it was is that that particular Bible

217

00:09:58,639 --> 00:10:01,350

school had these doctrinal classes,

218

00:10:01,600 --> 00:10:04,478

and they were based not on this book,

219

00:10:04,478 --> 00:10:08,149

but on a successor Doctrines of

220

00:10:08,149 --> 00:10:09,859

the Bible, which is very common.

221

00:10:09,859 --> 00:10:15,615

I think it's still in print and among 20th

222

00:10:15,615 --> 00:10:16,532

century Mennonites and then

223

00:10:16,532 --> 00:10:17,825

among conservative Mennonites,

224

00:10:17,825 --> 00:10:19,201

this has been a very important book.

225

00:10:19,660 --> 00:10:21,912

And again, it has a chapter on angels.

226

00:10:23,080 --> 00:10:27,501

And I thought, "Oh, wow. Okay. I guess I could

227

00:10:27,501 --> 00:10:28,794

preach a sermon on angels.

228

00:10:28,794 --> 00:10:29,712

I'm not sure if I could teach

229

00:10:29,712 --> 00:10:31,047

a three-week course on angels."

230

00:10:31,589 --> 00:10:33,215

But he told me it actually

231

00:10:33,215 --> 00:10:34,800

went well after it was over with.

232

00:10:35,051 --> 00:10:36,844

But so, and then you have

233

00:10:36,844 --> 00:10:38,637

this chapter on the Bible.

234

00:10:40,222 --> 00:10:41,599

And that reflects...

235

00:10:42,475 --> 00:10:43,934

You know, it's interesting because with

236

00:10:43,934 --> 00:10:47,146

Dordrecht, the authority of the Bible is assumed.

237

00:10:47,980 --> 00:10:50,399

There are references to the Scriptures and what

238

00:10:50,399 --> 00:10:51,817

the Scriptures say and so on,

239

00:10:52,109 --> 00:10:53,319

but the authority of the

240

00:10:53,319 --> 00:10:55,821

Bible is not contested in 1632.

241

00:10:56,697 --> 00:10:59,075

Okay. It's not contested among Mennonites. It's

242

00:10:59,075 --> 00:11:00,659

not contested among Protestants.

243

00:11:00,910 --> 00:11:02,745

It's not even contested among Roman Catholics.

244

00:11:03,412 --> 00:11:04,538

Everybody believes in the

245

00:11:04,538 --> 00:11:05,581

authority of the Scriptures.

246

00:11:05,581 --> 00:11:06,916

So it's not a contested thing.

247

00:11:07,583 --> 00:11:14,715

By 1914, among Protestantism, we have this

248

00:11:14,715 --> 00:11:17,593

movement or this phenomenon called Modernism.

249

00:11:18,177 --> 00:11:20,304

And it is a secularization, a

250

00:11:20,304 --> 00:11:22,765

rationalization of Christian faith.

251

00:11:23,224 --> 00:11:27,186

It tends to kick out the supernatural depending

252

00:11:27,186 --> 00:11:29,480

on how far-reaching it goes

253

00:11:29,480 --> 00:11:32,149

with individual modernists.

254

00:11:33,067 --> 00:11:34,443

Would deny things like the virgin

255

00:11:34,443 --> 00:11:36,070

birth, the resurrection of Christ.

256

00:11:36,779 --> 00:11:37,822

And of course, the other thing we

257

00:11:37,822 --> 00:11:41,033

have coming in is Darwinian evolution.

258

00:11:42,076 --> 00:11:45,454

And that raises all kinds of problems, not just

259

00:11:45,454 --> 00:11:48,374

among Protestants and so on.

260

00:11:48,999 --> 00:11:50,459

Because again, these are all seen.

261

00:11:51,127 --> 00:11:54,713

And of course, alongside this is this question

262

00:11:54,713 --> 00:11:57,049

about, you know, what is the Bible?

263

00:11:57,842 --> 00:11:58,134

Okay.

264

00:11:58,467 --> 00:12:04,056

Is it the revelation from God or is it the

265

00:12:04,056 --> 00:12:07,184

account of ancient people's

266

00:12:07,184 --> 00:12:08,853

encounter with God and so on?

267

00:12:08,853 --> 00:12:11,230

And how authoritative is it for us today?

268

00:12:11,522 --> 00:12:15,317

Those are questions that Modernism raised and the

269

00:12:15,317 --> 00:12:19,697

answer to them, were not very orthodox.

270

00:12:20,281 --> 00:12:25,453

And so there's a lot of controversy in Protestant

271

00:12:25,453 --> 00:12:28,747

denominations across the board about this.

272

00:12:29,498 --> 00:12:32,293

And Mennonites are not

273

00:12:32,293 --> 00:12:36,464

unaffected by those discussions.

274

00:12:37,339 --> 00:12:41,635

So it's because, you know, some of this new

275

00:12:41,635 --> 00:12:44,054

generation of leaders are reading Protestant

276

00:12:44,054 --> 00:12:46,223

works and they're aware of it.

277

00:12:47,683 --> 00:12:50,394

You know, they're going to, some of them going to

278

00:12:50,394 --> 00:12:52,229

normal school, some are going to college.

279

00:12:53,439 --> 00:12:55,399

And this is kind of in the air.

280

00:12:55,399 --> 00:12:57,359

It's kind of in the ethos and so on.

281

00:12:57,860 --> 00:13:01,530

It also, Modernism also aligns itself very nicely

282

00:13:01,530 --> 00:13:04,950

with a political social movement called

283

00:13:04,950 --> 00:13:08,287

Progressivism in the United States during the

284

00:13:08,287 --> 00:13:10,581

1890s up into the 1920s.

285

00:13:10,998 --> 00:13:14,668

In which there's a call for governmental reform

286

00:13:14,668 --> 00:13:19,673

addressing some of the evils of society.

287

00:13:20,591 --> 00:13:23,302

You know, it's kind of dealing with the

288

00:13:23,302 --> 00:13:24,929

detrimental impact of

289

00:13:24,929 --> 00:13:27,139

industrialization and so on.

290

00:13:27,139 --> 00:13:29,767

There's concern for- and how this grows, what is

291

00:13:29,767 --> 00:13:32,645

referred to as the social gospel movement.

292

00:13:33,687 --> 00:13:37,399

And oftentimes this sort of rational,

293

00:13:37,608 --> 00:13:41,862

secularized, anti-supernatural mindset combines

294

00:13:41,862 --> 00:13:44,907

itself with this social justice thing.

295

00:13:44,907 --> 00:13:46,659

And so you have, what's his name?

296

00:13:47,326 --> 00:13:50,621

Sheldon writing a book about what would Jesus do.

297

00:13:50,829 --> 00:13:52,289

It became a very popular book.

298

00:13:52,289 --> 00:13:55,834

People read it and so on and so on.

299

00:13:56,126 --> 00:13:59,004

And interesting, Daniel Kauffman writes an

300

00:13:59,004 --> 00:14:01,674

editorial about this in the Gospel Herald.

301

00:14:01,882 --> 00:14:03,592

And he read the book apparently.

302

00:14:04,426 --> 00:14:05,344

And he said, well, you know,

303

00:14:05,344 --> 00:14:06,845

it's all the buzz and so on.

304

00:14:06,845 --> 00:14:08,931

But he said, well, you know, actually what we

305

00:14:08,931 --> 00:14:11,642

should ask is what did Jesus do?

306

00:14:12,393 --> 00:14:14,061

And we can read the Gospel

307

00:14:14,061 --> 00:14:17,106

accounts and we can see what Jesus did.

308

00:14:17,690 --> 00:14:20,234

And so rather than some kind of imaginary thing

309

00:14:20,234 --> 00:14:21,402

about, well, this is what I think

310

00:14:21,402 --> 00:14:24,363

Jesus would do, Kauffman's call was,

311

00:14:24,363 --> 00:14:27,700

look at what Jesus did, read what he said, read

312

00:14:27,700 --> 00:14:29,618

what he taught, go by that.

313

00:14:29,618 --> 00:14:32,413

Don't go by some kind of imagine, think product

314

00:14:32,413 --> 00:14:33,455

or your imagination where you

315

00:14:33,455 --> 00:14:34,832

think, well, this is how Jesus was.

316

00:14:34,832 --> 00:14:36,292

And so this is what I would think he was doing,

317

00:14:36,667 --> 00:14:37,918

which I think is actually a

318

00:14:37,918 --> 00:14:41,213

fairly insightful approach to it.

319

00:14:41,630 --> 00:14:42,881

I think I said in my earlier

320

00:14:42,881 --> 00:14:44,758

talk, I like Daniel Kauffman.

321

00:14:44,967 --> 00:14:46,677

I do. I don't necessarily agree

322

00:14:46,677 --> 00:14:48,345

with everything, but I like him.

323

00:14:48,387 --> 00:14:53,350

He was an important person who did, I think, a

324

00:14:53,350 --> 00:14:54,560

lot of good for the church.

325

00:14:55,102 --> 00:14:57,479

And I think, you know, there are criticisms of

326

00:14:57,479 --> 00:15:00,024

him, most of which I think are unwarranted.

327

00:15:00,441 --> 00:15:01,775

And that's my personal opinion.

328

00:15:03,986 --> 00:15:05,362

But so then we have the like, so

329

00:15:05,362 --> 00:15:06,614

we have this thing on the Bible.

330

00:15:07,948 --> 00:15:09,491

Then we have the Lord's Day.

331

00:15:09,491 --> 00:15:13,245

We have three chapters on Satan and his works.

332

00:15:13,495 --> 00:15:14,913

And then we have the plan of salvation.

333

00:15:15,789 --> 00:15:18,834

And we have that. So we have redemption, the

334

00:15:18,834 --> 00:15:20,753

atonement, faith, repentance, justification,

335

00:15:20,919 --> 00:15:21,712

conversion, regeneration.

336

00:15:22,254 --> 00:15:24,882

A lot of those topics actually are parallels

337

00:15:24,882 --> 00:15:28,260

here, except for when it comes, there's no

338

00:15:28,260 --> 00:15:31,055

separate, in Manuals of Bible Doctrine,

339

00:15:31,055 --> 00:15:34,475

there's no separate chapter on the atonement.

340

00:15:34,475 --> 00:15:36,602

There is in Bible doctrines and then

341

00:15:36,602 --> 00:15:38,145

later on in doctrines of the Bible.

342

00:15:40,356 --> 00:15:46,445

Kauffman in 1897 kind of collapses those under one

343

00:15:46,445 --> 00:15:47,738

thing called redemption.

344

00:15:48,739 --> 00:15:51,241

And it's interesting that most of these chapters,

345

00:15:51,241 --> 00:15:53,994

not a long chapter, but most of his chapter on

346

00:15:53,994 --> 00:15:57,164

redemption is simply an excerpt,

347

00:15:57,164 --> 00:15:58,916

a large excerpt from Dordrecht.

348

00:16:01,251 --> 00:16:05,005

And so that's a very interesting thing to happen.

349

00:16:05,381 --> 00:16:12,179

But the 1914 Bible Doctrine chapter on the

350

00:16:12,179 --> 00:16:17,267

atonement is the first one that may have happened

351

00:16:17,267 --> 00:16:18,519

in the Herald of Truth or something.

352

00:16:18,811 --> 00:16:20,854

But as far as I know, it's the first book that

353

00:16:20,854 --> 00:16:27,236

I've seen where it introduces the idea of penal

354

00:16:27,236 --> 00:16:31,156

substitution in a Mennonite writing.

355

00:16:31,198 --> 00:16:35,202

And let me see here if I can find it. I'll just

356

00:16:35,202 --> 00:16:40,833

read it to you because it's hardly defined.

357

00:16:42,084 --> 00:16:44,461

It's just kind of said in passing.

358

00:16:46,422 --> 00:16:52,219

OK, the nature of Christ's death. And he says,

359

00:16:52,469 --> 00:16:55,013

"penal, penal because of guilt, his death was not

360

00:16:55,013 --> 00:16:56,473

the death of a hero primarily,

361

00:16:57,099 --> 00:17:00,352

though he was the greatest of heroes, neither was

362

00:17:00,352 --> 00:17:01,645

it result of a series of

363

00:17:01,645 --> 00:17:03,856

circumstances which could not be avoided.

364

00:17:04,189 --> 00:17:06,608

His death was a result of his own choice, for he

365

00:17:06,608 --> 00:17:08,360

clearly says, I laid down my life.

366

00:17:08,694 --> 00:17:11,155

No man takes it from me. The offering of his soul

367

00:17:11,155 --> 00:17:13,866

was for purposes penal because

368

00:17:13,866 --> 00:17:15,284

of sin and the guilt of man."

369

00:17:15,534 --> 00:17:16,493

And that's all he says.

370

00:17:16,910 --> 00:17:18,912

Doesn't actually defin what penal is.

371

00:17:19,580 --> 00:17:22,958

It doesn't go on to talk about penal satisfaction

372

00:17:22,958 --> 00:17:24,626

the way that the Protestant

373

00:17:24,626 --> 00:17:27,087

particularly reformed persons would...

374

00:17:27,629 --> 00:17:30,132

So I think this was written right by John E.

375

00:17:30,674 --> 00:17:33,719

Hartzler, who interesting enough later on, kind

376

00:17:33,719 --> 00:17:36,847

of became a lightning rod.

377

00:17:36,847 --> 00:17:39,475

He became president of Goshen College and kind of

378

00:17:39,475 --> 00:17:42,436

became a lightning rod there and seems to have

379

00:17:42,436 --> 00:17:45,147

then kind of drifted in a

380

00:17:45,147 --> 00:17:48,358

fairly modernist direction later on.

381

00:17:50,194 --> 00:17:51,862

And so it's always interesting to me that he's

382

00:17:51,862 --> 00:17:54,406

using this language and Doctrines of the Bible

383

00:17:54,406 --> 00:17:57,284

basically says the same thing,

384

00:17:57,284 --> 00:17:59,787

but doesn't really describe what penal is other

385

00:17:59,787 --> 00:18:01,830

than this, the because of sin and guilt.

386

00:18:01,830 --> 00:18:03,624

It's penal because of sin and guilt. A man

387

00:18:03,624 --> 00:18:06,251

doesn't really go on and expound it very much.

388

00:18:06,919 --> 00:18:11,006

So this is sold. It's promoted. People are

389

00:18:11,006 --> 00:18:12,299

reading it, though there was some

390

00:18:12,299 --> 00:18:14,218

dissatisfaction later on with it.

391

00:18:14,718 --> 00:18:19,807

Well, as I said before, we have this religious

392

00:18:19,807 --> 00:18:22,935

movement called modernism.

393

00:18:23,852 --> 00:18:28,732

It really impacts Presbyterians, Methodists,

394

00:18:29,566 --> 00:18:32,736

Congregationalists, Northern Baptists, not

395

00:18:32,736 --> 00:18:34,530

really Southern Baptists and so on.

396

00:18:34,988 --> 00:18:36,115

Most of the major Protestant

397

00:18:36,115 --> 00:18:38,742

denominations it has an impact on.

398

00:18:39,076 --> 00:18:42,454

And there are struggles over this and so on.

399

00:18:42,454 --> 00:18:45,082

There's controversies and so on.

400

00:18:45,082 --> 00:18:47,167

And it often then results in a number of church

401

00:18:47,167 --> 00:18:49,753

splits in the 1920s and so on.

402

00:18:50,337 --> 00:18:54,633

But in the early 1900s, a group of Protestant

403

00:18:54,633 --> 00:18:59,096

scholars got together and they wrote a series of

404

00:18:59,096 --> 00:19:02,266

essays on various doctrinal points that they

405

00:19:02,266 --> 00:19:03,100

thought were threatened.

406

00:19:03,559 --> 00:19:05,853

And these were published as The Fundamentals.

407

00:19:06,311 --> 00:19:08,939

That's where the term fundamentalism comes in.

408

00:19:09,231 --> 00:19:12,693

It's because of this set of about six or seven

409

00:19:12,693 --> 00:19:15,070

small books with these essays in.

