Prayers of gratitude and intercession

Renewal 2027 testimony: Anabaptists today

Renewal 2027 is a 10-year series of events to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the beginnings of the Anabaptist movement. This series highlights leaders in the movement from history to the present. In this installment, KyongJung Kim, MWC regional representative for Northeast Asia, reflects on his visit with Eun Hunki (Takai Satoshi in Japanese), a Korean Mennonite farmer living in Japan. 

Eun Hunki’s Mennonite Dairy Farm is located 40 min from Hukuzumin Mennonite Center, Hokkaido, Japan.

Eun is a 1960s graduate of Mennonite Vocational School in Kyungsan, South Korea. When Mennonite Central Committee came to do relief work in South Korea after the Korean War, they set up a vocational school for orphan boys like Eun. The students learned not only academic knowledge but also Mennonite faith-based values, some of which were different from what Eun had learned before.

His life was not easy, but he never failed to carry the spirit of Jesus that the Mennonites taught him through his vocational school years in 1950–60s. After graduation, he studied dairy farming and finally moved to Hokkaido, Japan, to live with his family.

After many years of hard work, Eun established a Mennonite Dairy Farm in Hokkaido 2007. His farm signboard says: “In memory of Mennonite Christians serving in the name of Christ at the Mennonite Vocational School in Korea 1951–1971” He hopes his life and work contribute to the kingdom of God.

Eun’s life journey took him into a foreign land to make a new home. (Many Koreans experienced Japanese colonial rule of Korea 1910–1945 as harsh and oppressive.) For Eun, reconciliation is an ongoing process for him; he is choosing to follow the way of Jesus even in a what might be called an enemy country. He is an example of how a victim can be transformed to produce fruit of the Spirit that is beneficial for all in God’s kingdom.

The relationships offered by MWC and networking with national member churches are valuable to Eun. He is interested in having Mennonite workers come to serve and learn together at his farm in Hokkaido.

“The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest” (Matthew 9:37–38).

As Eun cultivates his vision to participate in God’s mission alongside Anabaptist churches in Japan, may his work and life also become a catalytic source for Japanese churches to grow.

—KyongJung Kim is MWC regional representative for Northeast Asia. He visited the Anabaptist churches across Japan (Japan Mennonite Brethren Conference, Nihon Kirisuto Keiteidan*, Nihon Menonaito Kirisuto Kyokai Kaigi*, Nihon Menonaito Kirisuto Kyokai Kyogikai *, Tokyo Chiku Menonaito Kyokai Rengo* [asterisk denotes MWC membership) in 2016.

Renewal 2027 testimony: historical profile

Renewal 2027 is a 10-year series of events to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the beginnings of the Anabaptist movement. This series highlights leaders in the movement from history to the present.

What was it like for a Christian who defends the state’s use of force to have the force used against him? Or for a wife, after her husband’s imprisonment and torture, to watch as he is burned at the stake? Or, three days later, for her to be tied to a large stone and dropped from a bridge into the Danube River?

The couple was Elsbeth (Elizabeth) and Balthasar Hubmaier.

Christian Neff and Christian Hege sum up Elsbeth’s life: “Elsbeth (Elisabeth) Hügeline, the wife of Balthasar Hubmaier, was the daughter of a citizen of Reichenau on Lake Constance, whom he married on 13 January 1525. She was an energetic and courageous woman, who shared the very sad fate of her husband with devoted love and faithfulness. When he was seized and after cruel torture condemned to death, she spoke words of comfort to him. Three days later she also suffered a martyr’s death in Vienna. With a stone tied to her neck she was thrown from the large bridge over the Danube on 13 March 1528, in Vienna.” Her birthdate is not provided.

Balthasar Hubmaier (ca. 1480–1528) was connected with the Peasants’ War in Germany. People wanted freedom from some taxes; the ability to use the land, water, and forest (and its creatures) for their benefits; and the right to choose their own pastors. It’s suggested that he even assisted in writing a list of the commoners’ demands.

A former priest who held a doctorate in theology, Balthasar was an able theologian who opposed Catholic and Protestant abuses, defended believer’s baptism and was imprisoned for his views.

After physical torture, he agreed to recant his Anabaptist beliefs, but, when he was to make a public statement before Ulrich Zwingli, he spoke up for believer’s baptism. Zwingli had him taken back to prison where he was stretched on the rack.

Balthasar Hubmaier held that the state was divinely ordained to use force to protect the innocent, that a king could rule better if a Christian and a Christian could defend others with force. He did not do so in ignorance of other Anabaptists’ positions.

In the same year that the Schleitheim Confession was prepared (1527), Balthasar had earlier written a booklet On the Sword in which he challenged non-resistant views among Anabaptists. Because of his views on the use of force, Hubmaier has been set aside in some nonresistant Anabaptist circles and highlighted in some wider circles, including Baptist.

Some people think it is ironic that Balthasar defended the government’s use of force, yet he was tortured by officials. They are confused. What Balthasar defended was good government; what he suffered from was an abuse of government. Both are realities in our world.

Elsbeth suffered equally. Think of her if ever you gaze upon the beautiful waters of the Danube River.

