1 00:00:00,417 --> 00:00:04,379 Had that break not happened, there would not have been Swiss 2 00:00:05,171 --> 00:00:09,509 Anabaptists, nor their descendants in Switzerland 3 00:00:09,801 --> 00:00:13,680 or Pennsylvania, or I would not have existed. 4 00:00:14,806 --> 00:00:15,598 So, 5 00:00:15,598 --> 00:00:16,933 that was my pilgrimage. 6 00:00:16,933 --> 00:00:20,854 And, I, I can't say that I expect everybody to, 7 00:00:21,563 --> 00:00:24,816 to groove on it, but I, I sure do. 8 00:00:31,531 --> 00:00:33,950 John Ruth has spent decades 9 00:00:33,950 --> 00:00:37,996 reading and researching, writing books about the history of the 10 00:00:37,996 --> 00:00:42,667 Anabaptist movement and the Mennonites, including this book on Conrad 11 00:00:42,709 --> 00:00:47,047 Grebel called Son of Zurich, which is still in print and, was published 12 00:00:47,213 --> 00:00:50,925 almost exactly 50 years ago, So, John, 13 00:00:50,925 --> 00:00:53,928 it is an honor to have you on the podcast. 14 00:00:55,180 --> 00:00:58,850 Again, you spent a lot of time reading into this 15 00:00:58,850 --> 00:01:00,018 and researching these things 16 00:01:00,018 --> 00:01:04,773 and trying to pass that story on to the next generation. 17 00:01:04,981 --> 00:01:06,483 And you have a lot of different books. 18 00:01:06,483 --> 00:01:10,195 But today I'd like to focus specifically on Conrad 19 00:01:10,653 --> 00:01:14,449 Grebel and how studying into his life has affected 20 00:01:14,449 --> 00:01:17,535 you and what lessons that might have for us today. 21 00:01:17,577 --> 00:01:20,747 So wherever you want to take the conversation, it is an honor 22 00:01:20,747 --> 00:01:21,539 to have you here, 23 00:01:21,539 --> 00:01:25,376 and I'm looking forward to learning more about Conrad Grebel tonight. 24 00:01:27,420 --> 00:01:28,838 Well, when 25 00:01:28,838 --> 00:01:32,675 I was a young minister, 21 years old, 26 00:01:33,176 --> 00:01:36,763 I got a job in a book store in Souderton, Pennsylvania. 27 00:01:37,597 --> 00:01:39,933 I had been ordained a year 28 00:01:39,933 --> 00:01:42,894 before the age of 20, not expecting it 29 00:01:43,770 --> 00:01:46,898 quit college because now I was a minister. 30 00:01:46,898 --> 00:01:49,484 I didn't need any more credentials. 31 00:01:49,484 --> 00:01:51,903 And in the bookstore 32 00:01:51,903 --> 00:01:55,532 that I worked at was a new book 33 00:01:56,407 --> 00:02:00,370 by a scholar named Harold Stauffer Bender, 34 00:02:01,412 --> 00:02:04,415 out of Goshen, Indiana, in which, 35 00:02:04,874 --> 00:02:08,169 he depicted the life of Conrad Grebel. 36 00:02:09,212 --> 00:02:12,006 I later talked to a protege 37 00:02:12,006 --> 00:02:15,009 of Harold Bender named John C Wenger. 38 00:02:16,052 --> 00:02:20,723 And John C Wenger told me that he was on hand 39 00:02:20,723 --> 00:02:25,520 when Harold Bender wrote that book back in about 1950 or so. 40 00:02:25,937 --> 00:02:30,108 He said he had 18 chairs 41 00:02:30,108 --> 00:02:34,320 in a room with open documents on each chair. 42 00:02:34,320 --> 00:02:37,615 And he walked around the room writing this book. 43 00:02:38,491 --> 00:02:41,035 Well, I read this biography 44 00:02:41,035 --> 00:02:44,038 of Conrad Grebel, this brand new book. 45 00:02:44,247 --> 00:02:47,500 Frankly, it was way over my head. And, 46 00:02:48,960 --> 00:02:50,211 it wasn't 47 00:02:50,211 --> 00:02:54,007 terribly exciting, but that was my introduction. 48 00:02:55,508 --> 00:02:56,801 Then let me see. 49 00:02:56,801 --> 00:02:59,053 In 19, 50 00:02:59,053 --> 00:03:01,097 20 years later, here 51 00:03:01,097 --> 00:03:06,144 I came from graduate studies in English literature, 52 00:03:06,561 --> 00:03:09,564 and I was a new, professor of English 53 00:03:09,981 --> 00:03:13,902 at Eastern University, where I had gone and I got, 54 00:03:14,861 --> 00:03:19,449 an invitation from a man named Winfield Fretz, 55 00:03:19,824 --> 00:03:23,786 who was the principal of Conrad Grebel College. 56 00:03:24,162 --> 00:03:26,915 And he said they wanted a biography 57 00:03:26,915 --> 00:03:30,251 of the man for whom their college was named 58 00:03:31,044 --> 00:03:35,048 he had been born in my home community, too, and he picked me out 59 00:03:35,048 --> 00:03:38,468 because I was young and literary and he knew about me. 60 00:03:38,468 --> 00:03:40,470 And so, 61 00:03:40,470 --> 00:03:44,432 I wrote, I went to and wrote a book about Conrad Grebel, 62 00:03:45,391 --> 00:03:48,394 and I had no training in history. 63 00:03:49,479 --> 00:03:52,482 So I just told it as a story as I could. 64 00:03:52,774 --> 00:03:54,859 And that's where that book came from. 65 00:03:54,859 --> 00:03:59,072 then, now that I'm, almost 95 66 00:03:59,697 --> 00:04:02,242 and the past couple of years, 67 00:04:04,702 --> 00:04:05,745 the memory 68 00:04:05,745 --> 00:04:10,041 of Conrad Grebel and the role he played was, 69 00:04:10,625 --> 00:04:13,670 such a narrative in my head that I returned to it. 70 00:04:14,045 --> 00:04:18,716 And then I had the chance to go to Croatia 71 00:04:18,716 --> 00:04:23,554 for a wedding in 2022, And I said, I'll go 72 00:04:23,554 --> 00:04:27,016 if you will also allow me to stop off 73 00:04:27,141 --> 00:04:30,019 in Zurich on the way home. 74 00:04:30,019 --> 00:04:33,022 Well, in 30 minutes they had that arranged 75 00:04:33,356 --> 00:04:36,067 that allowed me to go 76 00:04:36,067 --> 00:04:39,821 to the canton of Zurich, to the, 77 00:04:41,406 --> 00:04:44,701 a town maybe 30 miles away named St. 78 00:04:44,701 --> 00:04:45,785 Gallen. 79 00:04:45,785 --> 00:04:50,331 Where Conrad Grebel, Conrad Grebel's brother in law, had been mayor. 80 00:04:50,832 --> 00:04:55,169 And the archive has Conrad Grebel's correspondence. 81 00:04:56,045 --> 00:04:58,631 And in there was a letter 82 00:04:58,631 --> 00:05:03,052 which he wrote in September 5th, 1524, 83 00:05:03,261 --> 00:05:06,264 that I wanted to put my hand on, 84 00:05:06,723 --> 00:05:08,975 because in it 85 00:05:08,975 --> 00:05:12,603 Conrad talked about what it was 86 00:05:12,979 --> 00:05:17,275 to follow the word to form a church of Christ, 87 00:05:17,859 --> 00:05:20,445 and that was where the church 88 00:05:20,445 --> 00:05:23,865 in which that formed the group of people that I am 89 00:05:24,115 --> 00:05:28,661 was born at that moment in history and on those subjects. 90 00:05:28,995 --> 00:05:32,665 And I've and I want to make a pilgrimage all the way home. 91 00:05:33,249 --> 00:05:35,626 Now, maybe that's just plain sentimentality. 92 00:05:35,626 --> 00:05:38,504 It's up to the audience to think what they want to about it. 93 00:05:38,504 --> 00:05:40,840 But for me, it was existential. 94 00:05:40,840 --> 00:05:44,302 And I went home and I stood, looked at that letter, 95 00:05:44,302 --> 00:05:47,597 and I looked at I, by the way, I looked at that letter over the years 96 00:05:48,097 --> 00:05:51,100 because John Christian Wenger, who was the 97 00:05:51,351 --> 00:05:55,229 a protege of Harold Bender, had published that letter. 98 00:05:56,606 --> 00:05:57,565 He published it 99 00:05:57,565 --> 00:06:01,110 in a paperback, and you could see both the original 100 00:06:01,444 --> 00:06:04,906 a calligraphy in German and the English translation. 101 00:06:05,281 --> 00:06:08,284 And I lived with that from time to time over the years. 102 00:06:09,077 --> 00:06:13,456 I think that, professional scholars would say I overemphasize it, 103 00:06:13,956 --> 00:06:16,959 but that's where that's where I find, 104 00:06:17,752 --> 00:06:20,171 a break in history, 105 00:06:20,171 --> 00:06:24,550 that I can refer to and and imagine myself. 106 00:06:25,093 --> 00:06:29,055 Had that break not happened, there would not have been Swiss 107 00:06:29,847 --> 00:06:34,185 Anabaptists, nor their descendants in Switzerland 108 00:06:34,477 --> 00:06:38,356 or Pennsylvania, or I would not have existed. 109 00:06:39,482 --> 00:06:42,276 So, that's what, 110 00:06:42,276 --> 00:06:43,611 that was my pilgrimage. 111 00:06:43,611 --> 00:06:47,532 And, I, I can't say that I expect everybody to, 112 00:06:48,241 --> 00:06:51,494 to groove on it, but I, I sure do. 113 00:06:52,995 --> 00:06:55,331 And I think it's an important piece to note. 114 00:06:55,331 --> 00:06:58,793 We're filming this in September 2024. 115 00:06:58,793 --> 00:06:59,836 So exactly. 116 00:06:59,836 --> 00:07:04,757 Almost to the day, 500 years from when Conrad Grebel wrote that letter. 