410

00:19:15,654 --> 00:19:17,489

And you have people like it's a really

411

00:19:17,489 --> 00:19:18,657

interesting kind of thing.

412

00:19:18,740 --> 00:19:21,159

For example, you have B.B. Warfield, who is

413

00:19:21,159 --> 00:19:23,787

Presbyterian, a very highly respected biblical

414

00:19:23,787 --> 00:19:26,748

scholar and so on, who is

415

00:19:26,748 --> 00:19:28,625

part and parcel of this.

416

00:19:28,876 --> 00:19:30,460

But interestingly enough, he believes in

417

00:19:30,460 --> 00:19:34,381

evolution, which is a really curiosity.

418

00:19:35,674 --> 00:19:37,217

And he was a fundamentalist.

419

00:19:37,968 --> 00:19:41,763

Yeah. And later on fundamentalism, I think

420

00:19:41,763 --> 00:19:45,684

probably like by mid 20th century, becomes really

421

00:19:45,684 --> 00:19:49,688

identified with dispensationalism and

422

00:19:49,688 --> 00:19:51,523

premillennialism and stuff like that.

423

00:19:52,149 --> 00:19:56,445

And that's certainly a major element of I mean,

424

00:19:56,445 --> 00:19:58,071

it's major element within

425

00:19:58,071 --> 00:19:59,740

the fundamentalist movement.

426

00:20:00,449 --> 00:20:02,242

But early on, it wasn't that

427

00:20:02,242 --> 00:20:03,952

way. I mean, that was always there.

428

00:20:03,952 --> 00:20:05,579

There's some people that are always that way.

429

00:20:06,455 --> 00:20:08,373

But it wasn't all that way.

430

00:20:08,498 --> 00:20:13,253

People like Macon, who was at Princeton and was

431

00:20:13,253 --> 00:20:17,090

kind of the the academic fundamentalist.

432

00:20:19,051 --> 00:20:22,387

And he helped to lead a group out and formed a

433

00:20:22,387 --> 00:20:25,057

new Presbyterian denomination because they felt

434

00:20:25,057 --> 00:20:26,016

the Presbyterian Church was

435

00:20:26,016 --> 00:20:28,936

going to the dogs with liberalism.

436

00:20:30,187 --> 00:20:31,605

He definitely is not a

437

00:20:31,605 --> 00:20:35,400

dispensationalist. OK, and categorically not.

438

00:20:41,531 --> 00:20:43,659

But there are elements and this is the other

439

00:20:43,659 --> 00:20:46,370

thing that has happened, too, is that in the

440

00:20:46,370 --> 00:20:48,997

1890s, you have people like J.B.

441

00:20:49,247 --> 00:20:52,459

Smith and Amos, A.D.

442

00:20:52,459 --> 00:20:55,879

Wenger, Amos D. Wenger and so on, who go to

443

00:20:55,879 --> 00:20:58,173

fundamentalist Bible schools

444

00:20:58,173 --> 00:20:59,716

like Moody Bible Institute.

445

00:21:00,300 --> 00:21:04,179

And there they pick up on dispensationalism and

446

00:21:04,179 --> 00:21:06,515

adapt it to their Mennonite setting.

447

00:21:06,556 --> 00:21:10,143

It's not the full flown seven dispensations and

448

00:21:10,143 --> 00:21:12,229

so on like that, but they they pick up language.

449

00:21:12,729 --> 00:21:14,898

And so they're starting to talk about, you know,

450

00:21:15,107 --> 00:21:16,608

the church age, which is

451

00:21:16,608 --> 00:21:18,485

is a dispensationalist term.

452

00:21:18,902 --> 00:21:20,988

They refer to the time now, then talking about a

453

00:21:20,988 --> 00:21:23,740

future millennium, you know, talking about you

454

00:21:23,740 --> 00:21:25,283

introduce the terminology of the

455

00:21:25,283 --> 00:21:27,202

rapture of the saints and so on.

456

00:21:27,452 --> 00:21:28,537

All that kind of

457

00:21:28,537 --> 00:21:30,706

dispensationalist timetable and so on.

458

00:21:30,998 --> 00:21:32,082

And that creates a lot of

459

00:21:32,082 --> 00:21:34,626

controversy within the Mennonite church.

460

00:21:35,293 --> 00:21:38,547

But there are particularly rather young leaders

461

00:21:38,547 --> 00:21:43,427

in 1890s, early 1900s who pick up on this and

462

00:21:43,427 --> 00:21:46,346

make it their own and promote it within the church.

463

00:21:46,930 --> 00:21:48,557

Daniel Kauffman does not. He

464

00:21:48,557 --> 00:21:50,183

is not a dispensationalist.

465

00:21:50,183 --> 00:21:53,061

He is actually holds to a more traditional Mennonite,

466

00:21:53,270 --> 00:21:54,730

I would say amillennial,

467

00:21:55,230 --> 00:21:56,982

generally speaking kind of thing.

468

00:21:57,566 --> 00:22:01,903

And as editor of the Gospel Herald. OK, which

469

00:22:01,903 --> 00:22:03,947

first starts publication in 1908.

470

00:22:04,072 --> 00:22:06,158

And he's the first editor holds that position

471

00:22:06,158 --> 00:22:07,701

until soon before

472

00:22:07,701 --> 00:22:11,371

his death in the 1940s.

473

00:22:11,496 --> 00:22:14,291

He senses that that issue, it

474

00:22:14,291 --> 00:22:16,460

could be very divisive in the church.

475

00:22:17,169 --> 00:22:22,215

And so he really does not allow much to

476

00:22:22,215 --> 00:22:25,719

show itself in the Gospel Herald on eschatology.

477

00:22:26,178 --> 00:22:28,430

There's one time, I think, in the 30s in which he

478

00:22:28,430 --> 00:22:30,640

allowed basically kind of

479

00:22:30,640 --> 00:22:32,350

almost the symposium in which,

480

00:22:32,601 --> 00:22:35,103

you know, different viewpoints could be presented

481

00:22:35,103 --> 00:22:36,646

appeared in the Gospel Herald.

482

00:22:36,980 --> 00:22:39,066

But he really kind of kept it tamped down because

483

00:22:39,066 --> 00:22:40,233

he thought it was even though

484

00:22:40,233 --> 00:22:41,401

he was amillennial himself.

485

00:22:41,777 --> 00:22:44,154

And he wrote a booklet about his position, which

486

00:22:44,154 --> 00:22:45,363

is really nice little book.

487

00:22:46,198 --> 00:22:49,326

So there's this thing about modernism and

488

00:22:49,326 --> 00:22:51,870

people like John Horsch, who's an interesting

489

00:22:51,870 --> 00:22:53,538

person, because again, he is not

490

00:22:53,538 --> 00:22:55,540

pre-millennial or dispensationalist.

491

00:22:56,041 --> 00:22:57,667

But he really is caught up in

492

00:22:57,667 --> 00:23:01,046

the whole concern about modernism.

493

00:23:01,379 --> 00:23:02,881

And he believes that it's having

494

00:23:02,881 --> 00:23:04,591

its impact on the Mennonite church.

495

00:23:05,801 --> 00:23:07,844

Older historical scholarship

496

00:23:07,844 --> 00:23:10,722

and so on sort of pooh poohed that idea.

497

00:23:11,473 --> 00:23:13,308

And, you know, and they said, well,

498

00:23:13,308 --> 00:23:15,060

John Horsch and company, they were

499

00:23:15,060 --> 00:23:16,728

just kind of tilting that, you know,

500

00:23:16,728 --> 00:23:17,896

windmills or something, sort

501

00:23:17,896 --> 00:23:19,356

of a Don Quixote kind of thing.

502

00:23:20,565 --> 00:23:26,404

But Nate Yoder in his dissertation on American

503

00:23:26,404 --> 00:23:28,615

Mennonites and fundamentalism, that's not exactly

504

00:23:28,615 --> 00:23:31,451

the title, but that's sort of its topic.

505

00:23:32,244 --> 00:23:36,414

He and Goshen College kind of became the focus of

506

00:23:36,414 --> 00:23:38,041

this concern about modernism.

507

00:23:38,708 --> 00:23:42,379

And Nate Yoder has shown in his dissertation that

508

00:23:42,379 --> 00:23:44,756

there actually was modernism at Goshen,

509

00:23:45,465 --> 00:23:48,677

that there were professors there who were using

510

00:23:48,677 --> 00:23:51,555

modernist texts, texts that were written by

511

00:23:51,555 --> 00:23:52,514

modernists in their

512

00:23:52,514 --> 00:23:53,932

classrooms and stuff like that,

513

00:23:54,099 --> 00:23:57,018

in Bible classes and theology classes and so on.

514

00:23:57,185 --> 00:23:59,646

And so there actually was modernism there.

515

00:24:00,147 --> 00:24:02,941

But it was also kind of interwoven with more

516

00:24:02,941 --> 00:24:05,819

traditional Mennonite concerns about nonconformity

517

00:24:05,819 --> 00:24:08,446

and dress and all that kind of stuff,

518

00:24:08,488 --> 00:24:12,284

which Goshen was really being pushed.

519

00:24:13,160 --> 00:24:15,036

I mean, they were really

520

00:24:15,036 --> 00:24:17,164

pushing the boundaries of that.

521

00:24:18,540 --> 00:24:26,298

And around 1920, J.B. Smith, who had gone down,

522

00:24:26,298 --> 00:24:29,759

was the first principal of Eastern Mennonite School.

523

00:24:31,469 --> 00:24:35,265

He was actually from Ohio, but he came down and

524

00:24:35,265 --> 00:24:36,391

was the first principal there.

525

00:24:37,267 --> 00:24:40,520

He somehow or another got a hold of a picture or

526

00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:43,648

a photograph of a play that was

527

00:24:43,648 --> 00:24:46,109

put on at Goshen College by students.

528

00:24:46,776 --> 00:24:50,280

And of course, in the 1920s, the idea of plays

529

00:24:50,280 --> 00:24:52,115

among Mennonites, you know, you

530

00:24:52,115 --> 00:24:53,700

just didn't do that kind of stuff.

531

00:24:53,700 --> 00:24:54,993

That's not what Mennonites did.

532

00:24:55,619 --> 00:24:56,620

You know, that was, ooh.

533

00:24:57,078 --> 00:24:59,581

But this was not only a play, but this was a play

534

00:24:59,581 --> 00:25:01,500

of people dressed up in

535

00:25:01,500 --> 00:25:03,084

costumes and stuff like this.

536

00:25:03,585 --> 00:25:05,378

And somehow he got a copy of

537

00:25:05,378 --> 00:25:07,464

this and he made postcards of it.

538

00:25:07,839 --> 00:25:10,759

And he sent this out as a mailing to Mennonite

539

00:25:10,759 --> 00:25:13,094

ministers in the country and saying, see what is

540

00:25:13,094 --> 00:25:14,387

happening at Goshen College.

541

00:25:15,555 --> 00:25:19,976

And any well-respecting Mennonite minister,

542

00:25:20,268 --> 00:25:21,436

particularly here in the East,

543

00:25:21,436 --> 00:25:22,646

would have been horrified by that.

544

00:25:23,188 --> 00:25:29,194

And so the theological liberalism and the kind of

545

00:25:29,194 --> 00:25:33,073

more traditional Mennonite

546

00:25:33,073 --> 00:25:34,574

concerns about nonconformity,

547

00:25:34,574 --> 00:25:37,118

which again are being contested in

548

00:25:37,118 --> 00:25:38,787

the early part of the 20th century.

549

00:25:39,537 --> 00:25:43,667

And it's because of that that we see in the early

550

00:25:43,667 --> 00:25:44,751

part of the 20th century

551

00:25:44,751 --> 00:25:46,753

among various conferences.

552

00:25:47,504 --> 00:25:49,297

I mean, they had many of them had disciplines

553

00:25:49,297 --> 00:25:52,092

going back to the 1870s and so on.

554

00:25:53,009 --> 00:25:56,346

But those disciplines become much more detailed

555

00:25:56,346 --> 00:25:59,599

and it's because things were being contested.

556

00:26:00,225 --> 00:26:01,935

And I think that's one of the things we have to

557

00:26:01,935 --> 00:26:04,813

keep in mind because some people read these

558

00:26:05,855 --> 00:26:08,400

disciplines with the increasing detail as

559

00:26:08,400 --> 00:26:10,151

introducing new things and so on.

560

00:26:10,151 --> 00:26:15,240

But they're not. They're normally the result of a

561

00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:16,950

practice that is being contested.

562

00:26:18,368 --> 00:26:22,414

And the need to firm up that particular

563

00:26:22,414 --> 00:26:25,458

particular practice and so on.

564

00:26:26,251 --> 00:26:30,380

So here we have this modernism and of course,

565

00:26:30,380 --> 00:26:33,925

liberalism in the sense

566

00:26:33,925 --> 00:26:36,469

of of nonconformity issues, too.

567

00:26:36,469 --> 00:26:37,971

And they're all kind of woven together.

568

00:26:38,596 --> 00:26:43,184

And so in 1918 at Virginia Mennonite

569

00:26:43,184 --> 00:26:45,395

Conference, J.B. Smith is there.

570

00:26:45,395 --> 00:26:46,479

He's now a minister in

571

00:26:46,479 --> 00:26:47,439

Virginia Mennonite Conference.

572

00:26:47,647 --> 00:26:49,774

He had come from Ohio. All right.

573

00:26:49,774 --> 00:26:51,985

But as principal, he's living there in Virginia.

574

00:26:52,402 --> 00:26:55,655

A.D. Wenger, who is originally from Pennsylvania,

575

00:26:55,655 --> 00:26:56,990

had been an early

576

00:26:56,990 --> 00:26:59,034

evangelist, traveled very widely.

577

00:26:59,868 --> 00:27:01,119

He was now living out in

578

00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:02,620

the Denver, Virginia area.

579

00:27:03,663 --> 00:27:07,334

OK. And then you have this other person who I

580

00:27:07,334 --> 00:27:11,379

would say probably after

581

00:27:11,379 --> 00:27:14,090

Daniel Kauffman is a giant in the land.

582

00:27:14,382 --> 00:27:15,675

I mean, I mean that in a good way.

583

00:27:15,967 --> 00:27:18,303

I mean, he's just a gigantic figure.

584

00:27:18,511 --> 00:27:21,139

I mean, he was actually big and tall, too.

585

00:27:21,139 --> 00:27:24,809

He was physically he was rather imposing.

586

00:27:26,811 --> 00:27:29,939

Interesting person. He was his family was from

587

00:27:29,939 --> 00:27:33,068

Virginia, but he was from Kansas.

588

00:27:33,485 --> 00:27:35,070

He was ordained a bishop out there.

589

00:27:35,904 --> 00:27:39,032

And around about this time, I'm not sure exactly

590

00:27:39,032 --> 00:27:41,242

when, but it's- he moves to

591

00:27:41,242 --> 00:27:44,245

Virginia and to the Dembe area,

592

00:27:44,454 --> 00:27:47,957

which is a fairly new manite settlement in

593

00:27:47,957 --> 00:27:52,128

Virginia and becomes the bishop there and thus a

594

00:27:52,128 --> 00:27:53,505

bishop in Virginia conference.

595

00:27:54,589 --> 00:27:58,134

So in 1918 and all these men,

596

00:27:58,134 --> 00:28:00,178

by the way, are premillenialist.

597

00:28:01,054 --> 00:28:01,429

OK, they're all

598

00:28:01,429 --> 00:28:03,264

premillenialist. Are you disappointed?

599

00:28:03,807 --> 00:28:07,394

Oh, yes, very much so. But, you know, I have a

600

00:28:07,394 --> 00:28:08,019

few friends that are

601

00:28:08,019 --> 00:28:09,604

premillenialist and we're good friends.

602

00:28:10,313 --> 00:28:11,564

They just happen to be wrong.

