Mennonite Handbook of Information/Introduction
INTRODUCTION
The following leaflet prepared by a committee appointed by the Mennonite General Conference and printed by the Mennonite Publishing House is used as an appropriate Introduction to this book.
Who Are The Mennonites
The believers in Jesus Christ during the first century suffered many persecutions, and because of this severe test, heretics in the Church were few. Later, the Church became an institution of the state, persecution ceased, and religious degeneration resulted. Some, however, never adhered to the State Church, and others left it and sought the purity of primitive Christianity. These were known by various names—Novations, Albigenses, Paulicians, Waldenses, Anabaptists, etc.
The first congregation of the Church now known as Mennonites was organized in 1525 at Zurich, Switzerland, by Conrad Grebel, Felix Mantz, George Blaurock, and others. They called themselves Brethren (Swiss Brethren) but were commonly known as Taeufer. Not recognizing infant baptism as scriptural, they were classed as Anabaptists. They were, however, the first and oldest of the so-called Anabaptist sects. It is therefore incorrect to say that the Mennonites descended from the Anabaptists, or from Anabaptist sects.
The founder of the Mennonite Church in Holland, Obbe Philips, had formerly been an Anabaptist of the Hoffmanite persuasion. Menno Simons was born at Witmarsum, Friesland, a province in the Netherlands, about 1496. Originally a Catholic, he served as a priest from 1524 to 1536. In 1536 he was converted and baptized by Obbe Philips. That same year he was ordained to the ministry and became the most influential representative of the Church in Holland and North Germany. His writings and those of his faithful co-worker, Dirck Philips, are of great value. At the time of Menno Simon's conversion the Church in Holland was numerically weak, though the Swiss Brethren had numerous congregations in Switzerland, France, South Germany, Tyrol and Moravia. A bitter wave of persecution had swept over these churches and the principal leaders of the Swiss Brethren had suffered a martyr's death, but the attempt to destroy the Church proved a failure.
It was some years after Menno Simons' conversion that the name "Mennonite" was applied to this body of believers in Germany, Poland, and Russia, and later in America; but to the present they are known in Switzerland as Taeufer (or Alt-Taeufer) in France Anabaptists, and in Holland Doopsgezinden.
There is good reason to believe that the influence of the Waldenses (one of a number of the older nonresistant sects) was largely responsible for the organization of the first congregation of the Swiss Brethren. The most characteristic and essential points on which they, and later the Mennonites, differed from the leading Protestant churches of the same period was the principle of nonresistance and the doctrine of infant baptism. At that time the laws of the several states and provinces required membership in the state churches. All, except the Anabaptist sects, accepted this demand. The Swiss Brethren and Mennonites believed that the Church consists only of those who accept Christ and follow His teachings and are separated from and not identified with the world.
For a number of years a severe persecution of these followers of the Lord prevailed and many were put to death for their faith, but in no country did the persecution of the Mennonites continue so long as in Switzerland. The last martyr was Elder (bishop) Hans Landis, the most prominent minister of the Swiss Brethren in that period, who was beheaded in Zurich, 1614. The persecution, however, continued until well into the eighteenth century. Nowhere else did the Church show such vitality. Many fled from Switzerland to South Germany, France, Holland, and America.
The Mennonite pioneers in America were thirteen families from Crefeld, Germany, who came on the ship Concord in 1683, and settled at Germantown, now a part of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During the following century many Swiss Mennonites came from South Germany (Palatinate) and France, because of serious oppression, while others came direct from Switzerland. The majority of American Mennonite churches are of Swiss origin.
Until the beginning of the last century, all Mennonites coming to America settled in eastern Pennsylvania, whence they spread to other states and to Ontario. A large immigration of Russian and Prussian Mennonites to America took place in 1874 and the succeeding years. The Russian Mennonites are mostly of Dutch ancestry, their forefathers of the Reformation period having fled from Holland to Prussia and Poland whence they emigrated to Russia. Yet a number of the Russian Mennonite churches in America are of Swiss origin.
Today Mennonite churches are found in many of the states and in provinces of Canada. The main body of Mennonites comprises fifteen distinct conferences reaching from ocean to ocean, and an organized conference in India. Mennonite Publishing House, located at Scottdale, Pa., takes care of the publishing interests of the Church. The Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities has its headquarters at Elkhart, Ind. Organized mission and charitable work is carried on in many places in the home land, and there are flourishing missions in India and Argentina, S. A. The educational centers of the Church are at Goshen, Ind., Hesston, Kans., and Harrisonburg, Va.
The history of the Mennonite Church is the story of an imperfect attempt to give first place to God and His will, to accept His revelation and precept in its entirety regardless of the cost. Human imperfections will cling to human endeavor, but God and His Word never failed. This was the faith of the martyrs; it is the faith that will bring victory in our day.