117 00:07:05,425 --> 00:07:08,594 And there's also another piece, significant piece, 118 00:07:08,678 --> 00:07:10,430 I think he told me this over the phone, 119 00:07:10,430 --> 00:07:13,057 but when he wrote that he hadn't been rebaptized yet 120 00:07:13,057 --> 00:07:16,561 and the Anabaptist movement in Switzerland had not started yet. 121 00:07:16,936 --> 00:07:18,563 Do you want to talk about that? 122 00:07:18,563 --> 00:07:18,938 Like what? 123 00:07:18,938 --> 00:07:21,691 Give us maybe a little more context for this. 124 00:07:21,691 --> 00:07:27,029 Well, first, you're right, it was four months before the first baptism even. 125 00:07:27,196 --> 00:07:32,368 Wow. So at this point, like, the whole one of the big pieces 126 00:07:32,368 --> 00:07:35,955 for the Anabaptists was this concept of believer's baptism. 127 00:07:35,955 --> 00:07:36,205 Right? 128 00:07:36,205 --> 00:07:36,998 And you're saying 129 00:07:36,998 --> 00:07:40,585 this is before that even happened, They haven't made that move yet. 130 00:07:40,877 --> 00:07:46,883 It four months later that George Blaurock, an old, a, you know, slightly 131 00:07:46,883 --> 00:07:49,886 older person who was a reformed, 132 00:07:50,094 --> 00:07:53,723 a Catholic priest, implored Conrad, 133 00:07:54,682 --> 00:07:57,685 For God's sake, give me true Christian baptism. 134 00:07:57,852 --> 00:08:00,313 That was in January. 135 00:08:00,313 --> 00:08:03,399 But this letter was written in September. 136 00:08:04,525 --> 00:08:08,112 And, I think it would be most interesting to to 137 00:08:08,112 --> 00:08:11,741 to just consider a couple of facts about Conrad Grebel. 138 00:08:12,116 --> 00:08:15,286 You know, he grew up in a noble family. 139 00:08:16,037 --> 00:08:20,750 you were given, real estate, by the emperor. 140 00:08:20,791 --> 00:08:25,046 If you had ancestors who were in the Crusades. 141 00:08:25,713 --> 00:08:26,881 Wait, really? 142 00:08:26,881 --> 00:08:29,884 So the Crusades would have been hundreds of years before. 143 00:08:29,967 --> 00:08:30,510 right. 144 00:08:30,510 --> 00:08:34,222 But that's when the nobility was given real estate. 145 00:08:34,222 --> 00:08:37,225 And Conrad grew up in one of those noble families. 146 00:08:37,350 --> 00:08:39,352 He is from Grebel. 147 00:08:39,352 --> 00:08:42,897 So he not just Grebel from Grebel means from that family. 148 00:08:43,231 --> 00:08:47,527 So he was from the top of the, social, 149 00:08:49,111 --> 00:08:50,738 status in Zurich. 150 00:08:50,738 --> 00:08:56,327 His father was the head of one of the guilds and a member of the Inner Council. 151 00:08:56,327 --> 00:08:59,372 Not just the 200 that ran Zurich 152 00:09:00,206 --> 00:09:04,418 As a Catholic, control was, was, fading. 153 00:09:05,670 --> 00:09:08,506 Literally, Zurich was, 154 00:09:08,506 --> 00:09:12,260 technically under the control of a Catholic nun of an abbess. 155 00:09:12,760 --> 00:09:15,596 In one of the churches the Frauenkirche the 156 00:09:15,596 --> 00:09:18,599 the lady Our Lady's church... 157 00:09:18,975 --> 00:09:20,268 Well, anyway. 158 00:09:20,268 --> 00:09:24,814 So. Okay, first off, Conrad Grebel is from a noble family. 159 00:09:25,356 --> 00:09:27,483 He lived in a tower house. 160 00:09:27,483 --> 00:09:30,486 He was sent to the University of Vienna. 161 00:09:30,695 --> 00:09:33,698 And the the man that, 162 00:09:33,906 --> 00:09:38,536 monitored, monitored him there, became his brother in law. 163 00:09:40,871 --> 00:09:44,458 His name was Adrian von Baut from St. 164 00:09:44,625 --> 00:09:47,712 Gallen, and he was given the Renaissance 165 00:09:47,712 --> 00:09:52,133 name of Vadian, see, Switzerland was 166 00:09:52,508 --> 00:09:55,219 was envying at that moment 167 00:09:55,219 --> 00:09:59,223 the beginnings of the Renaissance in Italy, in Milan. 168 00:10:00,308 --> 00:10:05,354 And Vadian, the professor of young Conrad Grebel, who came to the university 169 00:10:05,354 --> 00:10:09,400 there was so bright that his professor said, 170 00:10:09,400 --> 00:10:14,447 you are going to be the top person when the Swiss get their renaissance. 171 00:10:14,989 --> 00:10:16,741 He said this about Conrad Grebel. 172 00:10:16,741 --> 00:10:19,118 You're saying so, Conrad. 173 00:10:19,118 --> 00:10:22,788 So he, he so he was very, very, very smart. 174 00:10:22,788 --> 00:10:23,873 Yeah. Yeah. 175 00:10:23,873 --> 00:10:27,126 he was smart and he was not together. 176 00:10:27,209 --> 00:10:29,170 He was a young scape grace. 177 00:10:30,463 --> 00:10:32,298 And, in my book, I 178 00:10:32,298 --> 00:10:35,301 tried I tell, the narrative sequence 179 00:10:35,343 --> 00:10:39,722 in which eventually, believe it or not, when the plague hit 180 00:10:40,473 --> 00:10:43,893 and almost killed Ulrich Zwingli, who was the, 181 00:10:45,144 --> 00:10:48,773 at that time stirring Zurich to, reform, 182 00:10:51,025 --> 00:10:54,028 that broke up Conrad's, affiliate, 183 00:10:54,445 --> 00:10:59,033 studies at Vienna and his professor Vadian, 184 00:10:59,325 --> 00:11:03,913 they they both came home back to Switzerland and through that connection 185 00:11:03,913 --> 00:11:06,957 Vadian got to know Conrad sister and married her. 186 00:11:06,999 --> 00:11:08,584 Martha. 187 00:11:08,584 --> 00:11:10,503 It's quite a fascinating story. 188 00:11:10,503 --> 00:11:14,882 And then Conrad doesn't go back to school, and finally he goes back 189 00:11:14,882 --> 00:11:16,384 and he wants to go to Milan. 190 00:11:16,384 --> 00:11:19,804 He wants to be with the growing edge of the of the, 191 00:11:20,471 --> 00:11:22,890 Renaissance, where they're studying the classics. 192 00:11:22,890 --> 00:11:27,561 Because that was kind of the, cutting edge, at the time or like was new. 193 00:11:27,561 --> 00:11:31,565 It was when you get your great painters and your great scholars 194 00:11:31,816 --> 00:11:36,153 are out of Milan, but that hadn't hit Switzerland or France yet. 195 00:11:36,821 --> 00:11:40,950 And so, Conrad wanted to go to Milan, 196 00:11:41,283 --> 00:11:44,286 but instead wound up at the University of Paris. 197 00:11:44,912 --> 00:11:50,793 Why? Well, because the king of France gave 198 00:11:51,377 --> 00:11:54,880 scholarships to Swiss. Why? 199 00:11:55,297 --> 00:11:57,341 Because the King of France wanted 200 00:11:58,342 --> 00:12:02,012 the Swiss soldiers in his 100 man bodyguard. 201 00:12:02,346 --> 00:12:05,349 Because the Swiss soldiers were known as the best. 202 00:12:05,474 --> 00:12:07,143 Oh, that's. 203 00:12:07,143 --> 00:12:08,853 So it was all politics. 204 00:12:08,853 --> 00:12:11,313 Basically, it was a political move Well, everything. 205 00:12:11,313 --> 00:12:12,857 It's always all politics. 206 00:12:12,857 --> 00:12:16,277 And, you know, its economy is always operating. 207 00:12:16,277 --> 00:12:17,611 Politics is always up. 208 00:12:17,611 --> 00:12:19,321 But Conrad didn't think this way. 209 00:12:19,321 --> 00:12:22,324 He wanted to know these Latin and these great classics, 210 00:12:22,658 --> 00:12:25,661 but instead he he wound up at the University of Paris, 211 00:12:25,745 --> 00:12:29,331 and they had not yet been affected by the Renaissance. 212 00:12:30,291 --> 00:12:34,336 By the way, King Francis was finally captured by, 213 00:12:34,628 --> 00:12:41,343 in some war, not until the last of his 100 Swiss guard was killed. 214 00:12:42,094 --> 00:12:45,097 That's how tough the Swiss soldiers were. 215 00:12:45,264 --> 00:12:47,850 Well, Conrad is studying at the. 216 00:12:47,850 --> 00:12:48,976 He's not studying. 217 00:12:48,976 --> 00:12:51,103 He's just goofing off at the university of Paris. 218 00:12:51,103 --> 00:12:52,271 He's bored stiff. 219 00:12:52,271 --> 00:12:55,816 Oh, he's, is kicked out by his tutor, 220 00:12:56,233 --> 00:12:59,361 and he's a skirt chaser who gets venereal disease. 221 00:12:59,695 --> 00:13:01,614 He's just goofing off. 222 00:13:01,614 --> 00:13:05,284 And then he hears that back in his hometown of Zurich, 223 00:13:05,868 --> 00:13:10,039 where his family is a real player, there's a reformer Ulrich Zwingli. 224 00:13:10,581 --> 00:13:11,791 And he gets excited. 225 00:13:13,167 --> 00:13:16,170 Then he starts thinking. 226 00:13:16,545 --> 00:13:20,174 At that moment, we're talking to 1524, 25. 227 00:13:20,591 --> 00:13:23,594 At that moment, the peasants, the 228 00:13:23,886 --> 00:13:26,764 the farmers, 229 00:13:26,764 --> 00:13:29,725 of Europe are rising up with their, 230 00:13:29,725 --> 00:13:33,687 pikes and their forks and whatever they had, 231 00:13:33,687 --> 00:13:38,025 they had no guns or swords like the professional soldiers had. 232 00:13:38,317 --> 00:13:42,154 And they are defying the order. 233 00:13:42,154 --> 00:13:43,656 They're defying the kings. 234 00:13:43,656 --> 00:13:46,659 Yeah, the... 235 00:13:46,992 --> 00:13:48,994 And Martin Luther said that. 236 00:13:48,994 --> 00:13:50,621 Chase them down. They're bad news. 237 00:13:50,621 --> 00:13:53,749 Even though he had already seen through, the, 238 00:13:54,083 --> 00:13:57,086 shallowness of the macro culture. 