Mennonites remember Catholic scholar Gerhard Lohfink

Anabaptist World, the denominational magazine of Mennonite Church USA, has published an article on the death of German Catholic New Testament scholar Gerhard Lohfink on 2 April 2024. The article notes the interest that Mennonites took in his work on ecclesiology and the social dimension of Christian faith:

by Wolfgang Krauß

Gerhard Lohfink, a German Catholic New Testament scholar, died on April 2, 2024 in Ebenhausen, Germany. North American Anabaptists, including Mennonites and the Bruderhof, took interest in his work, especially his book Jesus and Community: the Social Dimension of Christian Faith.

The book was published in 1982 in German and is still in print. A translation into English appeared in 1984. From the evidence of the New Testament, Lohfink developed a biblical ecclesiology that is similar to the early Anabaptists’ understanding of the church.

According to Lohfink, the Jesus movement continues in a small, relationship-based community. Through the community’s witness, people come into contact with Jesus and are invited to follow him and live together. Here Jesus is present and lives with the community in contrast to the social and political relationships of power and violence.

Lohfink’s coining of the term “contrast society” for the social dimension of the community of Jesus was an extremely important, and indeed indispensable, contribution to the ecclesiological discourse. …

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John D. Roth calls for “less triumph, more confession” when Anabaptists celebrate anniversary in 2025

Writing in Anabaptist World, the denominational magazine of the Mennonite Church USA, leading Mennonite historian John D. Roth has called upon Mennonites to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Anabaptist movement that birthed their church in a spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness. Ecumenical “steps toward reconciliation in the past two decades” with Lutherans, Catholics, and Reformed churches “make it clear that the commemorative events … will need to look different” from the way that Mennonites once presented themselves in ecumenical encounters.

For example, if earlier accounts of Anabaptist beginnings depicted the movement primarily in heroic, even triumphalist, language, the 2025 commemoration will need to include space for confession. For many Mennonites our impulse in ecumenical settings is to claim our distinctive theological themes — community, discipleship, nonresistance — as if they were talismans that secure our moral superiority. The principle of “right remembering” calls us to also recognize shadow sides of those distinctives — the way in which our focus on distinctives can blind us to other theological truths — or to the gaps that exist between our precepts and our practice. 

Second, a focus on Anabaptist origins in 16th-century Europe can easily overshadow the global reality of the church today. History matters, but almost all of the growth in MWC-member churches during the past 50 years has been in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The renewal of the Anabaptist tradition today is happening in the Global South. 

Finally, our commemorations in 2025 will need to acknowledge the significant ecumenical relationships forged since 2004. These have spiritual significance and call on Mennonites to revise how we tell the story of the 16th century.

Roth is professor of history at Goshen (Ind.) College, director of the Institute for the Study of Global Anabaptism and editor of Mennonite Quarterly Review. His article is available in the March issue of Anabaptist World.