by Marilyn Stahl
Collegeville, Minn.- Mennonite and Catholic scholars gathered to begin a joint historical study of the sixteenth-century Anabaptist martyrs in mid-July at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minn. Many of the martyrs were condemned to death by Catholic civil and church authorities.
Abbot John Klassen of St. John’s began his welcoming remarks by citing the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu in describing the work of South Africa’s Commission for Truth and Reconciliation: “For forgiveness to occur, the past must be reconstructed and acknowledged.” To achieve a real accommodation between Mennonites and Catholics, said the Abbott, “an analogous process is utterly essential.”
The conference was the first time that Catholics have publicly confronted these historical incidents, and the first time that Mennonites have reexamined this aspect of their foundational history in an ecumenical setting.
Brad S. Gregory, a Catholic historian at Notre Dame University in Indiana, presented the keynote address. His study of the common experience of Protestant, Anabaptist, and Catholic martyrs and their communities in the 16th century was published by Harvard University Press as Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe.
Respondents included Peter Nissen, Dean and Professor of Church History at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands, who has participated on the Catholic side of the international dialogue between the Mennonite World Conference and the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity. Two Mennonite participants in the international dialogue also spoke: Neal Blough, who is the director of the Parisian Mennonite Centre and professor of church history at the Faculté Libre de Théologie Evangélique (Vaux sur Seine), and Helmut Harder, who taught at the Canadian Mennonite Bible College in Winnipeg, Man., and then served as General Secretary of the Conference of Mennonites in Canada, now renamed Mennonite Church Canada. The other speakers were John Roth, professor of Mennonite History at Goshen College in Indiana; and theology professors Margaret O’Gara, a Catholic teaching at St. Michael’s College of the University of Toronto, and A. James Reimer, a Mennonite teaching at Conrad Grebel College of the University of Waterloo, Ont.
Ivan Kauffman of Washington, D.C., a Catholic author who has been active in Mennonite-Catholic dialogue, gave opening reflections, describing very rapid developments in Catholic-Mennonite dialogue on diverse fronts. The time had come, he said, to take this dialogue to the historical root of the division between the two traditions. To foster a common understanding of martyr history, Kauffman said, “matters to Mennonites, who have had to preserve the witness of the Anabaptist martyrs not only alone, but often against severe hostility from other Christians, with a resulting isolation that has impoverished the entire Church. It matters to Catholics, who bear the burden of this unacknowledged violence – often unconsciously – seldom realizing the negative effects keeping these events hidden has on our communal life.”
To achieve a common understanding of the significance of this history, the conference organizers sought to begin a process that will encompass the following objectives: (1) discussing current historical research on and stimulating further investigation of who were the victims and perpetrators, what exactly occurred, and why it occurred; (2) sharing historical analysis by placing these events in the context of other events of the period; (3) prompting theological analysis to determine the meaning of the martyr deaths from the perspective of Christian belief; and (4) finding ways through ecumenical dialogue for currently existing churches to deal with the legacy of these events.
In his keynote address, Professor Gregory challenged the conferees to seek a true understanding of the motives and beliefs of the 16th century actors by putting aside the modern moral position that condemns religious persecutions. Though today we do not accept discrimination against the heterodox, much less their execution, he said, in the 16th century the Protestants, Anabaptists, and Catholics were all “competing over the same turf – Christian truth.” “Persecution,” in our terms, would have been viewed by the authorities of the time as “prosecution of dangerous religious criminals.” The lack of a uniform, orthodox view of Christian truth within a community was viewed as a real threat to each community member’s chances of everlasting salvation. Prosecution, to the point of the death penalty for those who did not recant, “was borne of a dogged pastoral concern.”
Second, though Professor Gregory disclaimed any training or expertise in theology, he suggested that the conferees should discuss whether an ultimate reconciliation of the faith traditions could be possible even given a common understanding of the martyr experience. He suggested that a “social ecumenism” motivated by love has and will accomplish much, but an effort toward “doctrinal ecumenism” must ultimately face each tradition’s “truth claims” and confront the issue of authority – that is, what is the authoritative interpreter of scripture. If there can be a common basis for condemning persecution, he suggested, it would need to take into account a theological understanding of interpretive authority.
Each of Professor Gregory’s main points stimulated a lively discussion, both in responsive presentations and in open comment-time. On the historical issues, Professor Neal Blough observed that Catholics in the international dialogue had asked the Mennonites to account for the impact of the early, militant Anabaptists. He urged Mennonite scholars to address the question whether the commitment to nonviolence is “merely the result of the foreclosure of options.” An avenue for further historical research is to look for situations where people in power had renounced it.
