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CURRENTLY IN BOOKS
Reflections on a closing

Dora Dueck

For Everything a Season: Mennonite Brethren in North America, 1874–2002 Paul Toews and Kevin Enns-Rempel, editors. Kindred Productions, 2002. 188 pg. $35.99

The entity known as the General Conference, which began in 1879 as the organizing structure of Mennonite Brethren churches in North America, formally ended in 2002.

The congregations who comprised it go on, of course, and many of its programs will continue in slightly different guises under the Canadian and United States conferences. Nevertheless, particular structures embody particular meanings, and the cessation of the lengthy and extensive General Conference structure marks a significant transition for Mennonite Brethren.

It also provides an occasion for celebration, reflection, and a new book: For Everything a Season: Mennonite Brethren in North America 1874–2002.

Dubbed an “informal history”, this is an attractive coffee table-type volume containing photographs, sidebars with mini-biographies and quotes, and 14 short essays by various writers on aspects of Conference history and church life. The result is both informative and engaging.

All who fear, in fact, that such an exercise in denominational recollection will be merely nostalgic, or worse, congratulatory and dull, are encouraged to take a closer look. The view is an “insider” and generally affectionate one, to be sure, but there is also a solid attempt to give an honest review of difficulties and failures as well as successes.

The book opens with MB origins in Russia. It ends with a hopeful (though still rather tentative) vision of a global community of Mennonite Brethren. (There are now some 250,000 MBs in 18 countries.) These brackets to the North American MB story reiterate the title’s contention that the General Conference belongs to a particular setting and time. Though finished, it was part of a longer and larger context.

A short review can highlight only a few of the essays. John B. Toews, in “Mennonite Brethren Beginnings” provides a useful discussion of conversion (the clash of new versus prevailing theological understandings of conversion, that is) as a key factor in the origin of the MB church in Russia.

Kevin Enns-Rempel’s narrative of Mennonite Brethren beginnings in North America shows that the migrations characteristic of Mennonites did not end with arrival in the new country. He describes “a remarkable process of scattering across the western United States and Canada” by MBs starting in 1891 and continuing nearly 40 years. These decades teem with stories of congregations being founded and folded, of families moving and moving and moving again.

Theological work, not just programs, has been an important reason for maintaining conference affiliations. Lynn Jost provides a helpful summary of the various theological currents that make up MB understandings, mainly Anabaptism, pietism and evangelicalism. The last act of the General Conference, he reminds us, was the revised Confession of Faith, the result of a decade of denominational “discernment”.

Some of the book’s most interesting chapters discuss aspects of MB history that affected the average MB member, such as what one read (or did not read) in our periodicals and books, the writing that flourished in conversion narratives and obituaries, musical practices borrowed and initiated, and common rituals of church life like footwashing or potlucks or the annual Christmas Eve program.

The photographs are fascinating. Rather than a clutter of small pictures, the editors selected representative photos which are reproduced large enough to be enjoyed. Many of the photographs, not surprisingly, are of buildings or posed groups of people, but they are quite compelling, both for what they convey and the curiosity they arouse.

(Sometimes they also provoke a chuckle. Early Conference delegate groups, black-suited or white-shirted, mostly men in rows, look at us pleasantly but solemnly, as if aware of their weighty deliberations. The 1999 group at Wichita that voted to dissolve the General Conference, by contrast, is a mixed assembly bunched in the open air beside a tent-like structure, gazing happily upward as if trying to read the signs for another Wanderung.)

The sidebars too provide interesting glimpses into MB life. They include lists, stories, excerpts – everything from the biography of a former editor who insisted it was the sun that moved instead of the earth, to the frank memories of David Ewert’s “spiritual autobiography”.

In the preface, the editors say the reasons for discontinuation of the General Conference will not be interpreted in this volume, but left for future analysis. In the understandable attempt to avoid premature judgment, however, it seems to me the reality of the dissolution has been muted somewhat. Readers may be expected to insert more knowledge of Conference affairs between the lines than many will possess.

Still, I highly recommend this book for everyone in the Mennonite Brethren community. A copy has been placed in each church library, but additional copies for home libraries or Christmas giving are available from Kindred Productions at 800-545-7322 or custserv@kindredproductions.com.

Dora Dueck is a freelance writer and a member of Jubilee Mennonite Church, Winnipeg.

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Last modified December 16, 2002.

© 2002 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
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