603

00:28:13,233 --> 00:28:18,613

But OK, in 19-on December 6 and 7 1918, one of

604

00:28:18,613 --> 00:28:19,531

the things in conference

605

00:28:19,531 --> 00:28:21,491

sessions and the old man night church,

606

00:28:21,783 --> 00:28:24,285

it was typical for all the bishops to address the

607

00:28:24,285 --> 00:28:26,037

conference at the beginning of conference.

608

00:28:26,663 --> 00:28:29,165

And in this in his opening remarks at conference,

609

00:28:29,624 --> 00:28:31,042

Brunk said he had two reasons

610

00:28:31,042 --> 00:28:33,044

for coming to this conference.

611

00:28:33,169 --> 00:28:35,839

First, to lift my voice against the corrupting

612

00:28:35,839 --> 00:28:38,258

and blighting influence at work against the

613

00:28:38,258 --> 00:28:39,342

church and to save this

614

00:28:39,342 --> 00:28:40,760

conference from destruction.

615

00:28:41,344 --> 00:28:43,263

If I fail to do that, to at

616

00:28:43,263 --> 00:28:44,889

least cleanse my own hands.

617

00:28:45,140 --> 00:28:49,686

Ambitious. He is mild mannered-

618

00:28:49,686 --> 00:28:52,480

he is not. OK, combative.

619

00:28:52,730 --> 00:28:56,568

Yes, he's one of these people that, you know,

620

00:28:56,568 --> 00:28:59,737

when they when he wrote a book in case you wanted

621

00:28:59,737 --> 00:29:01,406

to miss what the main point was,

622

00:29:01,656 --> 00:29:02,991

he put them all in capital. He

623

00:29:02,991 --> 00:29:04,451

put it all in capital letters.

624

00:29:04,868 --> 00:29:07,203

OK, so you can make sure that this

625

00:29:07,203 --> 00:29:08,997

is important, what I'm saying here.

626

00:29:09,414 --> 00:29:11,166

And you could almost feel like if he was

627

00:29:11,166 --> 00:29:13,126

speaking, that he would raise his

628

00:29:13,126 --> 00:29:15,253

voice and be very emphatic here.

629

00:29:16,421 --> 00:29:21,009

OK, but at that conference, they had questions

630

00:29:21,009 --> 00:29:22,677

that came before conference that

631

00:29:22,677 --> 00:29:23,928

they were supposed to decide on.

632

00:29:24,304 --> 00:29:26,931

And one of the one of the questions that came

633

00:29:26,931 --> 00:29:29,601

before the conference in Virginia in December of

634

00:29:29,601 --> 00:29:32,520

1918 is in view of the fact that liberalism for

635

00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:35,648

many years has steadily gained ground in spite of

636

00:29:35,648 --> 00:29:39,277

all efforts, general and local, made to control it.

637

00:29:39,277 --> 00:29:41,488

What action can this conference take to safeguard

638

00:29:41,488 --> 00:29:44,199

our district from its blighting and destructive

639

00:29:44,199 --> 00:29:45,867

effects and prevent the

640

00:29:45,867 --> 00:29:47,410

undermining of the old faith?

641

00:29:47,619 --> 00:29:49,746

And so that's I mean, you can sort

642

00:29:49,746 --> 00:29:51,706

of hear George Brunk talking here.

643

00:29:51,748 --> 00:29:54,459

OK, and it was resolved.

644

00:29:54,876 --> 00:29:56,127

This is what they agreed to.

645

00:29:56,127 --> 00:30:00,006

Since this conference is uncompromisingly opposed

646

00:30:00,006 --> 00:30:03,384

to the tenets of liberalism as destructive of the

647

00:30:03,384 --> 00:30:06,429

faith of the gospel, we hereby record ourselves

648

00:30:06,429 --> 00:30:09,891

as in full support of the verbal inspiration of

649

00:30:09,891 --> 00:30:13,269

the Scriptures, the substitutionary character of

650

00:30:13,269 --> 00:30:15,271

the atonement, the personal return

651

00:30:15,271 --> 00:30:16,856

of the Lord and other fundamental

652

00:30:17,190 --> 00:30:18,691

doctrines denied by the

653

00:30:18,691 --> 00:30:20,318

advocates of the new theology.

654

00:30:20,527 --> 00:30:22,320

Of course, the new theology is modernism.

655

00:30:22,320 --> 00:30:25,073

And so these are I mean, these are these are

656

00:30:25,073 --> 00:30:29,077

concerns that, you know, Orthodox Methodist would

657

00:30:29,077 --> 00:30:30,870

have had Orthodox Presbyterians would have

658

00:30:30,870 --> 00:30:34,457

Orthodox Baptists would have Orthodox Disciples

659

00:30:34,457 --> 00:30:35,667

of Christ would have had

660

00:30:35,667 --> 00:30:38,253

these were all in that sense

661

00:30:38,253 --> 00:30:42,382

it's not really that

662

00:30:42,382 --> 00:30:44,551

distinctive of a concern.

663

00:30:45,593 --> 00:30:47,053

But it does reflect the fact

664

00:30:47,053 --> 00:30:49,389

that these are contested issues.

665

00:30:50,515 --> 00:30:54,394

And the thing I would have to say is that the

666

00:30:54,394 --> 00:30:56,813

concerns here, it's not as though something new

667

00:30:56,813 --> 00:30:58,064

came into the Mennonite Church.

668

00:30:59,232 --> 00:31:00,775

Mennonites who have always believed in the

669

00:31:00,775 --> 00:31:02,443

inspiration of scriptures, they would always

670

00:31:02,443 --> 00:31:03,987

believe that Jesus died for us.

671

00:31:03,987 --> 00:31:06,239

They use the substitute for it since they've all

672

00:31:06,239 --> 00:31:09,200

believed in the personal return.

673

00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:10,410

I mean, these were these were kind of

674

00:31:10,410 --> 00:31:14,080

foundational doctrines that yes,

675

00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:15,498

this is part of who we believe.

676

00:31:15,707 --> 00:31:17,375

And now they're being questioned.

677

00:31:17,584 --> 00:31:19,168

But I think the reality is and

678

00:31:19,168 --> 00:31:21,296

Brunk says this at one particular point.

679

00:31:21,296 --> 00:31:24,716

He said, listen, there we could just kind of

680

00:31:24,716 --> 00:31:27,552

assume like churches in general in the United

681

00:31:27,552 --> 00:31:29,345

States, Protestant churches in general, United

682

00:31:29,345 --> 00:31:32,307

States believed these basic kind of things.

683

00:31:32,307 --> 00:31:33,099

And they weren't really

684

00:31:33,099 --> 00:31:34,934

something that we had to worry about.

685

00:31:34,934 --> 00:31:36,019

We had to worry about our more

686

00:31:36,019 --> 00:31:37,937

Mennonite kind of things as far as.

687

00:31:38,146 --> 00:31:40,315

But now these are also being contested.

688

00:31:41,024 --> 00:31:43,735

And these folks believe it's they're also being

689

00:31:43,735 --> 00:31:45,778

contested in the Mennonite Church.

690

00:31:46,321 --> 00:31:48,323

And if Nate Yoder is correct, and

691

00:31:48,323 --> 00:31:51,034

I think he is, there were pockets.

692

00:31:51,242 --> 00:31:53,077

I don't think they were very big pockets, but

693

00:31:53,077 --> 00:31:54,871

there were pockets where

694

00:31:54,871 --> 00:31:57,582

they were being questioned.

695

00:31:58,666 --> 00:32:04,005

And there was a set of younger persons,

696

00:32:04,339 --> 00:32:05,256

particularly persons who

697

00:32:05,256 --> 00:32:06,466

went to Goshen and so on.

698

00:32:07,550 --> 00:32:13,848

And some other places who, yeah, they were very

699

00:32:13,848 --> 00:32:18,269

heavily impacted by modernism and so on.

700

00:32:18,519 --> 00:32:20,813

So it's not a

701

00:32:20,813 --> 00:32:24,233

they're not tilting at windmills here.

702

00:32:24,692 --> 00:32:26,903

OK, this is a very real concern.

703

00:32:28,154 --> 00:32:30,281

And they're trying to address it.

704

00:32:30,281 --> 00:32:32,158

But at the same time, they are

705

00:32:32,158 --> 00:32:34,327

picking up on some theological ideas.

706

00:32:34,994 --> 00:32:38,373

These three men are premillenials to some of

707

00:32:38,373 --> 00:32:41,167

their things of buying into that kind of stuff.

708

00:32:41,167 --> 00:32:45,088

But not all persons concerned about modernism are

709

00:32:45,088 --> 00:32:46,255

that way, like said, John

710

00:32:46,255 --> 00:32:47,715

Horsch wasn't by any means.

711

00:32:48,007 --> 00:32:49,509

But he was very concerned about it.

712

00:32:49,509 --> 00:32:50,593

He wrote books about it.

713

00:32:51,594 --> 00:32:56,432

His book, Modern Religious Liberalism, is

714

00:32:56,432 --> 00:33:00,645

probably his-wasn't his biggest book.

715

00:33:00,728 --> 00:33:02,647

But it came out, I think, in

716

00:33:02,647 --> 00:33:04,107

twenty one or something like that.

717

00:33:04,857 --> 00:33:06,359

It wasn't printed by Mennonite

718

00:33:06,359 --> 00:33:07,235

publisher was printed.

719

00:33:07,568 --> 00:33:09,028

I think it was printed by Moody.

720

00:33:09,028 --> 00:33:09,779

I'm not sure it was.

721

00:33:10,113 --> 00:33:12,240

It was used at Moody Bible Institute as a

722

00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:16,119

textbook because it was, you know, and Horsch was

723

00:33:16,119 --> 00:33:18,788

Horsch was a diminutive man.

724

00:33:18,830 --> 00:33:23,960

He's very small, sort of a a Banty Rooster kind

725

00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:29,257

of person who's very combative in his in his in

726

00:33:29,257 --> 00:33:35,138

his writing, painfully shy as an individual, but

727

00:33:35,138 --> 00:33:36,931

very combative in his writing.

728

00:33:37,557 --> 00:33:41,060

And even like I mean, I mean, he is the

729

00:33:41,060 --> 00:33:44,313

foremost Mennonite historian in North America in

730

00:33:44,313 --> 00:33:45,732

the early part of the 20th century.

731

00:33:46,566 --> 00:33:49,569

And his son-in-law, H.S. Bender, really build

732

00:33:49,569 --> 00:33:51,612

upon what John Horsch was doing.

733

00:33:52,155 --> 00:33:55,074

But some of what Horsch is writing when he's

734

00:33:55,074 --> 00:33:57,201

talking about early Anabaptism, he's really

735

00:33:57,201 --> 00:34:00,288

trying he's defending it against some things.

736

00:34:00,496 --> 00:34:03,624

And particularly one of the things that he does

737

00:34:03,624 --> 00:34:07,670

not like is how the liberal Dutch Mennonite in

738

00:34:07,670 --> 00:34:09,172

the early 20th century tell

739

00:34:09,172 --> 00:34:10,757

the Dutch Mennonite story.

740

00:34:11,215 --> 00:34:13,885

OK, because he feels and he's right there that

741

00:34:13,885 --> 00:34:16,262

they actually bring some of their very liberal

742

00:34:16,262 --> 00:34:19,766

theological viewpoints and impose them on on

743

00:34:19,766 --> 00:34:21,225

early Anabaptist history.

744

00:34:22,602 --> 00:34:24,604

But he probably does some of the same thing.

745

00:34:24,604 --> 00:34:27,273

He brings some of his more, quote unquote,

746

00:34:27,857 --> 00:34:28,900

generically fundamentalist

747

00:34:28,900 --> 00:34:32,320

viewpoints and into his presentation.

748

00:34:33,404 --> 00:34:35,698

We recommend that a committee be appointed whose

749

00:34:35,698 --> 00:34:38,618

duty it shall be to further investigate the

750

00:34:38,618 --> 00:34:42,455

menace of liberalism as affecting the church,

751

00:34:42,455 --> 00:34:44,207

that they draft measure safeguard in our

752

00:34:44,207 --> 00:34:45,625

conference district from the

753

00:34:45,625 --> 00:34:47,251

inroad and destructive blight.

754

00:34:47,251 --> 00:34:50,254

-there's that word blight again-that they report

755

00:34:50,254 --> 00:34:51,839

their findings and worked to

756

00:34:51,839 --> 00:34:53,216

our next conference for approval.

757

00:34:53,883 --> 00:34:55,927

We also make an appeal to the general conference

758

00:34:55,927 --> 00:34:58,596

to take decisive and scriptural action in an

759

00:34:58,596 --> 00:35:00,681

unmistakable terms, opposing the tenants and

760

00:35:00,681 --> 00:35:01,808

delusions of the new theology.

761

00:35:02,391 --> 00:35:04,352

And that she takes such measures as will purge

762

00:35:04,352 --> 00:35:06,729

the church from this calamitous peril.

763

00:35:07,313 --> 00:35:08,815

And so J.B. Smith, A.D.

764

00:35:08,815 --> 00:35:10,233

Wenger and George R.

765

00:35:10,233 --> 00:35:12,276

Brunk are appointed to this committee.

766

00:35:12,902 --> 00:35:15,822

So in 1919 and October 1919, at the next

767

00:35:15,822 --> 00:35:23,162

conference, they report their findings and J.B.

768

00:35:23,162 --> 00:35:26,541

Smith, at this particular point, the committee is

769

00:35:26,541 --> 00:35:30,044

referred to as the committee of the investigation

770

00:35:30,044 --> 00:35:31,546

of liberalizing liberalism

771

00:35:31,838 --> 00:35:34,882

in the church. And what they- what these three men

772

00:35:34,882 --> 00:35:39,220

have done is that they actually have drawn up a

773

00:35:39,220 --> 00:35:42,682

fundamental a statement of fundamentals.

774

00:35:43,975 --> 00:35:45,852

And the Virginia

775

00:35:45,852 --> 00:35:48,771

Conference adopts that statement.

776

00:35:49,522 --> 00:35:50,857

It's 18 articles, kind of an

777

00:35:50,857 --> 00:35:52,316

imitation of the Dordrecht confession.

778

00:35:53,609 --> 00:35:56,904

And it starts out whereas the Dordrecht confession

779

00:35:56,904 --> 00:35:59,574

starts out with God, the creator.

780

00:35:59,782 --> 00:36:06,455

All right. The the Virginia 18 articles start out

781

00:36:06,455 --> 00:36:07,832

with a statement about the Bible.

782

00:36:08,541 --> 00:36:11,377

OK. And it says, we believe in the plenary verbal

783

00:36:11,377 --> 00:36:14,088

inspiration of the Bible as the word of God that

784

00:36:14,088 --> 00:36:17,800

is authentic in its matter, authoritative in its

785

00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:20,386

counsels, inerrant in its original writings and

786

00:36:20,386 --> 00:36:23,097

the only infallible rule of faith and practice.

787

00:36:23,639 --> 00:36:25,391

And one of the things I remember when I was

788

00:36:25,391 --> 00:36:29,562

taken into the church, you know, the last

789

00:36:29,562 --> 00:36:33,566

instruction class I had, the bishop came over and

790

00:36:33,566 --> 00:36:35,985

went through the confession of faith, which was

791

00:36:35,985 --> 00:36:40,698

the 1921 confession and the and our discipline.

792

00:36:41,407 --> 00:36:44,035

But one of the things I really I want things

793

00:36:44,035 --> 00:36:47,330

I do remember from that is his explanation about

794

00:36:47,330 --> 00:36:49,832

this first article.

795

00:36:50,207 --> 00:36:55,421

And he really he talked about the thing I

796

00:36:55,421 --> 00:36:56,505

remember is him talking about

797

00:36:56,505 --> 00:36:58,674

inerrant in its original writings.

798

00:36:59,508 --> 00:37:02,678

OK. And he explained to me and it's

799

00:37:02,678 --> 00:37:03,679

interesting that he had

800

00:37:03,679 --> 00:37:05,139

sophistication enough to do this.