239 00:13:57,253 --> 00:14:00,256 People coming up from Rome trying to raise money 240 00:14:00,297 --> 00:14:04,593 by selling indulgences, to finish building 241 00:14:04,593 --> 00:14:08,597 Saint Peter's and Luther in 1519 posts. 242 00:14:08,597 --> 00:14:14,311 His, his theses on the wall and says, God help me. 243 00:14:14,311 --> 00:14:15,521 I can't do any other. 244 00:14:15,521 --> 00:14:20,818 And he puts his 95 theses on, okay, that's not what stirred Conrad up. 245 00:14:21,026 --> 00:14:24,321 He heard that the reform was hitting Zwingli, 246 00:14:24,780 --> 00:14:27,783 and Zwingli came to his conclusion 247 00:14:28,075 --> 00:14:30,744 after he had been a chaplain 248 00:14:30,744 --> 00:14:33,539 at a battle of Mariano, 249 00:14:33,539 --> 00:14:37,376 in which Italians and Swiss fought. 250 00:14:37,835 --> 00:14:40,838 And, a lot of them were killed and Zwingli says 251 00:14:41,463 --> 00:14:44,884 to himself, this isn't making sense for two Christians. 252 00:14:45,551 --> 00:14:46,886 And at that time, 253 00:14:47,970 --> 00:14:50,848 the reform is starting to seep into Zurich. 254 00:14:50,848 --> 00:14:54,852 And they hear about this professional, this brilliant young preacher at, 255 00:14:55,436 --> 00:14:59,899 Zwingli, at, who's at a, a monastery. 256 00:14:59,899 --> 00:15:01,442 And they invite him up there. 257 00:15:01,442 --> 00:15:05,362 And when Conrad and goofing off in Paris hears 258 00:15:05,696 --> 00:15:09,116 that his home church has this exciting new preacher, 259 00:15:10,659 --> 00:15:12,286 this turns him on. 260 00:15:12,286 --> 00:15:15,372 At the same time, a very interesting thing happens 261 00:15:16,040 --> 00:15:19,043 in one of his letters home to his brothers in law, 262 00:15:20,544 --> 00:15:23,547 he expresses the realization 263 00:15:23,589 --> 00:15:26,592 that he is basically living. 264 00:15:28,385 --> 00:15:30,971 On the, 265 00:15:30,971 --> 00:15:32,681 the scholarship that King 266 00:15:32,681 --> 00:15:35,768 Francis gave to Zurich. And. 267 00:15:36,226 --> 00:15:39,188 And where did King Francis get his money 268 00:15:39,480 --> 00:15:41,148 from taxation. 269 00:15:41,148 --> 00:15:43,317 And who paid taxes? 270 00:15:43,317 --> 00:15:44,818 The peasants. 271 00:15:44,818 --> 00:15:45,945 And what did they do? 272 00:15:45,945 --> 00:15:48,781 Gave half of their produce to the king? 273 00:15:48,781 --> 00:15:50,324 Oh, half. Whoa! 274 00:15:50,324 --> 00:15:53,661 hardly enough for them to eat to, and they were in it. 275 00:15:53,869 --> 00:15:54,912 They were in trouble. 276 00:15:55,913 --> 00:15:56,538 And the 277 00:15:56,538 --> 00:15:59,541 Catholics and Luther both said, put them down. 278 00:16:00,876 --> 00:16:04,755 And Conrad has this he has this streak in himself. 279 00:16:04,755 --> 00:16:09,343 He said, now wait a minute, and it hits his conscience, and this does not add up. 280 00:16:09,635 --> 00:16:12,930 And he goes home and his parents are disgusted with him. 281 00:16:12,930 --> 00:16:18,352 And he shacks up with a barber, his girlfriend, and doesn't tell his parents. 282 00:16:18,352 --> 00:16:22,106 And but then he gets involved with Ulrich Zwingli, 283 00:16:22,106 --> 00:16:25,109 and Ulrich Zwingli is impressed with him. 284 00:16:25,693 --> 00:16:28,696 And his buddy 285 00:16:29,738 --> 00:16:30,280 Félix Manz. 286 00:16:30,280 --> 00:16:33,075 Félix Manz is a Hebrew scholar. 287 00:16:33,075 --> 00:16:35,744 Conrad Grebel knows his Greek. 288 00:16:35,744 --> 00:16:37,913 And Zwingli says, you know what, I'm going 289 00:16:37,913 --> 00:16:41,709 to put a Bible college here in the Grossmunster, in the big church. 290 00:16:42,001 --> 00:16:43,752 We're going to start over again. 291 00:16:43,752 --> 00:16:45,713 The Conrad you're going to be the English, 292 00:16:45,713 --> 00:16:49,800 the Greek professor and Felix, you're going to be there. 293 00:16:51,635 --> 00:16:53,512 Hebrew. 294 00:16:53,512 --> 00:16:54,888 So everything's going fine. 295 00:16:54,888 --> 00:16:57,891 And Zwingli does what Luther did. 296 00:16:58,517 --> 00:17:02,771 Luther had posted his 95 theses on the door at Wittenberg. 297 00:17:03,022 --> 00:17:04,189 This is what I believe. 298 00:17:04,189 --> 00:17:05,774 And this is what ought to be done. 299 00:17:05,774 --> 00:17:06,400 Which would. 300 00:17:06,400 --> 00:17:07,609 That was Germany. Right. 301 00:17:07,609 --> 00:17:10,362 That was in Germany, at Worms. Okay. 302 00:17:10,362 --> 00:17:13,365 so Zwingli puts out a book 303 00:17:13,365 --> 00:17:16,827 not of 95, but 56 theses, 304 00:17:17,494 --> 00:17:20,497 and he asks Conrad Grebel, 305 00:17:20,497 --> 00:17:24,084 this young fella, to write a stylish, 306 00:17:25,044 --> 00:17:28,047 Latin poem at the end of his book, 307 00:17:28,505 --> 00:17:30,841 and that appears there. 308 00:17:30,841 --> 00:17:34,344 And, Conrad wrote it and stuck a Greek phrase in there. 309 00:17:34,803 --> 00:17:35,637 He loved. 310 00:17:35,637 --> 00:17:40,017 And he wrote all these letters home to his now brother in law in Latin. 311 00:17:41,393 --> 00:17:44,396 The letter that I'm talking about 312 00:17:44,813 --> 00:17:47,024 was the first letter he wrote in German. 313 00:17:47,024 --> 00:17:49,068 No, now we're going to get serious. 314 00:17:49,068 --> 00:17:53,989 We're going to get back to who we are, not who we aspire to be in terms 315 00:17:53,989 --> 00:17:57,701 of the macro culture, because something is happening in our hearts. 316 00:17:58,035 --> 00:18:01,413 We are reading 20 of us or less than 20 317 00:18:01,663 --> 00:18:05,209 are reading the scriptures. And, 318 00:18:06,210 --> 00:18:08,921 it's making a difference in our life. 319 00:18:08,921 --> 00:18:12,633 And, then he hears about the peasants. 320 00:18:13,092 --> 00:18:16,428 And he hears that the leader of the peasants Revolt 321 00:18:17,679 --> 00:18:19,515 in Bavaria. 322 00:18:19,515 --> 00:18:21,683 He’s taking a tough stand. 323 00:18:21,683 --> 00:18:25,104 He's not doing like Zwingli, who says we'll move as fast 324 00:18:25,437 --> 00:18:28,440 as the town council can let us go. 325 00:18:28,565 --> 00:18:32,986 And that really shakes Conrad, because he's been reading the scriptures 326 00:18:32,986 --> 00:18:36,198 straight back into Matthew and Mark and Luke, 327 00:18:36,782 --> 00:18:39,326 and he's he's, 328 00:18:39,326 --> 00:18:42,454 developing that logic in his own mentality. 329 00:18:42,788 --> 00:18:45,290 And then he hears this, 330 00:18:45,290 --> 00:18:49,503 other, what he considers to be a political solution. 331 00:18:49,920 --> 00:18:54,800 And he admires somebody to take his tough stand, which is Thomas Munster. 332 00:18:55,008 --> 00:18:59,763 Now, Thomas Munster goes down in history as a heretic and a troublemaker 333 00:18:59,763 --> 00:19:03,142 and a rabble rouser and a communist and everything else. 334 00:19:03,642 --> 00:19:07,896 And Conrad writes a fan letter to Thomas Munster. 335 00:19:07,896 --> 00:19:11,608 This is the letter I'm talking to you about, in which he says, don't 336 00:19:12,067 --> 00:19:14,736 be surprised, Brother Thomas, that we call 337 00:19:14,736 --> 00:19:17,739 you brother because you are different. 338 00:19:18,073 --> 00:19:20,784 You are not into this spurious, 339 00:19:21,827 --> 00:19:23,120 compromising. 340 00:19:23,120 --> 00:19:25,455 You go right to the root of things. 341 00:19:25,455 --> 00:19:30,169 See, Grebel was already thinking about what's fair, what's right, 342 00:19:30,544 --> 00:19:33,881 and going straight to the or to the, Hebrew. 343 00:19:34,047 --> 00:19:38,427 And, Hebrew and Greek, New Testament and, and, 344 00:19:38,969 --> 00:19:43,682 and just plain living with it and discussing it around in this circle 345 00:19:43,932 --> 00:19:46,685 and being drawn into its logic 346 00:19:46,685 --> 00:19:49,688 and feeling that even the reform that Zwingli 347 00:19:49,771 --> 00:19:52,983 is bringing in the Catholic Church was just huge. 348 00:19:53,859 --> 00:19:56,862 Zwingli will still, 349 00:19:57,362 --> 00:19:58,614 kill. 350 00:19:58,614 --> 00:20:00,324 You have to be realistic. 351 00:20:00,324 --> 00:20:02,534 You know, Martin Luther said the same thing. 352 00:20:02,534 --> 00:20:06,038 By the way, Conrad had already written a letter to Martin Luther, 353 00:20:06,038 --> 00:20:09,750 which he never answered, although he acknowledged he got it. 354 00:20:09,917 --> 00:20:12,002 Oh that's interesting. Okay. 355 00:20:12,002 --> 00:20:15,130 And he said, yeah, if you fellows want to have the, your, 356 00:20:15,714 --> 00:20:18,675 your a small group like that you got ahead. 357 00:20:18,675 --> 00:20:22,262 But don't expect that the rest of the Christendom will follow you. 358 00:20:22,387 --> 00:20:24,306 Be realistic. 