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Communities, not colonies

Edwin F. Rempel

My grandfather was a one-year-old infant when he arrived in North America in 1876, after crossing the ocean from Russia. If he had been old enough to remember, he would have remembered that Mennonites in Russia lived in colonies isolated by language, religion and government decree. In these exile colonies, they spoke the language of their Dutch and German homelands – Low German for everyday and High German for God. They enjoyed special privileges from the Russian government. The boundaries of their colonies separated them from the citizens of the world, whose worldly ways must be shunned.

Photo from MBH files

If my grandfather had been old enough, he would also have remembered how the boundaries of the colonies did not offer total security. Like a scientist injecting a foreign substance into a cocoon, the Russian czar decreed in 1870 that Mennonite colonists must join the military and learn the Russian language. My grandparents and their relatives chose to leave the infected cocoon rather than risk contamination. Those who remained accommodated, adapted and prospered, and the vision of Menno Simons gradually dimmed. Young men served the state in forestry camps in peacetime, and noncombatant medical service in war. They became part of the Russian world, except that most drew the line at active combat duty.

No longer protected within the womb of the colony, the Mennonite church and home faced the threatening influences of the encroaching world. The prophets among them perceived that without additional resources, Mennonite identity would soon be lost. What the colonies needed for survival, besides home and church, was partner institutions. Supported by wealth and visionary leadership, Russian Mennonites embarked on a virtual explosion of institutions. They built elementary and secondary schools, teachers’ colleges, an eight-year business college, hospitals, an orphanage, a mental institution, a deaconess home and a school for the mute. These institutions strengthened Mennonite identity, their sense of peoplehood and unity, and Anabaptist distinctives. It was as if a breath of fresh air invigorated their life together.

Originally, the colonies had focused on boundary maintenance and rigid internal control. Now they found their community life invigorated and enlightened at the centre. They created a way of life which could accommodate change and yet retain continuity of vision.

In our dislocated, mobile and uprooted world, colonies seem like an attractive alternative, offering simplicity, security and the preservation of values and identity. Yet isolation did not save our ancestors, and it will not save us. Self-giving love for the sake of the world may require a community to model and nurture it, but it cannot be a community focused on self-preservation.

While the exile-colony identity may fascinate us, it may also make us arrogant and narrow-minded. It may make us claim that we are the holy remnant while the world around us is going to hell. The world is inside as well as outside the colony. External symbols and strong internal control may preserve some important values, but they will not purge the world out of us. The quest for purity in Russia and America often resulted in abuse of power, chronic conflicts and petrified spirituality.

The colony mindset blinds us to the powerful truth that the Christian way is remarkably flexible and can adapt itself to any culture in the world. Each generation must crawl out of its cocoon to discover new visions, sniff at the strange rocks found outside and form dynamic faith communities. Partner institutions can help us. At the beginning of the 21st century, Mennonites are rapidly turning outward. Our vision for these times must call for dynamic communities living for the sake of the world.

Edwin Rempel and his wife Kathrine live in Colorado Springs, Colo. This article is adapted, with permission, from an article in the Sept. 23, 1997 issue of Gospel Herald, which in turn was based on an address given when the Rempels were co-moderators of the Allegheny Mennonite Conference.

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Last modified May 4, 2000.

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