801

00:37:05,139 --> 00:37:06,891

He was a farmer and so on.

802

00:37:07,308 --> 00:37:09,810

But he explained, said, you know, we don't have

803

00:37:09,810 --> 00:37:11,354

the original manuscripts.

804

00:37:12,063 --> 00:37:13,522

And over time, you know, some

805

00:37:13,522 --> 00:37:15,441

mistakes have come into those things.

806

00:37:15,441 --> 00:37:17,526

But we believe that they were inerrant, that they

807

00:37:17,526 --> 00:37:19,528

were without error in the original.

808

00:37:19,820 --> 00:37:23,199

OK. And but we have good enough that, you know,

809

00:37:23,199 --> 00:37:24,200

we know what's going on.

810

00:37:24,200 --> 00:37:26,786

And so that was kind of interesting to me, that

811

00:37:28,663 --> 00:37:30,331

that was the fundamentalist.

812

00:37:31,207 --> 00:37:33,459

That's definitely fundamentalist language that's

813

00:37:33,459 --> 00:37:37,296

coming straight from the Presbyterian and

814

00:37:37,296 --> 00:37:39,507

Methodist and other fundamentalists, because

815

00:37:39,507 --> 00:37:41,467

they're really

816

00:37:41,467 --> 00:37:44,929

arguing about the the the reliability,

817

00:37:45,429 --> 00:37:47,807

the authority of scripture, its truthfulness and

818

00:37:47,807 --> 00:37:48,933

so on, which is one of the major

819

00:37:48,933 --> 00:37:51,602

things that modernists did.

820

00:37:51,602 --> 00:37:53,688

They love to say, oh, well, there's all these

821

00:37:53,688 --> 00:37:55,147

contradictions and stuff like that.

822

00:37:55,648 --> 00:37:58,693

And so fundamentalists are trying to defend the

823

00:37:58,693 --> 00:37:59,694

authority of the Bible and

824

00:37:59,694 --> 00:38:01,070

they come up with this language.

825

00:38:01,654 --> 00:38:03,698

Some people have problems with that language.

826

00:38:04,615 --> 00:38:06,075

And I don't feel that

827

00:38:06,075 --> 00:38:08,035

it's necessary language personally.

828

00:38:08,035 --> 00:38:09,578

That's my you know, it's I

829

00:38:09,578 --> 00:38:10,746

don't object to it necessarily.

830

00:38:12,081 --> 00:38:13,416

But some people think, well,

831

00:38:13,416 --> 00:38:15,001

this is a new way of looking things.

832

00:38:15,001 --> 00:38:15,626

Well, it depends.

833

00:38:16,919 --> 00:38:19,839

Depends on that. But it is interesting that they

834

00:38:19,839 --> 00:38:22,425

felt the need to establish.

835

00:38:23,926 --> 00:38:25,636

Establish the authority of the Bible.

836

00:38:26,137 --> 00:38:28,014

They didn't need to do that in 1632.

837

00:38:28,806 --> 00:38:31,475

838

00:38:33,019 --> 00:38:35,479

what becomes the 1920 Garden City, Missouri,

839

00:38:35,479 --> 00:38:37,148

Confession of Faith, which

840

00:38:37,148 --> 00:38:39,483

originated here in Virginia in 1919,

841

00:38:40,735 --> 00:38:42,695

is addressing a current issue.

842

00:38:43,738 --> 00:38:45,364

And, you know, I would not

843

00:38:45,364 --> 00:38:46,824

say it's an unimportant issue.

844

00:38:47,616 --> 00:38:49,702

It's addressing an current issue.

845

00:38:50,703 --> 00:38:52,413

One of the things that's interesting, though,

846

00:38:53,748 --> 00:38:56,625

is you remember, I said that with Daniel

847

00:38:56,625 --> 00:38:58,544

Kauffman's Manual of Bible doctrines,

848

00:38:59,462 --> 00:39:02,339

when it came to the Atonement or redemption, it

849

00:39:02,339 --> 00:39:04,550

basically simply quotes the Dordrecht

850

00:39:04,550 --> 00:39:06,761

Confession in length and so on.

851

00:39:07,178 --> 00:39:08,346

Well, one of the things

852

00:39:08,346 --> 00:39:10,848

that's interesting here is

853

00:39:11,974 --> 00:39:12,975

when it talks about

854

00:39:12,975 --> 00:39:17,480

it talks to the article on Jesus, it says, "He

855

00:39:17,480 --> 00:39:19,607

suffered the penalty for man's sin,

856

00:39:20,483 --> 00:39:22,735

dying in his substitute, thus reconciling man to

857

00:39:22,735 --> 00:39:23,861

God and giving free

858

00:39:23,861 --> 00:39:25,404

access to the throne of grace."

859

00:39:26,405 --> 00:39:29,241

And so here we have, again, this

860

00:39:29,241 --> 00:39:32,745

idea of penalty, of penal substitution.

861

00:39:33,746 --> 00:39:35,748

And of course, 1914, it's here.

862

00:39:36,040 --> 00:39:37,249

It's not in Dordrecht.

863

00:39:37,333 --> 00:39:38,959

Dordrecht never uses that terminology.

864

00:39:39,251 --> 00:39:40,377

It talks about redemption.

865

00:39:40,669 --> 00:39:42,213

It talks about, it

866

00:39:42,213 --> 00:39:45,633

basically uses redemption language.

867

00:39:46,175 --> 00:39:49,178

There's nothing there about, it talks about

868

00:39:49,178 --> 00:39:52,139

cleansing us of our sin, destroying

869

00:39:52,139 --> 00:39:54,266

the power of sin, stuff like that.

870

00:39:54,475 --> 00:40:00,689

But Dordrecht's understanding of what Jesus did on

871

00:40:00,689 --> 00:40:02,108

the cross is basically redemption.

872

00:40:02,817 --> 00:40:04,276

There's no talk about penalty.

873

00:40:05,152 --> 00:40:08,322

And of course, that's a pretty reformed,

874

00:40:08,322 --> 00:40:10,658

generally Protestant, but even

875

00:40:10,658 --> 00:40:12,243

Roman Catholic understanding.

876

00:40:13,119 --> 00:40:15,663

It comes into the Mennonite Church.

877

00:40:15,663 --> 00:40:20,084

I think here in the late, maybe 1890s and so

878

00:40:20,084 --> 00:40:22,753

on, though Daniel Kaufman isn't using it.

879

00:40:23,671 --> 00:40:24,922

Though, you know, he's

880

00:40:24,922 --> 00:40:26,590

editing these two other books.

881

00:40:26,966 --> 00:40:29,135

So I assume he must have been.

882

00:40:29,135 --> 00:40:29,760

I don't know.

883

00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:31,971

He probably was okay with the language or so on.

884

00:40:32,763 --> 00:40:34,807

But again, they don't really

885

00:40:34,807 --> 00:40:36,559

define what we mean by penal.

886

00:40:37,810 --> 00:40:37,893

Okay.

887

00:40:37,893 --> 00:40:39,228

They just kind of say this.

888

00:40:40,062 --> 00:40:42,189

So what do they mean by that?

889

00:40:42,731 --> 00:40:45,109

So in 1919, Virginia adopts this.

890

00:40:45,109 --> 00:40:49,697

And then in 1921, at Garden City, Missouri, in

891

00:40:49,697 --> 00:40:51,490

the general conference of the

892

00:40:51,490 --> 00:40:54,243

Mennonite Church, they take this thing to it.

893

00:40:54,994 --> 00:40:57,621

And I mean, I'm sure there's conversations behind

894

00:40:57,621 --> 00:41:00,833

that, before that, leading up to it and so on.

895

00:41:01,083 --> 00:41:02,084

But they take it to it.

896

00:41:02,126 --> 00:41:03,752

And at the general conference of the

897

00:41:03,752 --> 00:41:06,797

Mennonite Church, they adopt this with a few changes,

898

00:41:07,631 --> 00:41:13,429

or the small changes, as they say, a restatement

899

00:41:13,429 --> 00:41:15,306

of their confession of faith.

900

00:41:15,723 --> 00:41:17,600

They reference v, okay?

901

00:41:17,600 --> 00:41:20,060

They reference Dordrecht as still

902

00:41:20,060 --> 00:41:21,187

being their confession of faith.

903

00:41:21,187 --> 00:41:24,607

But this is kind of a restating or a updating of

904

00:41:24,607 --> 00:41:26,066

Dordrecht, addressing some

905

00:41:26,066 --> 00:41:27,026

issues that weren't there.

906

00:41:27,276 --> 00:41:28,402

And it did do that.

907

00:41:28,861 --> 00:41:30,446

That was part of what it did.

908

00:41:30,863 --> 00:41:34,491

But it also introduced some interesting ideas.

909

00:41:35,201 --> 00:41:36,827

It says here about Jesus Christ.

910

00:41:39,038 --> 00:41:41,248

He was without sin, the divinely appointed

911

00:41:41,248 --> 00:41:43,792

substitute and representative of sinful man,

912

00:41:44,126 --> 00:41:47,087

making satisfaction from man's sins by his death

913

00:41:47,087 --> 00:41:50,090

on the cross, making the only adequate atonement

914

00:41:50,090 --> 00:41:51,800

for sin by the shedding of his blood.

915

00:41:52,218 --> 00:41:57,431

Thus reconciling man to God, that he was raised

916

00:41:57,431 --> 00:42:00,851

from the dead, ascended to glory, and ever liveth

917

00:42:00,851 --> 00:42:02,019

to make intercession for us.

918

00:42:02,019 --> 00:42:03,437

So they introduced this

919

00:42:03,437 --> 00:42:05,856

idea of satisfaction, okay?

920

00:42:06,398 --> 00:42:09,985

Which again is kind of tied into a penal thing.

921

00:42:09,985 --> 00:42:11,779

Now, I think if I noticed here, they don't

922

00:42:11,779 --> 00:42:15,449

actually use the language of, use the penal

923

00:42:15,449 --> 00:42:17,493

language that the 1919 one did.

924

00:42:18,035 --> 00:42:19,036

But they're sort of

925

00:42:19,036 --> 00:42:21,455

substituting the idea of satisfaction.

926

00:42:22,164 --> 00:42:23,666

Which I think is kind of interesting.

927

00:42:24,583 --> 00:42:28,003

Now, then another thing that you mentioned about

928

00:42:28,003 --> 00:42:28,963

my friend, John Martin,

929

00:42:28,963 --> 00:42:31,298

his issue about restrictions.

930

00:42:33,008 --> 00:42:36,095

Daniel Kauffman, in manual of Bible doctrines,

931

00:42:36,095 --> 00:42:37,888

does use the term restrictions.

932

00:42:39,139 --> 00:42:40,349

But he didn't invent it.

933

00:42:40,683 --> 00:42:42,226

Some people blame him for it.

934

00:42:42,476 --> 00:42:44,061

And that's because they haven't read enough.

935

00:42:45,104 --> 00:42:48,065

It is actually a term that was

936

00:42:48,065 --> 00:42:50,567

introduced by John S. Coffman.

937

00:42:50,901 --> 00:42:53,862

It's Coffman with a C, C-O-F-F-M-A-N.

938

00:42:54,321 --> 00:42:55,906

John S. Coffman was from Virginia.

939

00:42:56,532 --> 00:42:58,534

He was a schoolteacher, okay?

940

00:42:59,451 --> 00:43:04,540

He went to Elkhart, Indiana, became and worked

941

00:43:04,540 --> 00:43:06,333

for John F. Funk's v

942

00:43:06,333 --> 00:43:09,086

Publishing Company, was the editor.

943

00:43:09,586 --> 00:43:11,588

Really, after a while, was really

944

00:43:11,588 --> 00:43:13,007

the editor of the Gospel Herald.

945

00:43:14,008 --> 00:43:16,093

Was ordained, became one

946

00:43:16,093 --> 00:43:17,636

of the first evangelists.

947

00:43:18,470 --> 00:43:20,472

In fact, I think Daniel Kauffman and George R.

948

00:43:20,472 --> 00:43:23,767

Brunk were both converted at revival meetings

949

00:43:23,767 --> 00:43:25,144

that John S. Coffman had.

950

00:43:25,769 --> 00:43:29,690

He was apparently an amazing person.

951

00:43:30,733 --> 00:43:33,569

But he's the first person actually, I think in

952

00:43:33,569 --> 00:43:35,696

the early 1890s in the Herald of

953

00:43:35,696 --> 00:43:37,406

Truth, to use this term restrictions.

954

00:43:38,032 --> 00:43:40,451

And it is primarily applied to

955

00:43:40,451 --> 00:43:42,703

kind of nonconformity issues.

956

00:43:42,703 --> 00:43:44,705

And I think he's thinking about restrictions as

957

00:43:44,705 --> 00:43:46,999

being things that you're not supposed to do.

958

00:43:47,333 --> 00:43:47,666

All right.

959

00:43:47,666 --> 00:43:48,876

That's how he's using the term.

960

00:43:48,876 --> 00:43:50,252

You're not supposed to do these things.

961

00:43:51,128 --> 00:43:53,756

And then Daniel Kauffman, you know, picks up on

962

00:43:53,756 --> 00:43:57,343

this term, uses it in Manuals of Bible Doctrine a

963

00:43:57,343 --> 00:43:58,218

couple of different times.

964

00:43:58,218 --> 00:43:59,553

He doesn't really have to do it.

965

00:43:59,845 --> 00:44:00,095

Okay.

966

00:44:00,429 --> 00:44:07,186

But in the 1919 and 1921 fundamentals, the term

967

00:44:07,186 --> 00:44:11,940

restrictions is used primarily to

968

00:44:11,940 --> 00:44:15,819

talk about nonconformity issues.

969

00:44:16,028 --> 00:44:20,199

And so and the interesting thing is it's like

970

00:44:20,199 --> 00:44:24,787

Dordrecht has a whole article simply about the

971

00:44:24,787 --> 00:44:27,247

state, about government, the role of government

972

00:44:27,247 --> 00:44:28,874

and our relationship to it.

973

00:44:29,500 --> 00:44:30,167

And so on.

974

00:44:30,751 --> 00:44:33,212

The fundamentals give it a line.

975

00:44:33,212 --> 00:44:35,589

They say, we believe that all Christians should

976

00:44:35,589 --> 00:44:37,007

honor, pray for, pay

977

00:44:37,007 --> 00:44:39,218

tribute to and obey in all things.

978

00:44:39,218 --> 00:44:41,095

Those who are an authority in the state and

979

00:44:41,095 --> 00:44:45,766

nation provided, however, that they should in

980

00:44:45,766 --> 00:44:47,643

instances in which such obedience

981

00:44:47,643 --> 00:44:49,311

would violate the higher law of God.

982

00:44:49,853 --> 00:44:51,438

We ought to obey God rather than man.

983

00:44:51,480 --> 00:44:53,565

And that the state and the church and state are

984

00:44:53,565 --> 00:44:55,567

separate in what believers and while believers

985

00:44:55,567 --> 00:44:58,195

are to be subject to it, they are not a part of

986

00:44:58,195 --> 00:45:00,072

the civil administrative powers.

987

00:45:00,072 --> 00:45:02,491

That is contrary to the teachings of Christ and

988

00:45:02,491 --> 00:45:05,119

the apostles to engage in carnal warfare, that

989

00:45:05,119 --> 00:45:07,329

Christians should adorn themselves in modest

990

00:45:07,329 --> 00:45:09,123

apparel, not with braided hair

991

00:45:09,123 --> 00:45:10,749

or pearls or gold or costly array.

992

00:45:11,083 --> 00:45:13,335

That they swearing of oasis forbidden in the New

993

00:45:13,335 --> 00:45:15,754

Testament scriptures, that secret orders are

994

00:45:15,754 --> 00:45:17,840

antagonistic to the tenor and spirit of the

995

00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:18,549

gospel and that life

996

00:45:18,549 --> 00:45:20,467

insurance is inconsistent with

997

00:45:20,467 --> 00:45:21,468

the failure of trust in the

998

00:45:21,468 --> 00:45:22,928

providence and care of our heavenly Father.