359 00:20:24,306 --> 00:20:27,976 Well then the Anabaptists would have said well but what's it for then. 360 00:20:29,102 --> 00:20:31,939 Luther said that's why we need grace. 361 00:20:31,939 --> 00:20:34,399 We're all sinners. I'm sure we won't. 362 00:20:34,399 --> 00:20:35,442 We won't be right. 363 00:20:35,442 --> 00:20:37,527 But that was his solution, grace. 364 00:20:37,527 --> 00:20:40,155 Conrad's solution was 365 00:20:40,155 --> 00:20:41,406 Let’s do it! 366 00:20:41,406 --> 00:20:43,158 Let's read the sermon on the Mount. 367 00:20:43,158 --> 00:20:48,830 When Ulrich Zwingli first turn toward the congregation, the great church 368 00:20:48,830 --> 00:20:52,834 that Grossmunster of Zürich and laid open the New Testament 369 00:20:52,834 --> 00:20:56,964 in Greek, in Greek, and instead of turning back toward the 370 00:20:58,006 --> 00:21:01,009 crucifix, and saying, 371 00:21:01,301 --> 00:21:03,679 Well, okay, 372 00:21:03,679 --> 00:21:04,721 it won't come to me now. 373 00:21:04,721 --> 00:21:07,724 I'm almost 95. 374 00:21:08,934 --> 00:21:11,895 He turned around and said, I'm going to talk to you in German, 375 00:21:11,895 --> 00:21:16,149 not in Latin, and I'm going to have the New Testament open here. 376 00:21:16,900 --> 00:21:19,736 And I'm going to start at the beginning 377 00:21:19,736 --> 00:21:22,739 of Matthew one, and I'm going to go wherever it takes us. 378 00:21:22,990 --> 00:21:25,867 See that that was just unheard of at the time. 379 00:21:25,867 --> 00:21:26,952 That's right. 380 00:21:26,952 --> 00:21:29,955 In fact, I like the quote of an old man 381 00:21:30,163 --> 00:21:32,958 the church was packed They all stood. 382 00:21:32,958 --> 00:21:35,043 There was no, you didn't sit. 383 00:21:35,043 --> 00:21:39,798 And one old man said, when I heard that him preach like that in my language, 384 00:21:41,383 --> 00:21:44,970 in my German, in my local idiom, 385 00:21:45,387 --> 00:21:48,390 he said, the hairs stood up in the back of my neck. 386 00:21:49,516 --> 00:21:52,728 Well, it did on the back of Conrad Grebel’s neck too. 387 00:21:52,769 --> 00:21:54,604 And he got, he got visceral. 388 00:21:54,604 --> 00:21:56,773 He said my, I'm swollen. 389 00:21:56,773 --> 00:21:58,734 I, he quoted the book of job. 390 00:21:58,734 --> 00:22:01,486 He said I almost gonna burst. 391 00:22:01,486 --> 00:22:04,489 he wrote to his brother in law, his brother in law said 392 00:22:04,489 --> 00:22:06,533 oh cool it, come on now. 393 00:22:06,533 --> 00:22:08,744 But Conrad was a hothead. 394 00:22:08,744 --> 00:22:13,623 We began with radical, not compromising. 395 00:22:14,666 --> 00:22:17,085 Approach to the scriptures. 396 00:22:17,085 --> 00:22:20,422 Well, what Conrad found in the scriptures was so interesting 397 00:22:20,756 --> 00:22:24,760 and which it's why I live even. 398 00:22:24,760 --> 00:22:26,762 It's why a group of people were formed. 399 00:22:26,762 --> 00:22:28,972 It took his point of view. 400 00:22:28,972 --> 00:22:30,557 By the way, I don't praise Conrad. 401 00:22:30,557 --> 00:22:32,851 He was not mature in everything. 402 00:22:32,851 --> 00:22:36,063 Sounds like he's on quite the journey through this time right. 403 00:22:36,104 --> 00:22:37,606 Like he's making mistakes. 404 00:22:37,606 --> 00:22:39,358 He's kind of a partier all this stuff. 405 00:22:39,358 --> 00:22:41,860 But then there's also elements that you're saying where. 406 00:22:41,860 --> 00:22:44,154 Wait a second. Oh he's, oh he's searching. 407 00:22:44,154 --> 00:22:46,740 Oh what about this. And he's learning and developing. 408 00:22:46,740 --> 00:22:50,911 Well the way he would put it was this when we took up the scriptures. 409 00:22:52,662 --> 00:22:54,081 That's a powerful line. 410 00:22:54,081 --> 00:22:55,415 Yeah. 411 00:22:55,415 --> 00:22:57,751 When we did that we were going 412 00:22:57,751 --> 00:23:00,712 before that we were going along with whatever worked. 413 00:23:01,254 --> 00:23:03,965 But when we took up the scriptures 414 00:23:03,965 --> 00:23:07,803 then he said and, and by the way, in that letter 415 00:23:08,095 --> 00:23:11,098 which I looked at many times, again. 416 00:23:11,681 --> 00:23:15,560 he says, when you have the rights, 417 00:23:16,103 --> 00:23:19,106 for them it was the mass, or we would say communion. 418 00:23:19,314 --> 00:23:22,025 It must not be done without Matthew 419 00:23:22,025 --> 00:23:25,028 18 and love. 420 00:23:25,529 --> 00:23:28,198 Now that's first intrigued me. 421 00:23:28,198 --> 00:23:30,325 What are you talking about? 422 00:23:30,325 --> 00:23:32,661 He said that you. 423 00:23:32,661 --> 00:23:35,872 It is the supper of unity, the communion supper. 424 00:23:36,123 --> 00:23:40,502 It is not a superficial, 425 00:23:41,670 --> 00:23:44,089 some kind of, 426 00:23:44,089 --> 00:23:46,341 mysterious. It's the body of Christ. 427 00:23:46,341 --> 00:23:51,179 But is the supper of unity, which he gives us in his body. 428 00:23:51,513 --> 00:23:54,641 And you do not take that unless you are in unity, 429 00:23:55,100 --> 00:24:00,772 and you disturb discern whether you are in unity, and then you eat and bread. 430 00:24:01,231 --> 00:24:03,150 And that's Matthew 18. 431 00:24:03,150 --> 00:24:04,860 But there's more in Matthew 18, 432 00:24:05,861 --> 00:24:06,695 and there's 433 00:24:06,695 --> 00:24:09,698 something revolutionary in Matthew 18. 434 00:24:09,781 --> 00:24:12,784 By the way, he also says to Thomas Munster, who, 435 00:24:12,951 --> 00:24:16,496 by the way, who never got that letter, he was killed before he got the letter. 436 00:24:16,913 --> 00:24:19,916 I don't know how it got back to Conrad's brother in law. 437 00:24:19,916 --> 00:24:22,169 And thank God it did. 438 00:24:22,169 --> 00:24:23,503 So we can read it today. 439 00:24:23,503 --> 00:24:26,590 It's in the archives there in, in the town of St. 440 00:24:26,590 --> 00:24:27,632 Gallen. 441 00:24:27,632 --> 00:24:30,343 But he said, 442 00:24:30,343 --> 00:24:33,638 when we took up this word and Jesus, 443 00:24:33,805 --> 00:24:37,684 take Matthew 18 and, the binding and loosing of it, 444 00:24:39,186 --> 00:24:40,145 Here's how it works. 445 00:24:40,145 --> 00:24:43,773 So I went back and looked at Matthew 18 as later, 446 00:24:44,649 --> 00:24:48,862 and Jesus was there describing how you deal with relationship. 447 00:24:49,738 --> 00:24:53,200 And by the way, for Conrad, it was not about doctrine, 448 00:24:53,700 --> 00:24:57,370 it was not about politics, it was about relationship. 449 00:24:58,747 --> 00:25:00,749 And that's what the gospel is. 450 00:25:00,749 --> 00:25:03,084 It is reconciliation. 451 00:25:03,084 --> 00:25:06,922 And if you don't have that, no matter how right you are about any doctrine. 452 00:25:07,172 --> 00:25:12,677 So what that didn't create the Anabaptist church, relationship did. 453 00:25:13,762 --> 00:25:17,933 It's more so he uses the word brother over and over 454 00:25:18,350 --> 00:25:21,311 and he says, don't be surprised that we call you brother. 455 00:25:21,853 --> 00:25:27,108 But we call you brother on the basis of your sticking to the scriptures. 456 00:25:27,275 --> 00:25:30,278 Now, he said at one point. 457 00:25:30,737 --> 00:25:32,614 I hope you're not, 458 00:25:32,614 --> 00:25:36,409 I hope it isn't true what they say, that you are using the sword 459 00:25:36,535 --> 00:25:39,538 because Christians don't use the sword. 460 00:25:39,621 --> 00:25:42,332 And that was ten, ten years before Menno Simon 461 00:25:42,332 --> 00:25:45,961 set it up in Friesland, in Holland, in the Netherlands. 462 00:25:46,211 --> 00:25:48,755 Conrad says that first, 463 00:25:48,755 --> 00:25:51,841 well, Thomas Munster was a fighter. 464 00:25:52,259 --> 00:25:54,302 He died under the sword. 465 00:25:54,302 --> 00:25:58,390 He's celebrated by communists with a great big cyclorama. 466 00:25:59,516 --> 00:26:00,600 Yeah. 467 00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:04,729 And, he's considered as a violent overthrower of false power. 468 00:26:05,272 --> 00:26:08,275 But Conrad is radical both ways. 469 00:26:08,650 --> 00:26:11,653 He says to follow the scriptures wherever they take you. 470 00:26:11,903 --> 00:26:16,825 But don't take the sword, because true, true believing Christians, 471 00:26:17,826 --> 00:26:20,704 do not use worldly sword or the war. 472 00:26:20,704 --> 00:26:23,707 Because with them, killing, is 473 00:26:25,375 --> 00:26:27,294 totally put away. 474 00:26:27,294 --> 00:26:30,088 Now that is a line in history. 475 00:26:30,088 --> 00:26:32,173 Luther didn't cross it. 476 00:26:32,173 --> 00:26:34,009 Zwingli didn't cross it. 477 00:26:34,009 --> 00:26:36,094 Presbyterians didn't cross. 478 00:26:36,094 --> 00:26:38,305 That's what made us a minority. 479 00:26:38,305 --> 00:26:41,308 Otherwise we'd have been part of Zwingli’s reform 480 00:26:41,391 --> 00:26:44,394 Lutherans and and and Reformed Church. 