Professor Peter Nissen picked up on Professor Gregory’s theme of understanding the prosecutors’ motives. Professor Nissen cited numerous examples demonstrating that the Catholic authorities’ goal was to get Mennonites to recant for their own sakes – “their main concern was to save souls.” He also observed that historical methodology would continue to incorporate a divergence in traditions, because every community has a need for its “master narrative” or “collective memory,” which reinforces group identity. Christian history, he argued, is “a collection of many histories, a diversity of historic memory.” Each community needs to purify its memory – to eliminate false memories or resentments – so that in a dialogue with other communities a growth of shared memories is possible.
Professor John Roth recounted the story of Hans Landes, an Anabaptist executed very late in the period (early 1600s) at the order of the Protestant town council of Zurich. The town then suppressed a booklet on nonviolence in religious matters called “Christian Thoughts,” which could be read as indicating the town’s betrayal of their own Protestant leaders’ principles. This story is emblematic, suggested Professor Roth, of a pattern; he suggested that the tenacity with which Anabaptists embraced the martyr stories was related to the authorities’ efforts to suppress them.
Professor Gregory’s categories of “social” and “doctrinal” ecumenism brought much comment both in formal presentations and in informal give-and-take among the conferees. Professor Gregory observed later with good humor that others had suggested the additional categories of political, devotional, and ethical ecumenism.
Several Mennonite presenters made comments that drew from the Anabaptist emphasis on discipleship. Professor Blough argued that social ecumenism does have a doctrinal component, because it is an act of obedience to the command to love one’s neighbor. Professor Roth expressed a view that doctrinal ecumenism may not be the ultimate ecumenical goal, because “theological language is all metaphorical,” and because “rational assent to traditions is not the key to acting in Christ’s way.” Professor Helmut Harder, who also reported on the international dialogue, offered “ethical ecumenism” as a label for seeking a common approach on behavior. He cited John Howard Yoder’s “The Nature of the Unity We Seek” of 1957, which advocated “one obedience.” He also noted that the forthcoming report of the international dialogue would contain a section entitled “Called Together to Be Peacemakers,” which might be called a commitment to ethical ecumenism.
The conference program included two presentations specifically addressing the contemporary theological context for consideration of the Anabaptist martyr experience, by Margaret O’Gara and A. James Reimer. Professor O’Gara spoke to how a common historical understanding can be achieved and apologetics avoided. She cited Pope John Paul II’s statements that the Church’s “ecumenical commitment is irreversible” and that the process of reducing separation requires adherents to examine their consciences to discover past sins and repent. The first step in resolving differences, she suggested, is repentance – a change of heart. This growing understanding leads to a change of mind through the inspiring discoveries made possible through ecumenical dialogue. This bears fruit in the recognition that diversity is a treasure, creating an opportunity for an exchange of gifts. “Honoring the Anabaptists martyrs’ devotion” is fundamental, she said, to “our dialogue of conversion.”
Professor Reimer’s comments were focused on the relatedness of faith and life. He argued that this relatedness tends to undercut the distinctions both between social and doctrinal ecumenism and between understanding the prosecution of heretics and assessing the prosecution from a moral or theological perspective. Merely seeking a historical understanding of the authorities’ actions, he argued, risks making the assumption that the authorities “were right in theology but wrong in action. The act of prosecution and the authorities’ theological doctrine cannot be easily distinguished.” He suggested that a focus of continuing dialogue could be on whether something was wrong with the 16th century authorities’ theology.
The conference concluded with a roundtable discussion among panelists and conferees about where the dialogue should lead and what further research would be helpful. Ideas were abounding. Among them was the wish for a publication of all the papers presented at the conference. This will be done through Pandora Press and the Bridgefolk web site, www.bridgefolk.net. The final comment was made by Father William Skudlarek of St. John’s Abbey, who noted the discussion of the link between martyrdom to doctrine and concepts of truth, yet he felt that martyrs don’t ultimately die for doctrine, but for love – for their relationship with Christ.
Plans are already being made for a series of follow-up conferences, including one at St. John’s University next July that will address the question of how martyrs are defined and recognized, and the role they play in their religious traditions.
The conference grew from ecumenical dialogue promoted by Bridgefolk, a grass-roots movement to help Catholics and Mennonites connect with the values and traditions of the other tradition. It was organized by Ivan Kauffman, Professor Peter Erb, Department of Religion and Culture, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ont., and C. Arnold Snyder, Professor of History, Conrad Grebel College of the University of Waterloo, and was sponsored by St. John’s Abbey and the Department of Theology at St. John’s University, Collegeville, Minn.; Schwenkfelder Library, Pennsburg, Pa.; the Institute of Mennonite Studies at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries, Elkhart, Ind.; and the Institute of Anabaptist and Mennonite Studies at Conrad Grebel College, Waterloo, Ont.
Marilyn Stahl resides in Mercer Island, Washington