999

00:45:23,387 --> 00:45:26,306

So here they cover in this category, this article

00:45:26,306 --> 00:45:28,267

in restrictions, you know, our

00:45:28,267 --> 00:45:30,811

role, the role of state in the church.

00:45:31,437 --> 00:45:33,564

They pick up on non-resistance.

00:45:34,523 --> 00:45:37,484

They also talk about, you know, dress issues and

00:45:37,484 --> 00:45:41,155

they also pick up on not swearing oaths and

00:45:41,155 --> 00:45:42,990

secret orders and life insurance.

00:45:43,365 --> 00:45:45,617

Now, life insurance is kind of a new thing.

00:45:45,659 --> 00:45:48,370

I mean, that's a controversy because, you know,

00:45:48,370 --> 00:45:50,664

life insurance wasn't around in the 1630s.

00:45:51,039 --> 00:45:51,206

Okay.

00:45:51,290 --> 00:45:54,042

So can Mennonites participate in life insurance?

00:45:54,042 --> 00:45:56,211

And there's articles in the Gospel Herald and

00:45:56,211 --> 00:45:59,089

even like in Daniel Kauffman's writings and so on

00:45:59,089 --> 00:46:00,924

about life insurance and why we

00:46:00,924 --> 00:46:04,595

shouldn't take out life insurance.

00:46:04,595 --> 00:46:05,637

I'm not going to go into that.

00:46:05,971 --> 00:46:08,474

But what is interesting is like with Dorc rec,

00:46:09,516 --> 00:46:11,560

you have an article on

00:46:11,560 --> 00:46:15,439

government, you have an article by itself

00:46:15,439 --> 00:46:17,024

on non-resistance.

00:46:17,816 --> 00:46:18,025

Okay.

00:46:18,525 --> 00:46:19,067

And so on.

00:46:19,067 --> 00:46:21,153

Whereas here it's all kind of collapsed in this

00:46:21,153 --> 00:46:22,446

thing called restrictions.

00:46:23,197 --> 00:46:25,157

Oh, you also have an article on oath, separate

00:46:25,157 --> 00:46:26,492

article on oath in Dordrecht

00:46:27,117 --> 00:46:28,494

And so these are kind of, you know,

00:46:28,494 --> 00:46:30,370

they're very quickly dispensed with.

00:46:30,370 --> 00:46:32,164

Now, that's not that they're not important.

00:46:32,164 --> 00:46:32,539

They are.

00:46:32,956 --> 00:46:35,876

In fact, most of the controversies in the 20th

00:46:35,876 --> 00:46:38,837

century are most of the issues in the 20th

00:46:38,837 --> 00:46:41,924

century have to do with these

00:46:41,924 --> 00:46:42,716

quote unquote restrictions.

00:46:43,175 --> 00:46:47,095

But this way of framing it is new, but it's not,

00:46:47,346 --> 00:46:48,555

it doesn't start with Daniel Kauffman.

00:46:49,389 --> 00:46:51,558

It starts with John S. Coffman.

00:46:51,934 --> 00:46:53,685

Daniel Kaufman picks up, becomes a

00:46:53,685 --> 00:46:55,354

common way of thinking about things.

00:46:55,854 --> 00:47:00,734

And it's really given, how should we say,

00:47:02,110 --> 00:47:06,865

official kind of acknowledgement through the use

00:47:06,865 --> 00:47:08,200

of this confession of faith.

00:47:08,617 --> 00:47:08,826

All right.

00:47:09,660 --> 00:47:10,035

Okay.

00:47:10,619 --> 00:47:13,372

So that's some, that's really kind of an

00:47:13,372 --> 00:47:14,581

interesting thing for me.

00:47:15,207 --> 00:47:18,168

What do I think of the 1921 confession of faith?

00:47:18,168 --> 00:47:19,962

I'm glad not to use it.

00:47:20,879 --> 00:47:20,963

Yeah.

00:47:20,963 --> 00:47:22,005

I think that it's problematic.

00:47:22,214 --> 00:47:23,423

I think it's the theology

00:47:23,423 --> 00:47:24,633

of the attonement is problematic.

00:47:25,300 --> 00:47:29,846

I think that the way it limits, you know, things

00:47:29,846 --> 00:47:33,809

like non-resistance and the oath and other things

00:47:33,809 --> 00:47:35,227

to quote unquote

00:47:35,227 --> 00:47:38,480

restrictions is problematic and so on.

00:47:40,566 --> 00:47:43,569

And you know, actually, like I said, it's really

00:47:43,569 --> 00:47:47,155

not an improvement on Dordrecht in my mind.

00:47:47,155 --> 00:47:48,699

Now it addresses some things that Dordrecht

00:47:48,699 --> 00:47:52,035

doesn't because Dordrecht, some of the issues

00:47:52,035 --> 00:47:55,372

that were coming up in the early 20th century

00:47:55,372 --> 00:47:57,207

aren't issues in the 1630s.

00:47:57,541 --> 00:48:00,419

Would those things primarily be questions of the

00:48:00,419 --> 00:48:01,753

authority of the Bible and the

00:48:01,753 --> 00:48:03,547

inerrancy that the confession starts with?

00:48:03,797 --> 00:48:04,006

Yeah.

00:48:04,006 --> 00:48:06,800

That, I mean, the authority of the Bible, I mean,

00:48:06,800 --> 00:48:08,552

no one's questioning the virgin birth.

00:48:09,219 --> 00:48:11,346

I mean, I shouldn't say no one is.

00:48:11,346 --> 00:48:14,975

I mean, there are Socinians and so on in the

00:48:14,975 --> 00:48:16,435

Netherlands who are essentially

00:48:16,435 --> 00:48:18,020

unitarians and stuff like that.

00:48:18,395 --> 00:48:20,480

Nobody's, but Mennonites, that's not a question.

00:48:20,480 --> 00:48:22,357

It's not a question in their, I mean, they're

00:48:22,357 --> 00:48:24,276

living in a host society

00:48:24,276 --> 00:48:26,862

that is reformed and so on.

00:48:27,362 --> 00:48:28,739

And so they're not contested.

00:48:28,739 --> 00:48:30,198

Those are not contested issues.

00:48:30,240 --> 00:48:33,452

But in the late 19th, early 20th century, they

00:48:33,452 --> 00:48:36,872

become the actual, what it is is whether or not

00:48:36,872 --> 00:48:38,707

you believe in the supernatural.

00:48:39,249 --> 00:48:41,126

That's really what it boils down to.

00:48:41,126 --> 00:48:41,335

Yeah.

00:48:41,585 --> 00:48:41,960

Okay.

00:48:41,960 --> 00:48:42,794

Whether or not you believe

00:48:42,794 --> 00:48:44,880

in the supernatural or not.

00:48:46,340 --> 00:48:47,257

And you know, Mennonites

00:48:47,257 --> 00:48:48,508

believed in the supernatural.

00:48:48,967 --> 00:48:49,718

They always did.

00:48:50,427 --> 00:48:50,719

Okay.

00:48:52,387 --> 00:48:55,432

And I'm sure it was horrifying to most of them to

00:48:55,432 --> 00:48:57,893

think that there are people out there who didn't.

00:48:58,810 --> 00:49:04,483

I don't think we can even quite imagine today how

00:49:04,483 --> 00:49:09,321

impactful or just how assumptions were that they

00:49:09,321 --> 00:49:12,699

lived in a society that was much more

00:49:14,910 --> 00:49:19,539

ostensibly Christian in its assumptions, in its

00:49:19,539 --> 00:49:22,334

religious views, and so on.

00:49:23,877 --> 00:49:24,795

You know, I mean

00:49:24,795 --> 00:49:26,254

that in a generic kind of way.

00:49:26,296 --> 00:49:30,967

But that was really being challenged in

00:49:30,967 --> 00:49:32,719

Protestant churches in the

00:49:32,719 --> 00:49:35,347

late 19th and early 20th century.

00:49:36,139 --> 00:49:36,390

All right.

00:49:37,307 --> 00:49:42,145

Let's shift to the 1963 statement and one that is

00:49:42,145 --> 00:49:45,107

also widely used among Mennonites.

00:49:45,732 --> 00:49:48,402

I've been a member of two churches, very similar

00:49:48,402 --> 00:49:50,779

in many ways, but one uses the 1921 confession.

00:49:51,071 --> 00:49:54,157

One uses the 1963 confession.

00:49:55,659 --> 00:49:57,953

So let's talk about the historical context of it.

00:49:57,953 --> 00:49:59,496

What motivated the

00:49:59,496 --> 00:50:02,332

preparation of a new confession in 1963?

00:50:03,375 --> 00:50:05,669

And what are the significant differences between

00:50:05,669 --> 00:50:08,338

this statement and the ones that came before?

00:50:09,423 --> 00:50:10,716

Well, okay.

00:50:11,049 --> 00:50:12,676

So you have 1921.

00:50:13,593 --> 00:50:13,760

Okay.

00:50:14,344 --> 00:50:17,973

The '63 confession, my sense is that it actually

00:50:17,973 --> 00:50:22,644

comes out of a discussion in the 1950s.

00:50:23,395 --> 00:50:25,188

One of the things that happened is that in the

00:50:25,188 --> 00:50:29,151

1940s and '50s, there are a number of, and again,

00:50:29,609 --> 00:50:33,822

it's a product of the General

00:50:33,822 --> 00:50:35,282

Conference of the Mennonite Church.

00:50:36,408 --> 00:50:36,616

All right.

00:50:37,784 --> 00:50:41,163

And I think that what was happening is that over

00:50:41,163 --> 00:50:45,917

the period of time, as issues arose, the General

00:50:46,001 --> 00:50:48,378

Conference of the Mennonite Church issued

00:50:48,378 --> 00:50:50,422

policies, or issued source statements.

00:50:50,672 --> 00:50:51,006

Okay.

00:50:51,965 --> 00:50:53,091

And there's a whole bunch of them.

00:50:53,300 --> 00:50:54,676

There's really some that are very quite

00:50:54,676 --> 00:50:56,219

interesting and well, I

00:50:56,219 --> 00:50:57,763

think well developed and so on.

00:50:58,513 --> 00:51:00,599

In the 1940s and '50s, some of them, of course, in

00:51:00,599 --> 00:51:04,102

the '40s have to do with non-resistance and the

00:51:04,102 --> 00:51:05,020

relation of the state to

00:51:05,020 --> 00:51:06,897

the government and so on.

00:51:08,023 --> 00:51:11,568

And we also have two very important

00:51:11,568 --> 00:51:16,072

books written in the 1950s by J.C.

00:51:16,114 --> 00:51:16,656

Wenger.

00:51:16,656 --> 00:51:19,576

One is an introduction to theology and the other

00:51:19,576 --> 00:51:22,954

one is Separated-

"Unto God" perhaps?

00:51:22,954 --> 00:51:24,206

Separate unto God, yes.

00:51:26,082 --> 00:51:29,419

And those are kind of, now

00:51:29,419 --> 00:51:32,839

they are meant for, and J.C.

00:51:32,839 --> 00:51:34,758

Wenger is a very good communicator.

00:51:36,885 --> 00:51:40,472

His prose is very accessible and solid.

00:51:41,389 --> 00:51:44,768

But it's interesting is that he deals in things

00:51:44,768 --> 00:51:46,353

in somewhat of a serious system.

00:51:46,353 --> 00:51:48,146

I mean, his introduction to

00:51:48,146 --> 00:51:54,319

theology is a systematic theology.

00:51:56,363 --> 00:51:57,989

And he starts with topics and so on.

00:51:57,989 --> 00:51:58,615

It's been a while since

00:51:58,615 --> 00:52:01,117

I've looked at it.

00:52:01,117 --> 00:52:03,161

And Separation [unto] God is dealing with

00:52:03,161 --> 00:52:05,580

nonconformity, the whole issue of non-resorption

00:52:05,580 --> 00:52:07,207

and Christian life and stuff like that.

00:52:07,874 --> 00:52:10,043

So I think these have an impact too.

00:52:11,002 --> 00:52:12,796

And also there's a whole generation.

00:52:13,255 --> 00:52:15,006

Okay, so people like J.C.

00:52:15,006 --> 00:52:18,343

Wenger, I mean, he had a PhD in theology.

00:52:18,718 --> 00:52:20,554

I think it was PhD.

00:52:20,804 --> 00:52:22,889

Maybe it was a, I know that Chester K.

00:52:22,889 --> 00:52:25,642

Lehman, who was, J.C.

00:52:25,642 --> 00:52:26,685

Wenger and Chester K.

00:52:26,685 --> 00:52:29,521

Lehman were both on the committee

00:52:29,521 --> 00:52:32,440

that worked on the '63 confession.

00:52:33,483 --> 00:52:34,317

Chester K.

00:52:34,317 --> 00:52:35,861

Lehman was a very interesting person.

00:52:37,112 --> 00:52:40,031

He taught at Eastern v for years, taught

00:52:40,031 --> 00:52:41,491

Bible and theology there.

00:52:42,367 --> 00:52:44,995

I had older friends who took classes under him

00:52:44,995 --> 00:52:47,205

and said he was a phenomenal teacher.

00:52:51,209 --> 00:52:53,920

But he was also the lone

00:52:53,920 --> 00:52:56,172

almilleniast at EMC for many years.

00:52:59,342 --> 00:53:02,804

And later, his first book was

00:53:02,804 --> 00:53:04,514

The Inadequacy of Evolution.

00:53:04,806 --> 00:53:07,893

I think that's generally the title of it, but it

00:53:07,893 --> 00:53:09,561

was actually a book about evolution.

00:53:10,478 --> 00:53:16,192

In the 1940s, he actually wrote a manuscript on

00:53:16,192 --> 00:53:18,653

eschatology and submitted

00:53:18,653 --> 00:53:20,822

it to the publishing house.

00:53:20,822 --> 00:53:21,907

But by that time, Daniel

00:53:21,907 --> 00:53:24,200

Kauffman wasn't an editor anymore.

00:53:24,910 --> 00:53:29,414

And the editor there, I mean, the

00:53:29,414 --> 00:53:30,206

person in charge of the

00:53:30,206 --> 00:53:31,917

publishing house was a pre-millennial.

00:53:31,917 --> 00:53:33,376

So he turned it down.

00:53:33,627 --> 00:53:36,421

I think about 10 or 15 years ago, some

00:53:36,421 --> 00:53:38,465

conservative Mennonites got hold the

00:53:38,465 --> 00:53:39,966

manuscript and published it.

00:53:40,216 --> 00:53:43,678

So you can actually buy C.K. Lehman's book on

00:53:43,678 --> 00:53:45,847

eschatology now, which I think was a great thing.

00:53:46,681 --> 00:53:48,224

There was a set of books put out.

00:53:48,683 --> 00:53:52,187

There were actually books on Bible survey books

00:53:52,187 --> 00:53:53,271

were put out in the '30s.

00:53:53,730 --> 00:53:55,148

I think he wrote the New Testament.

00:53:56,149 --> 00:53:57,150

He wrote one of those.

00:53:57,901 --> 00:53:59,527

H.S. Bender was one of the authors too.

00:54:00,528 --> 00:54:06,826

But J.C. Wenger and C.K. Lehman are not only

00:54:06,826 --> 00:54:08,620

college educated, they're

00:54:08,620 --> 00:54:09,996

also men with doctorates.

00:54:10,455 --> 00:54:11,539

And their field is theology.

00:54:12,832 --> 00:54:15,168

And so they are fairly

00:54:15,168 --> 00:54:17,170

sophisticated theologically.

00:54:17,963 --> 00:54:19,881

And they bring those kinds of things to it.