481 00:26:44,436 --> 00:26:47,439 That's why we were a group that became an ethnic group 482 00:26:47,856 --> 00:26:51,484 that gave up everything and gave up their lives. 483 00:26:52,193 --> 00:26:56,531 Conrad Grebel, is it like you're saying there is a line there, right. 484 00:26:56,531 --> 00:26:58,742 That, that the other reformers had come up to. 485 00:26:58,742 --> 00:27:02,245 And Conrad Rebel said, we're crossing over That is right. 486 00:27:02,245 --> 00:27:02,621 And that 487 00:27:03,913 --> 00:27:05,790 that created this moment right here. 488 00:27:05,790 --> 00:27:10,378 We're talking it would not have happened That's incredible to think about. 489 00:27:10,879 --> 00:27:15,216 Like, now, some of these ideas, it's like, okay, we're 500 years in. 490 00:27:15,425 --> 00:27:17,802 We, you know, we just kind of take them for granted, I suppose. 491 00:27:17,802 --> 00:27:20,388 But someone had to be the first person to say this. 492 00:27:20,388 --> 00:27:23,016 This is where we're going to be. Right. 493 00:27:23,016 --> 00:27:24,225 That's a profound thought. 494 00:27:24,225 --> 00:27:27,062 Why don't we think our way back to that moment? 495 00:27:27,062 --> 00:27:29,731 Yeah. And then, 496 00:27:29,731 --> 00:27:31,524 you know, if they could have caught Conrad 497 00:27:31,524 --> 00:27:34,527 after he baptized, he'd have been 498 00:27:35,195 --> 00:27:38,198 well, they caught him, and his buddy Felix Manz and drowned him, 499 00:27:38,448 --> 00:27:41,409 they would have killed Conrad Grebel anyway. 500 00:27:41,409 --> 00:27:47,082 But but he, he managed to escape a number of times, including out of a dungeon. 501 00:27:47,332 --> 00:27:48,708 Oh, really? 502 00:27:48,708 --> 00:27:50,919 If you, how like. 503 00:27:50,919 --> 00:27:54,130 But as in he had been caught and was in the dungeon and he gets out 504 00:27:54,673 --> 00:27:57,884 and put in this dungeon on the wall of Zurich. 505 00:27:58,134 --> 00:27:59,177 Only about a, 506 00:28:00,679 --> 00:28:03,098 1000ft from the home he had grown up in. 507 00:28:03,098 --> 00:28:07,602 Oh, yeah, but somebody, left a door open, 508 00:28:07,602 --> 00:28:12,440 and they all got out, and Conrad got away, and he went over to his sister, 509 00:28:13,066 --> 00:28:15,985 to another sister, and died in the plague. 510 00:28:15,985 --> 00:28:19,030 As a young man, I don't think he was even 30 yet. 511 00:28:20,115 --> 00:28:23,159 So, but we have more to say about it. 512 00:28:23,159 --> 00:28:25,328 But here's the thing. 513 00:28:25,328 --> 00:28:27,455 Conrad Grebel said, 514 00:28:27,455 --> 00:28:30,458 I counted the times he used the word love, 515 00:28:31,251 --> 00:28:35,422 and that the times he used the word word the word. 516 00:28:35,964 --> 00:28:39,384 And he says... 517 00:28:40,468 --> 00:28:43,096 That is, move with or use. 518 00:28:43,096 --> 00:28:48,309 I asked a Swiss scholar what that meant and he said, use the word Conrad. 519 00:28:48,977 --> 00:28:53,565 The American translators say march forward with a word and stuff like that. 520 00:28:53,773 --> 00:28:56,985 But a Swiss scholar told me the University of Zurich 521 00:28:57,360 --> 00:29:00,405 used the word to form a Church of Christ 522 00:29:00,864 --> 00:29:03,867 to form a Church of Christ. 523 00:29:03,908 --> 00:29:07,787 Now, you had the church and then you had the Reformed Church. 524 00:29:08,329 --> 00:29:12,250 But Conrad still wants to form a church that's us. 525 00:29:13,209 --> 00:29:14,419 That's 526 00:29:14,419 --> 00:29:17,088 that that's drawing on and starting from there. 527 00:29:17,088 --> 00:29:20,091 And he mentioned Matthew 18. 528 00:29:20,675 --> 00:29:22,761 Now let's think about Matthew 18. 529 00:29:22,761 --> 00:29:24,846 And Jesus said this. 530 00:29:24,846 --> 00:29:27,140 It's about relationship. 531 00:29:27,140 --> 00:29:30,018 He said. 532 00:29:30,018 --> 00:29:31,728 You know, 533 00:29:31,728 --> 00:29:36,191 the righteous people say to Jesus you fellowship with sinners. 534 00:29:36,524 --> 00:29:38,985 You know, that's the way we do today. 535 00:29:38,985 --> 00:29:41,988 When it something comes up, first we say, what about sin? 536 00:29:42,530 --> 00:29:43,907 Jesus didn't start there. 537 00:29:43,907 --> 00:29:45,867 He started with relationship. 538 00:29:45,867 --> 00:29:48,787 He just go talk to the guy, 539 00:29:48,787 --> 00:29:51,581 hey, won't listen or take somebody else. 540 00:29:51,581 --> 00:29:54,209 It could be just you. 541 00:29:54,209 --> 00:29:57,212 When you finally won't listen, tell it 542 00:29:57,253 --> 00:30:00,131 to the church, what does that mean? 543 00:30:00,131 --> 00:30:02,717 Go and stand in front of a church with a building, 544 00:30:02,717 --> 00:30:05,345 a building with a steeple on it and talk to it. 545 00:30:05,345 --> 00:30:08,306 There was no church. 546 00:30:08,306 --> 00:30:09,140 Share it, 547 00:30:10,517 --> 00:30:12,936 and then make a call. 548 00:30:12,936 --> 00:30:15,939 You bind or you loose. 549 00:30:17,565 --> 00:30:20,568 And heaven will back you in that function. 550 00:30:20,568 --> 00:30:24,364 Not, ask Heaven, what's the rule here and we'll apply it. 551 00:30:24,531 --> 00:30:28,243 No use your brain that was given by God. 552 00:30:29,118 --> 00:30:30,829 That's radical. 553 00:30:30,829 --> 00:30:34,916 We wouldn't have been born if they hadn't seen that point that go by. 554 00:30:34,916 --> 00:30:38,169 Matthew 18 now Jesus 555 00:30:38,169 --> 00:30:41,172 didn't say, you will always get it right. 556 00:30:41,422 --> 00:30:43,216 He didn't say that. 557 00:30:43,216 --> 00:30:45,468 He said, bind or loose. 558 00:30:45,468 --> 00:30:48,471 I grew up in a culture that did nothing but bind. 559 00:30:48,638 --> 00:30:51,641 Now I'm living in one that does nothing but loose. 560 00:30:52,350 --> 00:30:54,686 I want to live in a fellowship 561 00:30:54,686 --> 00:30:59,399 that, when it comes to the Lord's table, declares that it is at peace. 562 00:30:59,399 --> 00:31:02,360 It's not just between me and Jesus. 563 00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:06,114 That is the original concept, the supper of unity. 564 00:31:06,114 --> 00:31:08,074 Conrad Grebel said. 565 00:31:08,074 --> 00:31:11,202 Now use the analogy of a baseball game. 566 00:31:12,370 --> 00:31:13,496 Supposing you want to 567 00:31:13,496 --> 00:31:16,666 like these modern Christians who said, I gotta go by my feelings? 568 00:31:17,417 --> 00:31:19,794 Supposing you had three strikes 569 00:31:19,794 --> 00:31:22,922 and you say, I'm sorry, I need 4 or 5 strikes. 570 00:31:22,922 --> 00:31:25,341 Thank you. 571 00:31:25,341 --> 00:31:27,218 Yeah, it wouldn't be baseball. 572 00:31:27,218 --> 00:31:29,596 It’d be batty up or 573 00:31:29,596 --> 00:31:32,181 just plain fooling around. 574 00:31:32,181 --> 00:31:35,476 Well,the ump got that call wrong. 575 00:31:35,476 --> 00:31:37,145 Well maybe he did. 576 00:31:37,145 --> 00:31:39,939 But without the ump you don't have baseball. 577 00:31:39,939 --> 00:31:43,943 And without binding and loosing you don't have Jesus's plan. 578 00:31:44,944 --> 00:31:47,280 And that's about relationship. 579 00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:50,158 He's not lecturing them on his genealogy. 580 00:31:50,158 --> 00:31:54,954 Back to David or whether Mary his mother was a virgin, 581 00:31:55,288 --> 00:31:58,207 which is, I don't deny, but by the way. 582 00:31:58,207 --> 00:32:00,710 But it but not that isn't the point. 583 00:32:00,710 --> 00:32:04,047 Use the word to form a fellowship 584 00:32:04,464 --> 00:32:07,675 in which you are responsible and which you are. 585 00:32:07,884 --> 00:32:11,179 You take the responsibility of binding and loosing 586 00:32:11,763 --> 00:32:14,766 and asking God for help and God will help, 587 00:32:15,099 --> 00:32:17,977 but there's no promise you will always get it right 588 00:32:17,977 --> 00:32:20,980 because Conrad himself didn't get some things right. 589 00:32:21,314 --> 00:32:23,566 But without the ump, you don't have baseball. 590 00:32:24,901 --> 00:32:27,320 all I'm saying is that the more I thought about Conrad 591 00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:31,532 Grebel's letter, this logic, it got Ahold of me. 592 00:32:33,076 --> 00:32:34,911 This is incredible. So. Okay. 593 00:32:34,911 --> 00:32:38,039 So I would when I was reading your book there's a, there's a part 594 00:32:38,790 --> 00:32:42,335 at the front that I'd underlined and maybe you could respond to this, 595 00:32:42,335 --> 00:32:45,338 but this kind of stuck out to me. 596 00:32:45,630 --> 00:32:47,924 Names are less important than influences. 