00:54:19,881 --> 00:54:22,550

And I think generally speaking, you do have the

00:54:22,550 --> 00:54:24,135

college, you have these Mennonite,

00:54:24,135 --> 00:54:26,972

colleges who are developing a lot.

00:54:27,097 --> 00:54:29,432

There are young people going to them.

00:54:30,892 --> 00:54:32,560

And the professors are

00:54:32,560 --> 00:54:35,814

getting higher degrees and so on.

00:54:36,439 --> 00:54:42,237

And so in a sense, the persons who are really the

00:54:42,237 --> 00:54:44,114

movers and shakers in the

00:54:44,114 --> 00:54:45,240

Mennonite church at large,

00:54:45,240 --> 00:54:48,410

you're kind of the key leaders and so on, are

00:54:48,410 --> 00:54:51,913

fairly, are very well educated men

00:54:52,706 --> 00:54:54,666

who have some theological sophistication.

00:54:54,708 --> 00:54:57,544

I think that they would have looked at the 1921

00:54:57,544 --> 00:54:59,838

confession as being a

00:54:59,838 --> 00:55:03,800

little, I don't know, not adequate.

00:55:04,426 --> 00:55:06,678

Okay, not adequate for their time, not really

00:55:06,678 --> 00:55:09,139

resonating with the current generation and so on.

00:55:09,597 --> 00:55:11,599

And of course, you have to also keep in mind that

00:55:11,599 --> 00:55:13,560

these are the same decades in

00:55:13,560 --> 00:55:15,729

which the Mennonite church is,

00:55:16,855 --> 00:55:19,232

well, nonconformity is weakening.

00:55:20,108 --> 00:55:22,569

And some places it's evaporating quickly.

00:55:23,236 --> 00:55:23,611

All right.

00:55:25,822 --> 00:55:29,784

And I would say that C.K. Lehman and John E. Lapp,

00:55:30,535 --> 00:55:34,080

to a great degree, themselves were very concerned

00:55:34,080 --> 00:55:35,582

about nonconformity issues.

00:55:35,874 --> 00:55:38,877

J.C. Wenger, yes, but not quite as I don't...

00:55:39,669 --> 00:55:44,299

His Separation Unto God, in my mind, is

00:55:44,299 --> 00:55:46,593

nonconformity in a minor key.

00:55:47,343 --> 00:55:48,970

I know some people really like it.

00:55:48,970 --> 00:55:52,265

It's not my favorite book.

00:55:52,348 --> 00:55:57,520

But so I think there's a need for a new

00:55:57,520 --> 00:56:00,899

confession of faith that will kind of move away

00:56:00,899 --> 00:56:02,942

from some of this fundamentalist language.

00:56:05,028 --> 00:56:08,490

And so they work on it for so...

00:56:09,032 --> 00:56:12,702

So it's J.C. Wenger, C.K. Lehman, John E. Lapp,

00:56:14,496 --> 00:56:17,999

and Harold Bauman, I think are the

00:56:17,999 --> 00:56:19,626

four men who actually work on this.

00:56:20,043 --> 00:56:22,545

And it's believed that J.C. Wenger is really the

00:56:22,545 --> 00:56:24,756

primary author, that he's the one.

00:56:25,340 --> 00:56:28,635

So the Mennonite General Conference, the General

00:56:28,635 --> 00:56:29,219

Conference of the Midnight

00:56:29,219 --> 00:56:33,223

Church, sets up this committee in 1957.

00:56:34,099 --> 00:56:37,727

And in 1963, they're presented with the draft and

00:56:37,727 --> 00:56:41,106

it's adopted by the General

00:56:41,106 --> 00:56:42,440

Conference in the Mennonite Church.

00:56:43,399 --> 00:56:46,611

And it's a very interesting document.

00:56:46,945 --> 00:56:49,823

Actually, I would say theologically

00:56:49,823 --> 00:56:52,117

it's better than the '21 confession.

00:56:53,159 --> 00:56:54,577

I'm not always happy with it.

00:56:54,953 --> 00:56:59,666

Oh, the language is too

00:56:59,666 --> 00:57:01,376

J.C. Wenger, which is just...

00:57:02,418 --> 00:57:06,172

It just doesn't have much grit to it, in my mind.

00:57:06,923 --> 00:57:13,012

I think J.C. really liked not to

00:57:13,012 --> 00:57:16,599

have anything that was too hard.

00:57:17,642 --> 00:57:19,060

Now, one of the things that's interesting with

00:57:19,060 --> 00:57:22,522

him is that in the 1950s, he becomes one of the

00:57:22,522 --> 00:57:24,649

leading advocates for

00:57:24,649 --> 00:57:27,110

allowing divorce and remarriage.

00:57:29,112 --> 00:57:34,450

In fact, he gave a presentation at one of the

00:57:34,450 --> 00:57:36,870

conferences, one of the Western conferences, on this,

00:57:37,036 --> 00:57:39,372

he was requested to do it and so on.

00:57:39,372 --> 00:57:42,083

And basically his argument was that divorce and

00:57:42,083 --> 00:57:43,501

remarriage was permissible.

00:57:44,460 --> 00:57:45,795

Do we have a transcript of that?

00:57:46,254 --> 00:57:48,548

Oh, it was published as a book, Dealing

00:57:48,548 --> 00:57:49,799

Redemptively with Divorce.

00:57:50,633 --> 00:57:52,927

Yeah, you can find a copy of it and read it.

00:57:53,928 --> 00:57:55,805

So now that doesn't get into

00:57:55,805 --> 00:57:57,515

the confession of faith, okay?

00:57:58,141 --> 00:58:01,019

But it does have an impact on particularly

00:58:01,019 --> 00:58:03,438

Western conferences as they began

00:58:03,438 --> 00:58:06,858

to kind of loosen up on the idea,

00:58:07,066 --> 00:58:09,485

which actually in 1921, confession is pretty

00:58:09,485 --> 00:58:12,363

clear about, that divorce and

00:58:12,363 --> 00:58:13,948

remarriage really isn't acceptable.

00:58:14,866 --> 00:58:17,327

All right, so I think it's

00:58:17,327 --> 00:58:18,786

a good confession of faith,

00:58:19,454 --> 00:58:21,581

but it's a confession of faith that almost

00:58:21,581 --> 00:58:26,502

immediately after it was adopted, was contested.

00:58:27,462 --> 00:58:34,928

Because these men were older men and they were

00:58:34,928 --> 00:58:35,762

dealing, they were

00:58:35,762 --> 00:58:37,430

working with a whole generation

00:58:37,430 --> 00:58:41,768

of younger men who were approaching, coming into

00:58:41,768 --> 00:58:44,687

leadership, coming into prominence and so on,

00:58:45,104 --> 00:58:49,359

that this kind of statement

00:58:49,359 --> 00:58:51,236

just didn't resonate with them.

00:58:51,611 --> 00:58:52,779

I mean, they were

00:58:52,779 --> 00:58:55,073

theologically much less orthodox.

00:58:55,865 --> 00:58:57,200

They certainly weren't

00:58:57,200 --> 00:58:59,035

interested in nonconformity issues.

00:59:00,203 --> 00:59:02,080

There's a statement, I mean, there's an article

00:59:02,080 --> 00:59:04,207

on the headship covering and so on, which,

00:59:04,916 --> 00:59:06,834

let me, this is, let me read

00:59:06,834 --> 00:59:08,461

that because this is so [J.]C.

00:59:09,462 --> 00:59:12,131

"We believe that in relation to the Lord, men and

00:59:12,131 --> 00:59:13,841

women are equal, for in Christ there is neither

00:59:13,841 --> 00:59:15,885

male nor female, but in the order of creation,

00:59:16,344 --> 00:59:17,428

God has fitted man and

00:59:17,428 --> 00:59:18,805

woman for differing functions,

00:59:18,805 --> 00:59:20,932

man has been given a primary leadership role,

00:59:21,349 --> 00:59:22,183

while the woman is

00:59:22,183 --> 00:59:23,393

especially fitted for nurturing

00:59:23,559 --> 00:59:26,396

service. Being in Christ does not nullify these

00:59:26,396 --> 00:59:28,815

natural endowments, either in the home or in the

00:59:28,815 --> 00:59:31,150

church. The New Testament symbols of man's

00:59:31,150 --> 00:59:32,277

headship are to be a short

00:59:32,277 --> 00:59:33,444

hair and uncovered head while

00:59:33,444 --> 00:59:35,947

praying or prophesying, and the symbols of the

00:59:35,947 --> 00:59:36,864

woman's role are her long

00:59:36,864 --> 00:59:37,740

hair and her veiled head.

00:59:38,283 --> 00:59:40,785

The acceptance by both men and women of the order

00:59:40,785 --> 00:59:43,246

of creation in no way limits their rightful freedom,

00:59:43,246 --> 00:59:45,373

but rather ensures they're finding the respective

00:59:45,373 --> 00:59:47,875

roles in which they can most fruitfully and

00:59:47,875 --> 00:59:51,087

happily serve." That kind of language you can

00:59:51,087 --> 00:59:55,967

read, if you read JC Wenger's stuff, that is

00:59:55,967 --> 00:59:59,637

the kind of way in which he wrote, okay? It's

00:59:59,637 --> 01:00:02,265

very irenic, there's

01:00:02,265 --> 01:00:03,850

a winsomeness about it that

01:00:03,891 --> 01:00:05,893

sometimes I just find terribly annoying

01:00:05,893 --> 01:00:08,771

personally, but that's my

01:00:08,771 --> 01:00:10,440

personal opinion about the whole

01:00:10,440 --> 01:00:16,237

thing. So, but it very quickly became contested,

01:00:16,696 --> 01:00:21,117

all right? And what's also interesting is that

01:00:21,409 --> 01:00:24,412

groups like Lancaster and Washington Franklin,

01:00:24,412 --> 01:00:27,749

they didn't adopt this. They were still sticking

01:00:27,749 --> 01:00:31,961

with the 1921 confession. I'm not sure when those

01:00:31,961 --> 01:00:34,088

churches, those conferences switched. They

01:00:34,088 --> 01:00:36,174

eventually did switch and accept this as their

01:00:36,174 --> 01:00:38,259

confession of faith, but I would say it was at

01:00:38,301 --> 01:00:41,304

least a 10, some of them for at least 10 years. I

01:00:41,304 --> 01:00:46,059

know that in my home area, which was Washington

01:00:46,059 --> 01:00:50,938

Franklin North, they did not adopt it until 1980.

01:00:51,814 --> 01:00:54,901

And so that's kind of an interesting thing. But

01:00:55,651 --> 01:01:00,448

particularly, I mean, a year or so after this,

01:01:00,448 --> 01:01:03,868

Ontario Mennonite conference basically rescinded

01:01:03,951 --> 01:01:07,914

its requirement that sisters were coverings. And

01:01:07,914 --> 01:01:10,625

that was fast following by the wayside.

01:01:10,625 --> 01:01:13,294

In the 1960s was a really, I mean, it was a

01:01:13,294 --> 01:01:16,839

period of time in which, you know,

01:01:18,299 --> 01:01:20,426

I mean, nonconformity was, like I said, it was

01:01:20,426 --> 01:01:22,804

evaporating in some places and it certainly was

01:01:22,804 --> 01:01:25,640

weakening in some places. So that takes us then

01:01:25,640 --> 01:01:30,353

to the 1964 Mennonite Confession of Faith,

01:01:31,020 --> 01:01:35,108

because that is a product of the non-conference,

01:01:36,317 --> 01:01:38,277

or sometimes what we refer to as the fellowship

01:01:38,361 --> 01:01:44,158

movement. And that movement began in 1950s as a

01:01:44,158 --> 01:01:48,162

response to this liberalization of this

01:01:49,080 --> 01:01:52,166

departure from nonconformity. And so the issues

01:01:52,166 --> 01:01:54,669

were addressed, was the prayer covering,

01:01:54,669 --> 01:02:00,299

was divorce and remarriage, you know, other

01:02:00,299 --> 01:02:04,220

nonconformity issues like, you know, TV and stuff

01:02:04,220 --> 01:02:06,431

like that. I mean, those were kind of hot button

01:02:06,431 --> 01:02:09,016

issues and so on. But it is recognizing that

01:02:09,016 --> 01:02:12,520

there's a general slippage on nonconformity. As

01:02:12,520 --> 01:02:15,731

some of these more conservative leaders within

01:02:15,731 --> 01:02:19,402

the conferences in the Mennonite Church, and also

01:02:19,402 --> 01:02:20,903

in the conservative Man and I Conference,

01:02:21,112 --> 01:02:26,284

which is sort of a separate animal, became, they

01:02:26,284 --> 01:02:30,663

tried to get these issues addressed. And because

01:02:30,663 --> 01:02:32,707

of various circumstances, they felt that they

01:02:32,707 --> 01:02:33,791

were not getting a

01:02:33,791 --> 01:02:38,838

hearing. And so they decided that

01:02:39,464 --> 01:02:43,259

conference, the whole structure of a conference

01:02:43,259 --> 01:02:47,472

was the problem, that it was not responsive to

01:02:48,181 --> 01:02:52,852

their concerns. And so they developed this

01:02:52,852 --> 01:03:00,359

rationale that the locus of authority,

01:03:00,693 --> 01:03:02,278

and they were concerned about this, locus of

01:03:02,278 --> 01:03:04,739

authority arrested not in the conference,

01:03:05,281 --> 01:03:10,745

but in the congregation. Okay. Now, what's

01:03:10,745 --> 01:03:13,122

interesting about that is that that was

01:03:13,623 --> 01:03:18,419

sort of the generally speaking, the

01:03:18,419 --> 01:03:20,630

approach that the conservative Man and I

01:03:20,630 --> 01:03:24,008

Conference had, it was approached, it was

01:03:24,008 --> 01:03:27,136

a way of thinking that was very Amish in its

01:03:27,136 --> 01:03:28,638

background, which of course, the conservative Mennonite

01:03:28,638 --> 01:03:30,264

Conference was originally the conservative

01:03:30,264 --> 01:03:33,768

Amish Mennonite Conference was formed in 1910.

01:03:34,727 --> 01:03:37,605

And it's still true of Amish today, and the more

01:03:37,605 --> 01:03:39,941

this idea that the locus of authority rest in the

01:03:39,941 --> 01:03:41,484

congregation. And then

01:03:41,484 --> 01:03:42,568

there's an interconnectiveness

01:03:42,693 --> 01:03:46,989

among congregations and so on. And so you have

01:03:46,989 --> 01:03:50,243

persons withdrawing. This starts in Ontario,

01:03:50,535 --> 01:03:54,789

in Ohio, in Pennsylvania, and Virginia. You have

01:03:54,789 --> 01:03:56,541

persons and sometimes congregations,

01:03:56,541 --> 01:03:59,460

but normally persons withdrawing and forming new

01:03:59,460 --> 01:04:03,464

congregations. And then they,

01:04:03,548 --> 01:04:06,008

they began to meet, I mean, they're like-minded

01:04:06,008 --> 01:04:09,136

people and so on. They begin, they begin to meet

01:04:09,178 --> 01:04:17,019

in ministerial meetings. And in 1962,

01:04:18,813 --> 01:04:22,358

there was a, was referred to as the Biblical

01:04:22,358 --> 01:04:26,571

Discipleship and Fellowship meetings. It was held

01:04:26,571 --> 01:04:30,241

in Shedd, Oregon. And at that, and so they

01:04:30,241 --> 01:04:32,785

felt we need to, again, I think it was that there

01:04:32,785 --> 01:04:34,495

are these issues that are coming up that we need

01:04:34,537 --> 01:04:38,332

to address. And so they thought we

01:04:38,332 --> 01:04:40,585

need to address these in our confession of faith

01:04:40,585 --> 01:04:42,169

and we need to have a confession of faith that

01:04:42,169 --> 01:04:45,506

addresses some of these issues. And a

01:04:45,506 --> 01:04:48,843

committee was appointed of three bishops, Moses

01:04:48,843 --> 01:04:50,553

Bair from, from Canada,

01:04:51,637 --> 01:04:52,972

Roy Gidley from Pennsylvania,

01:04:53,097 --> 01:04:55,933

and Wilbur Crowe from Oregon. And these men were

01:04:55,933 --> 01:05:00,521

given the assignment to basically do a revision

01:05:00,938 --> 01:05:05,109

of the 1921 confession of faith. And I want to

01:05:05,109 --> 01:05:09,113

look at that revision here. All right.