597 00:32:47,924 --> 00:32:50,843 And the remarkable fact in regard to Conrad Grebel 598 00:32:50,843 --> 00:32:55,348 is that most of his ideas, which seemed so radical in the 1520s, 599 00:32:55,348 --> 00:32:59,352 appear to be passed into the living tradition of many Mennonite communities 600 00:32:59,352 --> 00:33:04,482 in America, though with a distinctly quietest coloration I didn't. 601 00:33:04,899 --> 00:33:07,652 Again, I don't understand all the historical context, right? 602 00:33:07,652 --> 00:33:11,531 So I'm still learning a lot of this, but you're tracing such, 603 00:33:12,115 --> 00:33:14,951 a direct parallel along the lines from what he did 604 00:33:14,951 --> 00:33:16,244 and even some of the stuff 605 00:33:16,244 --> 00:33:20,289 you're saying where he was, say, you know, going to the word using the word. 606 00:33:20,623 --> 00:33:23,376 And out of that were forming the church. 607 00:33:23,376 --> 00:33:26,379 These were really radical ideas at the time. 608 00:33:26,963 --> 00:33:28,339 I don't know. Do you want to respond to that? 609 00:33:28,339 --> 00:33:31,926 Do you want to add more about how the ideas that Conrad Grebel 610 00:33:32,385 --> 00:33:36,639 starts with and how that chain progresses on down to us today? 611 00:33:37,890 --> 00:33:40,852 those ideas have formed a fellowship 612 00:33:40,852 --> 00:33:44,313 in which those who remain responsible, 613 00:33:46,149 --> 00:33:47,608 stay with it. 614 00:33:47,608 --> 00:33:49,193 So some of the radicalism. 615 00:33:49,193 --> 00:33:53,364 But they're quietest and they, they pull out of the world around them. 616 00:33:53,364 --> 00:33:57,493 And and I'm not saying that's bad, but I'm saying that that's 617 00:33:58,244 --> 00:34:02,498 they have some radical ideas at the core, even though they're quiet. 618 00:34:02,832 --> 00:34:03,958 The Amish do. 619 00:34:03,958 --> 00:34:05,251 But yes. 620 00:34:05,251 --> 00:34:09,714 And I think that's a piece that's easy to forget is how radical all this started. 621 00:34:09,797 --> 00:34:13,885 Like you keep mentioning like they tried to they killed some of these people. 622 00:34:13,885 --> 00:34:17,847 They put they put Conrad Grebel in a dungeon like this, 623 00:34:17,847 --> 00:34:20,892 apparently was really upsetting to society. 624 00:34:20,892 --> 00:34:23,019 Right. And Yeah. 625 00:34:23,019 --> 00:34:27,648 To Ulrich Zwingli’s, in fact, Ulrich Zwingli pulled strings 626 00:34:28,149 --> 00:34:31,152 to get Conrad Grebel's father beheaded. 627 00:34:32,403 --> 00:34:37,533 He this great reformer and Ulrich Zwingli fought the Catholics 628 00:34:37,533 --> 00:34:42,455 and said we must fight the Catholics and led two times 629 00:34:42,997 --> 00:34:46,167 the Protestant forces of Zurich 630 00:34:46,501 --> 00:34:49,253 against the Catholics, 631 00:34:50,671 --> 00:34:51,923 just to the south. 632 00:34:51,923 --> 00:34:54,217 And the second time in the battle, 633 00:34:54,217 --> 00:34:57,220 the Catholics caught Zwingli and cut him in four pieces. 634 00:34:58,179 --> 00:34:59,680 So this is his heritage. 635 00:34:59,680 --> 00:35:02,892 So, wow, that story ends not well. 636 00:35:03,601 --> 00:35:04,227 No, not. 637 00:35:04,227 --> 00:35:07,772 And when you go to Zurich, near the grossmunster, 638 00:35:07,772 --> 00:35:12,151 you see the statue of Zwingli holding a Bible and a sword. 639 00:35:12,610 --> 00:35:15,571 I was going to say you that's in the book I think isn't it. 640 00:35:16,030 --> 00:35:18,574 Oh, every tourist that goes to Zurich sees that. 641 00:35:18,574 --> 00:35:20,701 But you, you end 642 00:35:20,701 --> 00:35:23,621 and again I haven't I have to be honest, I haven't read every word. 643 00:35:23,621 --> 00:35:23,788 Right. 644 00:35:23,788 --> 00:35:26,666 Because I this just came from Amazon right before this interview. 645 00:35:26,666 --> 00:35:27,125 Right. 646 00:35:27,125 --> 00:35:30,878 So but, you end your book with the picture of Zwingli 647 00:35:30,878 --> 00:35:34,674 there with the, with the word or like the Bible and the sword. 648 00:35:35,341 --> 00:35:39,220 But then you make a point that, you know, there's no statue of Conrad Grebel. 649 00:35:40,012 --> 00:35:43,015 And the contrast between those two. 650 00:35:43,015 --> 00:35:44,142 Do you want to speak into that? 651 00:35:44,142 --> 00:35:47,145 Maybe, maybe explain a bit more of what and what you're referring to there? 652 00:35:47,436 --> 00:35:50,022 Well, as an imprint in my heart. 653 00:35:50,022 --> 00:35:52,233 And there is a people 654 00:35:53,651 --> 00:35:55,403 that flowed forth 655 00:35:55,403 --> 00:35:58,489 from that historic crossing of a line. 656 00:35:59,240 --> 00:36:03,494 Had they not been, had they were willing to pay taxes 657 00:36:03,786 --> 00:36:08,624 but not fight, because with killing is... 658 00:36:09,083 --> 00:36:10,793 no killing! 659 00:36:10,793 --> 00:36:14,839 And he says that in passing he doesn't even have to argue for it. 660 00:36:14,839 --> 00:36:17,550 He says, by the way, Thomas, you know, 661 00:36:17,550 --> 00:36:20,553 I hope you're not using the sword because that doesn't work. 662 00:36:21,137 --> 00:36:24,056 But but when we didn't see that 663 00:36:24,056 --> 00:36:28,102 this greater leader, these great Calvin didn't see it, Luther didn't see it. 664 00:36:29,187 --> 00:36:32,440 See, but we are a minority. 665 00:36:32,440 --> 00:36:37,904 And by the way, many people don't realize I say this not so much as a historian, 666 00:36:37,904 --> 00:36:41,324 as a as an amateur who looks at certain 667 00:36:41,449 --> 00:36:44,452 factors and, and thinks about them. 668 00:36:44,744 --> 00:36:47,788 There was a bigger group of Anabaptists who would fight. 669 00:36:49,332 --> 00:36:51,167 They were called... 670 00:36:51,167 --> 00:36:54,170 that is, would carry the sword. 671 00:36:54,795 --> 00:36:58,591 Only the minority group, minority group were the... 672 00:36:58,716 --> 00:37:00,593 who would only carry a staff. 673 00:37:00,593 --> 00:37:04,180 You could keep an animal away, you know, like that, but not kill 674 00:37:04,430 --> 00:37:07,308 with a sword you could kill. The... 675 00:37:07,308 --> 00:37:10,186 were thousands more than the... 676 00:37:10,186 --> 00:37:13,147 But the... died out quick. 677 00:37:13,314 --> 00:37:16,984 The Stabler included people at the branch of the Hutterites 678 00:37:17,026 --> 00:37:19,987 who were also totally pacifist. 679 00:37:19,987 --> 00:37:22,990 And at the point that you give up 680 00:37:23,491 --> 00:37:26,494 and see people think, 681 00:37:26,702 --> 00:37:29,497 they, they tend there's the phenomenon 682 00:37:29,497 --> 00:37:34,293 in the 20th, 19th, 20th and 21st century of people who leave the Mennonites 683 00:37:34,752 --> 00:37:39,257 because they want to be more evangelical, and then they get fuzzy on this other, 684 00:37:39,257 --> 00:37:42,218 which is the thing that birthed us to start with. 685 00:37:42,635 --> 00:37:46,430 They want to get fuzzy on that and then be ambivalent. 686 00:37:47,181 --> 00:37:50,476 But when you get ambivalent on that, then you're no longer 687 00:37:50,476 --> 00:37:53,479 rooted in this historical moment and movement. 688 00:37:54,272 --> 00:37:56,565 There's no statue for Conrad Grebel. 689 00:37:56,565 --> 00:37:57,650 Right? 690 00:37:57,650 --> 00:38:00,319 So what? Conrad Grebel never wrote a book. 691 00:38:01,904 --> 00:38:04,865 He had the ability to write. 692 00:38:04,865 --> 00:38:07,535 He never wrote a book, but he 693 00:38:07,535 --> 00:38:10,538 he had a list of scriptures 694 00:38:10,746 --> 00:38:13,416 that he thought people should read 695 00:38:13,416 --> 00:38:15,710 that way, and he never published it, 696 00:38:15,710 --> 00:38:18,963 but somebody got a hold of it and got it printed. 697 00:38:18,963 --> 00:38:21,257 Just the list. 698 00:38:21,257 --> 00:38:23,884 And for getting that list printed, 699 00:38:23,884 --> 00:38:27,847 the Catholics burnt this man to death that did that. 700 00:38:28,472 --> 00:38:31,892 That was not the Protestants of Zurich, but the Catholics. 701 00:38:32,226 --> 00:38:34,228 Whoa. Why? 702 00:38:34,228 --> 00:38:39,233 Because they he put out that list of scriptures recommended by Conrad Grebel. 703 00:38:39,233 --> 00:38:40,526 It was just a list. 704 00:38:40,526 --> 00:38:44,530 And I guess that was just so controversial that had. 705 00:38:45,281 --> 00:38:46,407 That's hard. 706 00:38:46,407 --> 00:38:48,617 See, we're here in the 21st century, right? 707 00:38:48,617 --> 00:38:50,745 It's just hard to get our heads around. 708 00:38:50,745 --> 00:38:51,537 Like how? 709 00:38:51,537 --> 00:38:53,664 Like now we're like, what's the big deal? 710 00:38:53,664 --> 00:38:56,500 But back then, I guess that was just so radical. 711 00:38:56,500 --> 00:39:00,671 Well, you're giving a common person the right to read the scripture. 712 00:39:00,671 --> 00:39:01,922 They're not prepared to read it. 713 00:39:01,922 --> 00:39:04,550 Don't let them read it. We’ll explain it from the pulpit. 714 00:39:06,135 --> 00:39:09,889 But here's the important point on that list. 715 00:39:10,097 --> 00:39:13,976 That's all we have from him and these many letters to his brother in law. 716 00:39:14,769 --> 00:39:15,436 Guess what? 717 00:39:15,436 --> 00:39:19,315 The first verse that he read, the first passage 718 00:39:19,315 --> 00:39:22,485 that he asked you to read, 719 00:39:23,486 --> 00:39:26,489 I mean I would have no idea. 720 00:39:26,489 --> 00:39:29,492 John 3:16 Really. 721 00:39:30,242 --> 00:39:30,659 That's it. 722 00:39:30,659 --> 00:39:33,662 That's something. Wow. 723 00:39:34,163 --> 00:39:36,957 God is love. 724 00:39:36,957 --> 00:39:39,960 Conrad Grebel said where's the love? 725 00:39:40,669 --> 00:39:43,672 What what is it that makes us brothers and sisters. 726 00:39:43,881 --> 00:39:45,216 What is the good news. 727 00:39:45,216 --> 00:39:48,177 But reconciliation. 728 00:39:49,303 --> 00:39:51,722 It's not a total explanation 729 00:39:51,722 --> 00:39:54,725 of all the conundrums in the Old Testament. 730 00:39:54,934 --> 00:39:59,647 Surely, use Old Testament like Jesus did, look what He pulled out. 731 00:39:59,939 --> 00:40:02,608 Did he pull out of it the sword? 732 00:40:02,608 --> 00:40:05,778 He said, they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. 733 00:40:06,237 --> 00:40:08,406 He said, Peter, he said, 734 00:40:09,573 --> 00:40:11,158 oh. You 735 00:40:11,158 --> 00:40:14,286 have heard, Sure you've heard it said an eye for an eye. 736 00:40:14,286 --> 00:40:16,747 And that was an improvement for then. 737 00:40:16,747 --> 00:40:19,375 But I say unto you, love your enemy, 738 00:40:19,375 --> 00:40:23,838 do good to them that hate you, and would despitefully use you. 739 00:40:24,004 --> 00:40:27,007 That is revolutionary. 740 00:40:27,091 --> 00:40:30,636 And the Anabaptist, Conrad Grebel’s wing of the Anabaptists 741 00:40:31,053 --> 00:40:33,722 took it that, 742 00:40:33,722 --> 00:40:36,725 I live because the people was formed out of that. 743 00:40:37,977 --> 00:40:42,314 When I track the stream of my life back to it, 744 00:40:42,898 --> 00:40:45,901 that marker in history, I find, 745 00:40:47,278 --> 00:40:50,281 I find myself in that, 746 00:40:50,489 --> 00:40:53,033 And that's so easy to forget. 747 00:40:53,033 --> 00:40:54,785 I heard someone say 748 00:40:54,785 --> 00:40:58,664 I wish I remember where I read this but history is like the prolog. 749 00:40:58,664 --> 00:41:03,002 You know the like if you don't understand where we got like where it came from, 750 00:41:03,210 --> 00:41:04,628 how are you going to understand the rest of the book? 751 00:41:04,628 --> 00:41:06,672 It's like the the prologue to a book. 752 00:41:07,715 --> 00:41:08,883 And it's, 753 00:41:08,883 --> 00:41:11,886 it seems like our people, the anabaptist people today 754 00:41:12,803 --> 00:41:15,222 don't really understand our, our story very well. 755 00:41:15,222 --> 00:41:17,308 Or at least that's maybe that's just my own experience. 756 00:41:17,308 --> 00:41:19,477 But there's a lot that I don't understand. 757 00:41:19,477 --> 00:41:21,520 Like, even a lot of what you're telling me is, like what? 758 00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:22,897 I haven't heard this before. 759 00:41:22,897 --> 00:41:24,607 You know, I don't know this story. 760 00:41:24,607 --> 00:41:29,820 was just the, response to the curiosity of of why, how did this start? 761 00:41:29,820 --> 00:41:31,780 Or, what what did it mean? 762 00:41:31,780 --> 00:41:35,701 And and then I found it was relevant for the 21st century 763 00:41:35,910 --> 00:41:40,206 because now we have chaos again, and we have to bind and loose. 764 00:41:40,206 --> 00:41:43,959 And how and the church tends to split over it and, 765 00:41:46,587 --> 00:41:48,881 the church doesn't get everything right. 766 00:41:48,881 --> 00:41:51,884 Yeah, but Jesus didn't say that it would. 767 00:41:52,259 --> 00:41:53,636 But he said you should. 768 00:41:53,636 --> 00:41:55,846 You should do that function. And 769 00:41:56,847 --> 00:41:57,473 I live 770 00:41:57,473 --> 00:42:01,435 in a in a state of the Mennonite church, which is in free fall. 771 00:42:01,602 --> 00:42:03,562 Everybody does what's right in their own eyes. 772 00:42:03,562 --> 00:42:06,273 They go to communion because, 773 00:42:06,273 --> 00:42:09,193 they have communion oftener than others and they don't have council 774 00:42:09,193 --> 00:42:10,444 meeting anymore. 775 00:42:10,444 --> 00:42:13,239 In 1843, a, 776 00:42:13,239 --> 00:42:15,574 a Lancaster Mennonite bishop said, 777 00:42:15,574 --> 00:42:19,495 you never have communion without the preparatory service. 778 00:42:19,954 --> 00:42:22,373 And that's what I believe in my heart. 779 00:42:22,373 --> 00:42:24,667 But, our church doesn't practice it. 780 00:42:24,667 --> 00:42:27,336 But I'm not going to walk away from our church. 781 00:42:27,336 --> 00:42:28,796 I'm going to be there and help. 782 00:42:28,796 --> 00:42:32,049 I'm not going to form, one more Mennonite split group. 783 00:42:32,299 --> 00:42:35,135 Or Amish group. There's dozens already here. 784 00:42:35,135 --> 00:42:39,014 So Jesus said, by this shall all men know that you are my disciples? 785 00:42:39,223 --> 00:42:42,893 If you split faithfully when you come to a new, issue. 786 00:42:43,602 --> 00:42:47,022 So we've had Chester Weaver on this podcast. 787 00:42:47,189 --> 00:42:49,525 Do you know, Chester? Yeah. 788 00:42:49,525 --> 00:42:52,403 So I messaged him and said, hey, 789 00:42:52,403 --> 00:42:55,406 we're going to be talking to John Ruth, and, 790 00:42:55,614 --> 00:42:58,826 what, you know, is there anything specific you'd like me to ask you? 791 00:42:59,034 --> 00:43:00,703 And he sent me a question. 792 00:43:00,703 --> 00:43:04,957 How can we stimulate more interest in Anabaptist history among our people? 793 00:43:05,749 --> 00:43:08,919 He wanted me to ask you that, and I agree, I have the same question. 794 00:43:09,503 --> 00:43:12,006 Because, again, speaking from my own experience, 795 00:43:12,006 --> 00:43:13,507 because I don't know what everybody else experiences, 796 00:43:14,633 --> 00:43:17,553 I feel incredibly ignorant of our story. 797 00:43:17,553 --> 00:43:22,850 And, I'm starting to realize that I have lost a significant piece. 798 00:43:22,891 --> 00:43:26,020 So how can we generate more interest in our 799 00:43:26,061 --> 00:43:28,147 in our story among among our people? 800 00:43:28,147 --> 00:43:31,317 Okay, hold that question in a moment when I make a comment. 801 00:43:31,442 --> 00:43:31,859 Yeah. 802 00:43:31,859 --> 00:43:35,863 Scholars have not forgotten they are, but 803 00:43:36,322 --> 00:43:40,284 scholars are more intrigued with the, 804 00:43:42,369 --> 00:43:43,704 paradoxes 805 00:43:43,704 --> 00:43:47,666 and the failure to live up to what the Anabaptists said 806 00:43:47,833 --> 00:43:52,504 than they are in the kind of message I just told you that inspires me there. 807 00:43:52,713 --> 00:43:54,506 And and they're they're right. 808 00:43:54,506 --> 00:43:57,343 They give us true accounts. 809 00:43:57,343 --> 00:44:00,638 See, even Menno ten years later up in the Netherlands. 810 00:44:02,264 --> 00:44:04,683 He said much the same as Conrad. 811 00:44:04,683 --> 00:44:07,686 True Christians don't go to war and all that kind of thing. 812 00:44:07,853 --> 00:44:09,605 But they had many splits there, 813 00:44:11,357 --> 00:44:13,776 among the Anabaptists of Holland 814 00:44:13,776 --> 00:44:16,362 and, and Menno said one time 815 00:44:16,362 --> 00:44:19,323 he's quoted saying, he was a cripple. 816 00:44:19,865 --> 00:44:22,660 He said, I would jump with joy on my crutch 817 00:44:22,660 --> 00:44:24,995 if our people would not split. 818 00:44:24,995 --> 00:44:27,665 really. I didn't know he said that. Okay. 819 00:44:27,665 --> 00:44:29,917 If they can only get along together. 820 00:44:29,917 --> 00:44:33,420 And that's one of the one of the things that I don't have solved. 821 00:44:33,420 --> 00:44:37,257 The very thing that so enthusiases me, 822 00:44:38,300 --> 00:44:40,844 historically produced split after split 823 00:44:40,844 --> 00:44:43,806 after split after split. 824 00:44:44,765 --> 00:44:48,185 And you don't have in Lancaster County itself, you can have, 825 00:44:48,519 --> 00:44:54,149 you know, 15, 18 varieties and then along come the charismatics. 826 00:44:54,149 --> 00:44:57,653 And then they have their split and and they split and split. 