01:05:10,156 --> 01:05:12,992

So we start off with, I mean, they, they kind of

01:05:12,992 --> 01:05:16,037

01:05:16,037 --> 01:05:19,165

some of the language is very similar. Some of

01:05:19,165 --> 01:05:21,083

it's verbatim, but there's also some very

01:05:21,083 --> 01:05:24,670

significant revisions and expansions in this '64

01:05:24,670 --> 01:05:28,758

confession. And my, my theory is that actually

01:05:29,508 --> 01:05:34,180

what this '64 confession does is that it, it moves

01:05:34,180 --> 01:05:37,683

the 1921 language away from that

01:05:37,725 --> 01:05:40,853

more fundamentalist language into a language that

01:05:40,853 --> 01:05:46,359

is, I think more, is closer to a more traditional

01:05:46,692 --> 01:05:49,445

Mennonite understanding. I almost used the word

01:05:49,445 --> 01:05:52,406

Anabaptist, but I don't like that term. So I'm

01:05:52,406 --> 01:05:54,158

trying to, I'm trying to figure out ways to avoid

01:05:54,158 --> 01:05:56,661

using the word Anabaptist. All right. Even though

01:05:56,661 --> 01:05:58,996

I know this is Anabaptist Perspectives, but

01:05:58,996 --> 01:06:01,374

anyhow.

Last

01:06:01,374 --> 01:06:02,500

episode, you recommended that we

01:06:02,500 --> 01:06:04,710

change our name. Yes. Yes. Yes, you should. I

01:06:04,710 --> 01:06:05,169

don't know what she

01:06:05,169 --> 01:06:06,379

should call yourself, but yes.

01:06:07,630 --> 01:06:11,634

But so in the 1921 confession, it says, "We

01:06:11,634 --> 01:06:13,594

believe in the plenary verbal inspiration

01:06:14,136 --> 01:06:16,972

of the Bible as the word of God that is authentic

01:06:16,972 --> 01:06:19,141

in its manner, authoritative in its counsels,

01:06:19,141 --> 01:06:21,227

inerrant in the original writings and the only

01:06:21,227 --> 01:06:23,020

infallible rule of faith and practice."

01:06:23,437 --> 01:06:26,357

Well, the 64 confession takes that language,

01:06:26,774 --> 01:06:31,237

takes it in total, but then it adds, "We reject

01:06:31,237 --> 01:06:34,573

neo-orthodoxy, intellectualism, relativism, and

01:06:34,573 --> 01:06:35,616

other philosophies where

01:06:35,616 --> 01:06:36,450

the authority of the Word

01:06:36,617 --> 01:06:38,994

is rejected, questioned, or displaced by human

01:06:38,994 --> 01:06:41,872

reason." So neo-orthodoxy, what's that? Well,

01:06:42,164 --> 01:06:44,625

in 1921, there wasn't neo-orthodoxy.

01:06:44,625 --> 01:06:45,710

Neo-orthodoxy is a later

01:06:45,710 --> 01:06:48,838

development among Protestants that is

01:06:48,879 --> 01:06:51,465

really reacting against the old style modernism

01:06:51,465 --> 01:06:53,050

and so on, calling into question, identifying

01:06:53,259 --> 01:06:56,345

people like Karl Barth and so on. And there are

01:06:56,345 --> 01:07:00,182

young Mennonite scholars who, there are some

01:07:00,182 --> 01:07:03,602

who actually studied under Barth in Europe, and

01:07:03,602 --> 01:07:05,896

they're picking up on kind of neo-orthodox

01:07:07,481 --> 01:07:11,527

categories and ways of looking at things in the

01:07:11,527 --> 01:07:13,529

more liberal Mennonite churches,

01:07:14,196 --> 01:07:16,699

groups and things are developing. So it's

01:07:16,699 --> 01:07:20,411

interesting that, again, these guys, these men,

01:07:22,455 --> 01:07:25,875

I mean, they're actually, they're your run of the

01:07:25,875 --> 01:07:28,669

mill conservative Mennonite bishops, you know,

01:07:30,087 --> 01:07:33,048

and so on. But I'm always kind of interested when

01:07:33,048 --> 01:07:36,510

I see among people like that sort of

01:07:36,510 --> 01:07:39,305

an awareness about what's going on and that

01:07:39,305 --> 01:07:40,347

they're able to identify

01:07:40,347 --> 01:07:42,057

certain things like that. So,

01:07:42,349 --> 01:07:45,394

again, it's updating the thing, updating the

01:07:45,394 --> 01:07:47,521

concern to look at some things that are happening

01:07:47,897 --> 01:07:52,109

in the Mennonite church at large in the 1950s and

01:07:52,109 --> 01:07:55,571

1960s. Okay. All right. Now, the thing that I

01:07:55,571 --> 01:07:58,449

think is really interesting is when it talks

01:07:58,449 --> 01:08:00,659

about Jesus, okay. We

01:08:00,659 --> 01:08:02,328

believe that Jesus Christ is the

01:08:02,328 --> 01:08:04,914

Son, eternal Son of God, that he was conceived of

01:08:04,914 --> 01:08:07,458

the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin, the perfect

01:08:07,583 --> 01:08:10,377

God-man, that he was without sin, the divinely

01:08:10,377 --> 01:08:13,798

appointed substitute and representative of sinful

01:08:13,798 --> 01:08:16,217

man paying the penalty for man's sin by his death

01:08:16,217 --> 01:08:18,219

on the cross, making the only adequate atonement

01:08:18,219 --> 01:08:20,846

for sin by the shedding of his blood, thus

01:08:20,846 --> 01:08:22,932

reconciling man to God that he was raised from

01:08:22,932 --> 01:08:24,850

the dead, ascended to the glory and ever lived to

01:08:24,850 --> 01:08:27,686

make intercession for us. That's 1921. So we have

01:08:27,686 --> 01:08:31,232

this idea that Jesus is paying the penalty for

01:08:31,232 --> 01:08:35,361

man's sins. Well, the '64 one does this one. It's

01:08:35,402 --> 01:08:39,281

really interesting. It says that he is, after

01:08:39,281 --> 01:08:42,743

looking at the perfect God-man, it says the

01:08:42,743 --> 01:08:47,373

divinely appointed sacrifice- not substitute, but

01:08:47,373 --> 01:08:49,625

sacrifice- who by death

01:08:49,625 --> 01:08:51,210

on the cross made the only

01:08:51,210 --> 01:08:54,839

atonement-not penalty.

01:08:54,839 --> 01:08:58,467

I mean, not penalty. Okay. All right. Pay,

01:08:58,801 --> 01:09:00,886

penalty for man's sin, but made the only

01:09:00,886 --> 01:09:03,180

atonement by shedding of his

01:09:03,180 --> 01:09:04,598

blood, thus reconciling man to

01:09:04,640 --> 01:09:08,519

God that he was resurrected bodily. Again, that

01:09:08,519 --> 01:09:11,438

which in the '21 said he was raised from the dead,

01:09:11,438 --> 01:09:13,440

but they want to make sure that we understand

01:09:13,440 --> 01:09:15,818

this as a bodily resurrection. It's just not a,

01:09:15,818 --> 01:09:17,820

you know, not just, he wasn't a ghost or

01:09:17,820 --> 01:09:20,531

whatever. And that he is the

01:09:20,531 --> 01:09:22,700

only head of the church. And

01:09:22,700 --> 01:09:25,619

the reason they put that in is because that is a

01:09:25,619 --> 01:09:27,705

stab against the whole conference structure.

01:09:28,414 --> 01:09:31,584

All right. So they're actually calling on Jesus

01:09:31,584 --> 01:09:34,003

as being the authority for what they're trying to

01:09:34,044 --> 01:09:37,423

do. This renewal movement that's trying to

01:09:37,423 --> 01:09:40,384

deal with, it's a departure from the conferences.

01:09:41,260 --> 01:09:43,179

And so where's your, and so these people are

01:09:43,179 --> 01:09:46,181

really concerned about authority. And one of

01:09:46,181 --> 01:09:48,183

the accusations of course leveled against them is

01:09:48,183 --> 01:09:49,518

that they're rebelling

01:09:49,518 --> 01:09:51,312

against authority. All right.

01:09:51,770 --> 01:09:54,732

And so some of this confession is, is kind of

01:09:54,732 --> 01:09:55,357

dealing with that

01:09:55,357 --> 01:09:56,901

question. Jesus is the only head

01:09:57,067 --> 01:10:00,029

of the church and we are responsible to Jesus.

01:10:00,279 --> 01:10:03,198

Okay. And that means we can't go along with this

01:10:03,240 --> 01:10:06,869

apostasy. All right. But this

01:10:06,869 --> 01:10:09,038

language that avoids the term penalty that,

01:10:09,163 --> 01:10:11,999

that talks about sacrifice, I think is a moving

01:10:11,999 --> 01:10:13,667

away from that more fundamentalist

01:10:14,376 --> 01:10:18,297

kind of definition of the atonement than the '21

01:10:18,297 --> 01:10:22,635

one did. Okay. Then we, with the Holy Spirit,

01:10:22,635 --> 01:10:24,637

we believe in the deity and personality of the

01:10:24,637 --> 01:10:26,972

Holy Spirit, that he convinces the world of sin,

01:10:26,972 --> 01:10:29,600

of righteousness and of judgment that he indwells

01:10:29,600 --> 01:10:31,518

and comforts the believer, guides him into all

01:10:31,560 --> 01:10:33,812

truth, empowers for service and enables him to

01:10:33,812 --> 01:10:34,772

live a life of

01:10:34,772 --> 01:10:36,398

righteousness. And what's interesting

01:10:36,440 --> 01:10:41,320

about both the '21 and the '64 confession is that

01:10:41,320 --> 01:10:44,907

they do not use, which the '63 confession does.

01:10:45,324 --> 01:10:48,202

It talks about the Trinity. I mean, it talks

01:10:48,202 --> 01:10:49,536

about God in three persons,

01:10:50,120 --> 01:10:53,624

Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Okay. The 21 talks

01:10:53,624 --> 01:10:55,292

about the personality of the Holy Spirit,

01:10:55,334 --> 01:10:58,295

which kind of plays, I mean, is, is queuing into

01:10:58,295 --> 01:11:02,841

that idea. Okay. But the '64 one definitely says

01:11:03,092 --> 01:11:05,135

he's the third person of the Trinity and actually

01:11:05,135 --> 01:11:06,845

using or introduces that term Trinity,

01:11:07,262 --> 01:11:10,307

which the '21 confession doesn't use that term and

01:11:10,307 --> 01:11:13,310

use the term Trinity at all. And then it adds,

01:11:13,310 --> 01:11:16,563

he exalts Christ and illuminates the word that he

01:11:16,563 --> 01:11:19,441

is, that he is received at the new birth in Holy

01:11:19,483 --> 01:11:22,444

Spirit baptism. Now that's very interesting

01:11:22,444 --> 01:11:26,073

because that shows one of the things too,

01:11:26,073 --> 01:11:28,075

that they were working with, they were trying to

01:11:28,075 --> 01:11:32,162

combat is the idea of either a second work of

01:11:32,246 --> 01:11:34,415

grace where one received the Holy Spirit, which

01:11:34,415 --> 01:11:38,377

like holiness did. And some of these folks who

01:11:38,377 --> 01:11:40,337

were involved in the fellowship movement actually

01:11:40,337 --> 01:11:44,383

had acquaintance with Brethren in Christ people,

01:11:44,967 --> 01:11:47,386

who in the 20th century really took over the

01:11:47,386 --> 01:11:49,680

holiness doctrine of sanctification and the

01:11:50,264 --> 01:11:52,391

baptism of the Holy Spirit was a separate later

01:11:52,391 --> 01:11:55,185

experience. And so here they're just, I think

01:11:55,185 --> 01:11:58,897

this is just simply reaffirming, restating a

01:11:58,897 --> 01:12:01,692

traditional Mennonite understanding that at the

01:12:01,692 --> 01:12:04,194

point in which we be of the new birth, we

01:12:04,194 --> 01:12:05,320

received the Holy Spirit,

01:12:05,320 --> 01:12:06,363

but they just want to clarify

01:12:06,530 --> 01:12:10,409

that. All right. It enables us to live a life of

01:12:10,409 --> 01:12:11,410

righteousness by his

01:12:11,410 --> 01:12:12,661

renewing and cleansing power.

01:12:13,245 --> 01:12:15,372

We believe in the gifts of Christ to the church

01:12:15,372 --> 01:12:17,708

distributed and administered by the Holy Spirit.

01:12:17,708 --> 01:12:21,003

We warn against modern healing movements and

01:12:21,003 --> 01:12:23,172

tongue movements and the second work of grace

01:12:23,172 --> 01:12:25,132

emphasis, which you not spring from the spirit of

01:12:25,132 --> 01:12:27,176

God, but from the flesh and reproach the

01:12:27,176 --> 01:12:30,012

cause of Christ. So these are outside things that

01:12:30,012 --> 01:12:32,639

are, they're looking at it and they say, no,

01:12:32,639 --> 01:12:35,017

we don't want that kind of stuff. We don't want a

01:12:35,017 --> 01:12:36,727

second work of grace. We don't,

01:12:37,144 --> 01:12:39,146

we are skeptical about the tongues and the

01:12:39,146 --> 01:12:40,647

healing saying, of course, there's a lot to

01:12:40,689 --> 01:12:44,359

have been skeptical about that. All right. And

01:12:44,359 --> 01:12:47,029

then salvation. Now it's interesting.

01:12:48,030 --> 01:12:51,075

The '21 confession says, we believe that man is

01:12:51,075 --> 01:12:54,244

saved alone by grace through faith

01:12:54,995 --> 01:12:58,457

in the finished work of Christ. So by grace, it

01:12:58,457 --> 01:13:00,375

says alone by grace. It doesn't say,

01:13:01,335 --> 01:13:03,378

it's not dealing with like Luther. It's not

01:13:03,378 --> 01:13:05,506

saying by faith alone, but

01:13:05,506 --> 01:13:06,924

by grace alone. We are saved

01:13:07,007 --> 01:13:11,345

by grace alone. All right. But the article on

01:13:11,345 --> 01:13:14,681

salvation in '64 really does a pretty significant

01:13:14,765 --> 01:13:18,852

reworking here. We believe that man is saved by

01:13:18,852 --> 01:13:22,439

the mercy and grace of God, not by grace alone,

01:13:22,439 --> 01:13:25,400

but by the mercy and grace of God through faith

01:13:25,400 --> 01:13:27,319

and the redemptive work of Christ,

01:13:27,319 --> 01:13:29,863

the power of the word of God and the indwelling,

01:13:29,863 --> 01:13:31,281

renewing and regenerating

01:13:31,281 --> 01:13:32,199

work of the Holy Spirit,

01:13:32,199 --> 01:13:35,244

that repentance precedes forgiveness of sins and

01:13:35,244 --> 01:13:37,412

includes fruits of evidence of the change

01:13:37,412 --> 01:13:39,832

of heart and life and that faith issues and

01:13:39,832 --> 01:13:42,334

obedience and illness complete surrender to God.

01:13:43,627 --> 01:13:48,173

I think an early Swiss Brethren person, leader

01:13:48,173 --> 01:13:50,509

could have written that if they weren't writing

01:13:50,509 --> 01:13:53,137

in German. I mean, I think this is really my

01:13:53,137 --> 01:13:53,887

personal feeling. This is

01:13:53,887 --> 01:13:54,763

really a good statement.