827 00:44:57,861 --> 00:45:00,864 And so one of the interesting things 828 00:45:00,864 --> 00:45:04,034 that I have to live with and can’t solve is, 829 00:45:04,993 --> 00:45:06,662 why why 830 00:45:06,662 --> 00:45:10,082 am I so taken with Conrad's vision, 831 00:45:10,708 --> 00:45:13,711 when in actuality, 832 00:45:14,128 --> 00:45:16,797 the group that, 833 00:45:16,797 --> 00:45:20,592 I, covenant with can't stay together. 834 00:45:22,052 --> 00:45:24,763 And what is the world had think of a group 835 00:45:24,763 --> 00:45:27,766 that can't stay together that shows. 836 00:45:28,434 --> 00:45:29,685 Can't we learn... 837 00:45:29,685 --> 00:45:31,895 Now I admire the Amish. 838 00:45:31,895 --> 00:45:34,857 I have soul fellowship with the old Order Amish. 839 00:45:35,524 --> 00:45:38,068 I need, but because it 840 00:45:38,068 --> 00:45:41,071 where I come from, everybody does what's right in their own eyes. 841 00:45:41,488 --> 00:45:44,074 And they don't want to hear anything about discipline. 842 00:45:44,074 --> 00:45:45,826 They won't let you finish your sentence. 843 00:45:45,826 --> 00:45:47,494 If you start talking about it. 844 00:45:47,494 --> 00:45:51,540 They get offended and bless their hearts I love them and they're my people, 845 00:45:52,082 --> 00:45:54,918 but it's not where my soul is. 846 00:45:54,918 --> 00:45:56,879 Now back to your... 847 00:45:56,879 --> 00:46:00,048 how can we get people interested more interested. 848 00:46:01,341 --> 00:46:03,135 One answer would be I think, 849 00:46:04,136 --> 00:46:06,889 what you're doing in this, 850 00:46:06,889 --> 00:46:09,558 is, what do you call, podcast? 851 00:46:09,558 --> 00:46:10,934 Yeah, podcast. 852 00:46:10,934 --> 00:46:13,937 It's an effort just like, 853 00:46:14,897 --> 00:46:18,108 the Anabaptists got together and talked back then. 854 00:46:18,400 --> 00:46:19,109 It's an effort. 855 00:46:19,109 --> 00:46:22,196 And your in the technological terms of our moment. 856 00:46:22,946 --> 00:46:25,407 So I commend you for that. 857 00:46:25,407 --> 00:46:30,078 And remember Jesus said that the way of the kingdom 858 00:46:30,078 --> 00:46:33,540 is not going to be a popularly endorsed message. 859 00:46:34,500 --> 00:46:36,752 This is true. 860 00:46:36,752 --> 00:46:39,755 And that's tough to live with, but it's the truth. 861 00:46:40,255 --> 00:46:42,966 You sow the seed and a lot of it falls. 862 00:46:42,966 --> 00:46:44,968 It doesn't even germinate. 863 00:46:44,968 --> 00:46:47,763 Some germinates and flares out. 864 00:46:47,763 --> 00:46:51,600 Some the birds peck away, some is misinterpreted. 865 00:46:52,434 --> 00:46:55,437 But he said where it lands and takes root, 866 00:46:56,063 --> 00:46:57,064 it springs up. 867 00:46:57,064 --> 00:46:59,733 And I see 868 00:46:59,733 --> 00:47:03,487 in my congregation, in my community, 869 00:47:04,279 --> 00:47:07,741 I see people attracted to what I know 870 00:47:07,741 --> 00:47:11,161 is at the heart of our Anabaptist seriousness, 871 00:47:11,787 --> 00:47:14,915 even when they see it only as a remnant 872 00:47:15,207 --> 00:47:18,168 in a middle class comfort, 873 00:47:18,168 --> 00:47:22,422 salvation, a personal, salvation oriented, fellowship. 874 00:47:22,422 --> 00:47:27,719 They sense, like the bee that gets a pheromone into the, 875 00:47:28,303 --> 00:47:30,472 blossom and gets, nectar. 876 00:47:30,472 --> 00:47:32,307 They sense it with something. 877 00:47:32,307 --> 00:47:34,268 There's a frequency there. 878 00:47:34,268 --> 00:47:36,478 Something hums inside you. 879 00:47:36,478 --> 00:47:38,438 when it hears that. 880 00:47:38,438 --> 00:47:41,650 And there is something like that in the Anabaptist story 881 00:47:41,984 --> 00:47:43,527 and in the Anabaptist vision, 882 00:47:45,487 --> 00:47:47,364 and and it'll 883 00:47:47,364 --> 00:47:51,702 be popular and it'll flare up with certain people will get all excited about it. 884 00:47:52,494 --> 00:47:54,371 And last at least five years, you know, 885 00:47:54,371 --> 00:47:57,374 and then they'll go back and be conventional again. 886 00:47:58,292 --> 00:48:01,295 So and this this this has been incredible. 887 00:48:02,421 --> 00:48:07,009 I feel like I've learned a lot about particularly the story of Conrad Grebel, 888 00:48:07,009 --> 00:48:10,345 but also just in general like where our people have come from. 889 00:48:11,096 --> 00:48:15,642 The roots, I guess you could say, of the Anabaptists, as we kind of 890 00:48:16,268 --> 00:48:19,146 tie the ribbons on this package to what you've been presenting. 891 00:48:19,146 --> 00:48:22,149 Is there anything in particular you'd like to leave our audience? 892 00:48:23,442 --> 00:48:26,445 Well, if your audience can go on YouTube, 893 00:48:27,237 --> 00:48:30,490 see if you can find the funeral sermon 894 00:48:30,490 --> 00:48:34,286 for Harley Wagler of Partridge, Kansas, 895 00:48:35,913 --> 00:48:36,747 a bachelor 896 00:48:37,706 --> 00:48:38,290 who taught 897 00:48:38,290 --> 00:48:42,002 himself Russian literature and was teaching Pushkin 898 00:48:42,502 --> 00:48:45,422 under Putin and was shocked by Putin. 899 00:48:45,422 --> 00:48:48,133 But they loved him over in... 900 00:48:48,133 --> 00:48:50,427 I think it is. 901 00:48:50,427 --> 00:48:53,055 He went to University of Pennsylvania, 902 00:48:53,055 --> 00:48:56,058 humble Amish, 903 00:48:56,391 --> 00:48:58,393 He when his parents 904 00:48:58,393 --> 00:49:01,396 went Beachy, and drove off in the car, 905 00:49:01,730 --> 00:49:05,150 they saw him going off to the Old Order Amish church 906 00:49:05,150 --> 00:49:08,153 he had on their horse and buggy, but then he became Beachy to then. 907 00:49:08,695 --> 00:49:11,782 But listen to the tenor of that sermon. 908 00:49:12,866 --> 00:49:16,244 I don't have the, the data right in front of me 909 00:49:16,244 --> 00:49:20,123 now, but I felt listening to the right thing there. 910 00:49:22,042 --> 00:49:23,001 And that was. 911 00:49:23,001 --> 00:49:26,338 I would have never heard that without modern media, without the internet. 912 00:49:26,630 --> 00:49:30,092 And new things will happen as information, 913 00:49:31,259 --> 00:49:34,471 flows in different patterns now, new things will happen. 914 00:49:34,763 --> 00:49:36,390 That's my hope. 915 00:49:36,390 --> 00:49:40,143 And in the meantime, I'm prepared for any kind of disappointment. 916 00:49:42,771 --> 00:49:44,147 Wow. Mr. 917 00:49:44,147 --> 00:49:47,150 Ruth thank you so much for sharing 918 00:49:47,567 --> 00:49:50,153 what you've learned with us. 919 00:49:50,153 --> 00:49:53,156 You bring a lot of decades of experience 920 00:49:53,198 --> 00:49:57,661 to the table, and it has been a true honor to do this interview with you. 921 00:49:58,203 --> 00:50:00,455 As I was supposed one piece to leave with people. 922 00:50:00,455 --> 00:50:03,291 Is your book. Even though it was 50 years ago, it's still in print. 923 00:50:03,291 --> 00:50:06,378 You can go on Amazon right now and buy it, and I'd recommend people do that. 924 00:50:06,420 --> 00:50:07,879 I found it fascinating. 925 00:50:07,879 --> 00:50:10,298 Actually, like you had said this is the original first edition, 926 00:50:10,298 --> 00:50:14,219 which is quite interesting to see and learn. 927 00:50:14,219 --> 00:50:17,347 The it feels like the real piece here is learn 928 00:50:17,347 --> 00:50:20,434 the story of of where this came from. 929 00:50:20,434 --> 00:50:22,853 And I feel like there's a lot that I have to learn. 930 00:50:22,853 --> 00:50:24,104 And and you've helped me with that 931 00:50:24,104 --> 00:50:27,607 this evening and I appreciate that, You know, one little comment. 932 00:50:27,858 --> 00:50:32,738 It was a historical accident that when they wanted to get pictures 933 00:50:32,738 --> 00:50:36,241 of Manz, Blaurock, imaginative pictures, 934 00:50:36,742 --> 00:50:39,870 somehow I got swept into posing for them. 935 00:50:40,537 --> 00:50:43,123 And this is me, actually. No really. 936 00:50:46,209 --> 00:50:49,212 Maybe that's maybe that's all it amounts to. 937 00:50:50,172 --> 00:50:52,257 Wow. Well thank you so much for sharing this evening. 938 00:50:52,257 --> 00:50:53,717 I really appreciate this. 939 00:50:54,760 --> 00:50:57,429 Thanks for listening to this episode with John Ruth. 940 00:50:57,429 --> 00:50:59,931 If you found this interesting, you might want to watch this episode 941 00:50:59,931 --> 00:51:04,978 we did with John Roth, who explains some of the beginnings of early anabaptism. 942 00:51:04,978 --> 00:51:07,981 And you can find that link down in the description below. 943 00:51:07,981 --> 00:51:12,486 All our content is over on our website at anabaptistperspectives.org, 944 00:51:12,486 --> 00:51:16,114 and you can also sign up to our monthly email newsletter there as well. 945 00:51:16,531 --> 00:51:19,534 Thanks again for listening and we'll see you in the next episode.