01:13:55,639 --> 01:14:02,229

Okay. It covers a lot of bases. It deals with

01:14:02,229 --> 01:14:04,481

salvation as, in a sense,

01:14:04,481 --> 01:14:07,151

as an ongoing process that has a beginning and

01:14:07,151 --> 01:14:08,402

the work of the Holy Spirit,

01:14:08,735 --> 01:14:11,822

and then it lives a life of victory over the

01:14:11,822 --> 01:14:13,031

flesh, the world and Satan.

01:14:14,324 --> 01:14:16,994

So I think, you know, to me, that's a fairly good

01:14:16,994 --> 01:14:21,623

thing. Now, the '21 Confession has a very,

01:14:21,665 --> 01:14:25,419

very short thing on the church. We believe the

01:14:25,419 --> 01:14:27,546

church is the body of Christ composed of all

01:14:27,546 --> 01:14:29,798

those who through repentance toward God and faith

01:14:29,798 --> 01:14:32,259

in the Lord Jesus Christ have been born again and

01:14:32,259 --> 01:14:34,845

were baptized by one Spirit into one body. And

01:14:34,845 --> 01:14:36,847

that is her divinely appointed mission to preach

01:14:36,847 --> 01:14:38,807

the gospel to every creature, teaching obedience

01:14:38,807 --> 01:14:42,269

to all his commandments. The '64 Confession really

01:14:42,269 --> 01:14:46,440

is a confession that really does address what are

01:14:46,440 --> 01:14:50,485

some of the concerns in '64. And particularly,

01:14:51,820 --> 01:14:53,405

one of the things that's really interesting, and

01:14:53,405 --> 01:14:54,823

I'm not going to read this whole thing, but

01:14:55,490 --> 01:14:58,160

it says that Jesus Christ is the head of the

01:14:58,160 --> 01:15:00,871

church and therefore the supreme and final

01:15:00,871 --> 01:15:03,582

authority in his church, because they felt that

01:15:03,582 --> 01:15:05,459

really what had happened in the Mennonite

01:15:05,459 --> 01:15:07,544

church in the conferences is that the conference

01:15:07,544 --> 01:15:11,882

became the authority and that they were, and they

01:15:11,882 --> 01:15:13,884

felt this, hey, listen, this is what the

01:15:13,884 --> 01:15:14,968

Scriptures teaches. This is

01:15:14,968 --> 01:15:16,511

what Jesus is teaching. And you

01:15:16,553 --> 01:15:18,347

guys are ignoring this or you're trying to

01:15:18,347 --> 01:15:21,099

explain it away. And so Jesus isn't really

01:15:21,725 --> 01:15:24,353

the head of your church. I mean, that's her

01:15:24,353 --> 01:15:26,313

critique. That's what they're saying. Okay.

01:15:26,521 --> 01:15:28,732

And so they're emphasizing the fact that Jesus is

01:15:28,732 --> 01:15:31,193

the head of the church and that, and this, again,

01:15:32,361 --> 01:15:35,405

as they look at it, they think, I mean, they're

01:15:35,405 --> 01:15:37,908

concerned about right authority because they, I

01:15:37,908 --> 01:15:40,536

mean, conservatives do not want to be called

01:15:40,536 --> 01:15:44,164

rebels. All right. They don't want to be called

01:15:44,206 --> 01:15:49,795

that, but they feel, I think that that's a charge

01:15:49,795 --> 01:15:52,130

that could be leveled against them because they

01:15:52,130 --> 01:15:56,301

are going, they are going against what are

01:15:56,301 --> 01:15:58,762

constituted church authorities and so on.

01:15:59,596 --> 01:16:01,265

We believe that the church is neither an

01:16:01,265 --> 01:16:04,476

ecclesiastical hierarchy where ministers,

01:16:04,476 --> 01:16:06,436

bishops, boards, committees, church councils, or

01:16:06,436 --> 01:16:09,523

conference are arbitrarily rule. All right.

01:16:10,440 --> 01:16:13,902

Nor a democracy where the rule is by popular

01:16:13,902 --> 01:16:16,738

majority. The church is rather a theocracy where

01:16:16,738 --> 01:16:19,283

the triune Godhead is directly active. Jesus

01:16:19,283 --> 01:16:22,119

Christ is the head subject to the Father and

01:16:22,119 --> 01:16:23,704

by the Holy Spirit commands, directs, and

01:16:23,704 --> 01:16:25,247

controls his church by his

01:16:25,247 --> 01:16:26,707

word through a chosen and called

01:16:26,707 --> 01:16:30,460

ministry. So there, that's, that really is

01:16:30,460 --> 01:16:31,378

focusing on, on their

01:16:31,378 --> 01:16:32,963

congregationalism. And that's a really

01:16:33,297 --> 01:16:37,718

different kind of way of operating. Okay. I

01:16:37,718 --> 01:16:40,012

believe we have kind of

01:16:40,012 --> 01:16:41,555

gone on long enough about this.

01:16:42,139 --> 01:16:45,559

Let me see if there's something. One of the

01:16:45,559 --> 01:16:46,768

things that is interesting

01:16:46,768 --> 01:16:51,189

too is that the, okay, this,

01:16:51,273 --> 01:16:53,317

one of the things they do is that there's no

01:16:53,317 --> 01:16:55,068

restrictions in this confession of faith.

01:16:55,319 --> 01:16:58,822

They eliminate the category of, of restrictions.

01:16:58,822 --> 01:17:02,451

That language is not in the '64 thing. They have a

01:17:03,452 --> 01:17:07,622

the '21 confession has a short section on

01:17:07,622 --> 01:17:11,293

separation. What the '64 one did is it took that

01:17:11,418 --> 01:17:13,378

article on separation begins with that sort

01:17:13,378 --> 01:17:17,716

section and then it begins to,

01:17:17,716 --> 01:17:22,804

it uses that and, and actually expands it

01:17:22,804 --> 01:17:27,142

significantly to cover non-resistance and

01:17:27,184 --> 01:17:30,687

non-conforming. And so non-conforming and

01:17:30,687 --> 01:17:34,608

non-resistance are, are seen as kind of twin

01:17:34,608 --> 01:17:38,028

doctrines. And that's a very

01:17:38,028 --> 01:17:41,531

typical Mennonite way of looking at things

01:17:42,199 --> 01:17:44,951

and so on. And it has some historical, you know,

01:17:45,494 --> 01:17:48,288

historical reality. I mean, the fact is like in

01:17:48,288 --> 01:17:51,958

World War II, the conferences are the, are the

01:17:51,958 --> 01:17:54,836

Mennonite or Amish groups that had the highest

01:17:55,003 --> 01:17:58,256

degree of non-conformity also had the highest

01:17:58,256 --> 01:18:02,719

degree of conscientious objectors. So, you know,

01:18:02,719 --> 01:18:06,098

so there was a direct correlation there and, you

01:18:06,098 --> 01:18:08,683

know, conservatives like to point that out.

01:18:08,975 --> 01:18:11,812

And it is a, it is a truism. You can't get around

01:18:11,812 --> 01:18:14,606

it. Okay. I think I'll stop there. There's some

01:18:14,606 --> 01:18:17,609

more things I could say, talk about the Lord's

01:18:17,609 --> 01:18:18,318

Supper and so on like

01:18:18,318 --> 01:18:19,403

that. One thing, since you're

01:18:19,403 --> 01:18:20,612

reading about the Lord's Supper, maybe I'll just

01:18:20,612 --> 01:18:22,739

say this, is that the Lord's Supper should be

01:18:22,739 --> 01:18:24,950

observed as a memorial, his death by those of

01:18:24,950 --> 01:18:26,952

like precious faith through that peace with God.

01:18:27,494 --> 01:18:31,498

The '64 confession does say that, but has

01:18:31,498 --> 01:18:32,499

something similar to that.

01:18:33,083 --> 01:18:34,710

But the thing that it really

01:18:34,710 --> 01:18:39,005

focuses on is, and again, this is, this is a lack

01:18:39,005 --> 01:18:42,551

of better term an early Anabaptist emphasis on

01:18:43,009 --> 01:18:45,220

the fact that communion is not just something

01:18:45,220 --> 01:18:46,847

between me and God, it's actually something

01:18:46,930 --> 01:18:50,434

between us as, it has to do with our

01:18:50,434 --> 01:18:53,186

relationship with each other. It talks about

01:18:53,353 --> 01:18:56,857

participating worthily. And of course, it also

01:18:56,857 --> 01:18:59,151

talks about the necessity for a closed and a

01:18:59,151 --> 01:19:03,363

clean communion. Okay. All right. And then the

01:19:03,363 --> 01:19:07,617

women's veiling. And this was, as I said, in the

01:19:07,617 --> 01:19:11,538

'50s and '60s became a contested issue. The women's

01:19:11,538 --> 01:19:14,249

veil is a veil of religious significance. It's

01:19:14,291 --> 01:19:16,585

not a weather garb. It signifies the principles

01:19:16,585 --> 01:19:18,962

of headship. The Scriptures teach that the veil

01:19:18,962 --> 01:19:20,672

should be a covering for the head and suggests

01:19:20,672 --> 01:19:22,716

that it is to be patterned after nature, the

01:19:22,716 --> 01:19:25,010

nature's covering the hair. The scripture also

01:19:25,010 --> 01:19:27,345

teaches that the cutting of women's hair is

01:19:27,345 --> 01:19:29,556

contrary to the will of God. Since the principle

01:19:29,556 --> 01:19:31,600

of headship, the attitude of prayer and the

01:19:31,600 --> 01:19:33,727

alertness to witness are continual on the part of

01:19:33,727 --> 01:19:35,854

the Christian women, the veil should be worn at

01:19:35,854 --> 01:19:38,315

all times. And see, that's not something said in

01:19:38,315 --> 01:19:42,569

the '63 confession. Okay. In fact, many of the

01:19:42,611 --> 01:19:46,823

conferences by '63 women were only wearing

01:19:46,823 --> 01:19:49,034

coverings to church. Is that

01:19:49,034 --> 01:19:50,660

01:19:50,744 --> 01:19:52,579

confession where it specifically mentions while

01:19:52,579 --> 01:19:55,207

praying and prophesying? Right. Yeah. Yeah. So

01:19:55,874 --> 01:19:59,836

the '64 confession is making sure we understand

01:19:59,836 --> 01:20:02,589

that this is something women do all the time.

01:20:02,589 --> 01:20:07,219

That is interesting. Okay. And I think it has a

01:20:07,219 --> 01:20:10,847

little bit more grit to it than J.C.'s language

01:20:11,097 --> 01:20:14,518

in the 63 confession. How have these confessions

01:20:14,518 --> 01:20:17,646

been received in present day churches? And how

01:20:17,646 --> 01:20:19,606

are these confessions in use distributed across

01:20:19,606 --> 01:20:22,984

the conservative Mennonite spectrum? Well, okay,

01:20:22,984 --> 01:20:26,821

the 1921 confession is still the official

01:20:26,821 --> 01:20:32,452

confession of groups who withdrew from Mennonite

01:20:32,452 --> 01:20:35,580

church conferences, but formed conferences. So

01:20:35,580 --> 01:20:37,541

like the Eastern Pennsylvania Mennonite church,

01:20:37,541 --> 01:20:39,876

the Cumberland Valley Mennonite church, the

01:20:39,876 --> 01:20:43,755

Southeastern Conference, the Mid-Atlantic

01:20:43,797 --> 01:20:46,216

fellowship, any of the groups that kind of came

01:20:46,216 --> 01:20:48,927

out of the Eastern church like Pilgrim and Hope

01:20:48,927 --> 01:20:53,056

and so on, Northeastern, Appalachian, those are

01:20:53,056 --> 01:20:56,643

all kind of variations on a theme.

01:20:57,561 --> 01:21:01,982

They're using the 1921 confession. Okay. The

01:21:01,982 --> 01:21:04,568

groups that come out of the non-conference

01:21:05,026 --> 01:21:07,404

fellowship movements, okay, like the Nationwide

01:21:07,404 --> 01:21:08,905

fellowship, Midwest

01:21:08,905 --> 01:21:10,865

fellowship, Western fellowship,

01:21:11,866 --> 01:21:16,705

not sure what CMCO uses. I'm not sure about that.

01:21:17,080 --> 01:21:19,082

They came out of that non-conference movement,

01:21:19,082 --> 01:21:20,875

so it wouldn't surprise me. I should check that,

01:21:20,875 --> 01:21:22,836

but it wouldn't surprise me if they used the '64

01:21:23,169 --> 01:21:26,881

confession of faith. All right. The '63 confession

01:21:26,881 --> 01:21:31,177

of faith. I mean, it was actually the official

01:21:32,053 --> 01:21:35,015

confession of faith of the Mennonite church until

01:21:35,015 --> 01:21:38,393

the confession of faith of Mennonite perspective,

01:21:39,102 --> 01:21:42,480

which was something that both the Mennonite

01:21:42,480 --> 01:21:44,274

church and the general conference Mennonite

01:21:44,274 --> 01:21:47,652

church adopted before the merger as they're kind

01:21:47,652 --> 01:21:49,613

of one of the building blocks of the merger

01:21:49,946 --> 01:21:51,781

that formed the Mennonite church USA. What's that

01:21:51,781 --> 01:21:55,160

'90s? I think it's '95. I'm not sure about that,

01:21:55,160 --> 01:21:57,370

but it's in the 90s that they

01:21:57,370 --> 01:22:02,125

adopt this. So then that means that

01:22:05,003 --> 01:22:09,799

groups that use that now, I think Biblical

01:22:09,799 --> 01:22:14,179

Mennonite alliance uses it and the Keystone

01:22:14,179 --> 01:22:18,433

Mennonite fellowship uses it. I'm not sure there

01:22:18,433 --> 01:22:19,100

are some other groups. I

01:22:19,100 --> 01:22:20,101

don't know if they use it.

01:22:20,769 --> 01:22:24,439

And of course you have unaffiliated congregations

01:22:24,439 --> 01:22:27,359

that might be all over the board, depending on

01:22:27,817 --> 01:22:31,821

maybe what their roots were. I think there would

01:22:31,821 --> 01:22:34,240

be churches that perhaps had, I mean,

01:22:34,240 --> 01:22:36,534

there are some of the unaffiliated churches

01:22:36,534 --> 01:22:39,746

actually had their roots in the fellowship,

01:22:39,954 --> 01:22:41,706

in the non-conference fellowship movement. And I

01:22:41,706 --> 01:22:43,541

wouldn't be surprised in that case that they

01:22:44,042 --> 01:22:49,547

might still be using the '64 confession, if that's

01:22:49,547 --> 01:22:51,341

even in their consciousness or if they're using

01:22:51,341 --> 01:22:55,762

something. So I would say that, I mean, the one

01:22:55,762 --> 01:22:58,598

thing about the '64 confession, when it was

01:22:58,598 --> 01:23:02,394

published in '64 after the meeting at Hartfield,

01:23:03,019 --> 01:23:05,939

where it was at the third annual biblical

01:23:05,939 --> 01:23:08,108

discipleship and fellowship meeting at Hartfield

01:23:08,108 --> 01:23:12,654

in 1964, the committee presented this thing.

01:23:13,321 --> 01:23:15,949

There were some minor changes made to it and then

01:23:15,949 --> 01:23:18,660

they adopted it. And they gave instructions that

01:23:18,660 --> 01:23:21,621

it was to be published together with the

01:23:21,621 --> 01:23:23,665

Schleitheim articles and with

01:23:23,665 --> 01:23:25,000

the Dordrecht confession. And

01:23:25,000 --> 01:23:27,127

that's still, so this is it, Mennonite confession

01:23:27,127 --> 01:23:31,423

of faith. Ron Staff keeps this in print. It is,

01:23:31,464 --> 01:23:34,884

it's like I said, it's used by the fellowship,

01:23:35,343 --> 01:23:37,512

nationwide fellowship and other fellowship

01:23:37,804 --> 01:23:41,099