—Terry M. Smith is editor of The Messenger, a publication of the Evangelical Mennonite Conference, based in Canada. This article first appeared on their website 30 April 2017.

Augsburg, Germany – Regional Anabaptists and leaders from around the world gathered 12 February 2017 for “Transformed by the Word: Reading Scripture in Anabaptist Perspectives,” the first in a 10-year series of events called “Renewal 2027” organized by Mennonite World Conference (MWC) to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition with appreciation and critical reflection on what is now a global movement within the larger body of Christ.

From their beginnings, based on their understanding of the Bible, Anabaptists emphasized a personal commitment to following Christ, baptism upon a free confession of faith, a collective approach to reading and interpreting Scripture, a commitment to reconciliation and love of enemy and a rejection of the state church, said Alfred Neufeld (Paraguay), chair of the MWC Faith and Life Commission.

At the church tradition’s 500th anniversary, “What should be reconsidered or reformulated? Where are the gaps in our theology and practice?” Neufeld asked.

The full-day event was interspersed exhortations from representatives of the MWC family with singing from the Assembly 16 songbook and a participatory Bible study on reaching agreement on controversial subjects within the church, based on Acts 15:1–21.

Anabaptism is as needed as ever, said Valerie Rempel, professor at Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary (USA), calling for “radical Bible reading in the spirit of the early Anabaptists… [and re-engagement] with God’s Word and with our own theological tradition to see how it can offer us wisdom for living as Christians in our world and for engaging in mission that invites all people.”

“There is no segregation when it comes to the message of Christ, to those sharing it and to those receiving it,” said Makadunyiswe Ngulube (Zimbabwe). She and the other YABs committee (Young AnaBaptists) speakers, reflected on Matthew 28:19, highlighted personal responsibility to learn, go and share as followers of Christ. “We need a culture that emphasizes discipleship as a responsibility for every believer of Christ… [drawn from] our deep understanding and full experience of his power and grace,” said Ebenezer Mondez (Philippines).

Ecumenical guests spoke about reading Scripture across confessions. Renewal can come from when we read the Bible as individuals, but it is even more powerful when read Scripture together, says Lutheran Friederike Nuessel (Germany). Nuessel and Roman Catholic Monsignor Augusto-Castro (Colombia) were representatives in the just-completed Trilateral dialogue between Mennonites, Catholics and Lutherans.

Worship, fellowship, witness and service in the Anabaptist tradition turn reading Scripture into a living faith, said YABs mentor Tigist Gelagle (Ethiopia). “The way of the cross is the basic teaching that inspires me about the future of the church.” The truth that inspired early Anabaptists to martyrdom is the key for following Jesus today: “The suffering of Christ is the central theme of the gospel.”

Event participant Doris Hege, chairperson of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Mennonitischer Gemeiden, was reminded Scripture is a living word. “We need to read it as if for the first time in our current context,” she said. “What new things can God speak to us?”

Daniel Geiser-Oppliger of a Mennonite congregation in Switzerland was similarly impressed with the relevance of the Word of God for Anabaptism today, and valued the fellowship of the event: “being together, seeing old friends and meet new brothers and sisters.”

The next Renewal 2027 event will be April 2018 in Kenya, on the theme of the Holy Spirit.

John D. Roth was the primary coordinator of the Renewal 2027 event in Augsburg, with help from Jantine Huisman (the Netherlands), Henk Stenvers (the Netherlands) and Rainer Burkart (Germany), who served on the local planning committee.

—Mennonite World Conference release

Bogotá, Colombia – Tremendous change rocked the Western church 500 years ago as successive groups discovered new things about God through Scripture and separated from the Roman Catholic church. Renewal 2027 is a framework for a 10-year series of events within the Mennonite World Conference (MWC) global family, commemorating Anabaptism’s role in that period of culture and religious change called the Reformation.

“Renewal 2027 will be a celebration of a historical tradition that has now found expression in many different cultural settings around the world,” says John Roth, secretary of the MWC Faith and Life Commission and Renewal 2027 organizer. “We hope that the events will strengthen our identity by engaging conversations – especially with young people, lay church members and ecumenical friends – that reflect on what it means to be Anabaptist today in the global church, while also being in fellowship with the broader Christian church.”

Each year, an event will take place in a different region, following the locations of executive committee and general council meetings and Assemblies. A theme for worship, singing and discussion will be chosen in conversation with global partners. Local planning committees will infuse each event with the nuances of their own culture, tradition and history. Speakers from all five regions and ecumenical guests will represent the global nature of Anabaptist belief and Christian witness in the world today.

The first event, “Transformed by the Word: Reading the Bible in Anabaptist perspectives,” is 12 February 2017, in Augsburg, Germany, coinciding with the year and country of the start of the Reformation.

The next year’s Renewal 2027 event, focused on the Holy Spirit, will take place in Kenya alongside the General Council meeting.

Renewal 2027 occurs in the context of world-wide recognition of the Reformation. Ecumenical events, like Together in Hope, 31 October 2016, attended by MWC general sectary César García, celebrate fellowship between formerly divided groups like Lutheran and Catholic communions.

Renewal 2027 commemorates the 500th anniversary of the Schleitheim Confession and the first Anabaptist mission conference (the Martyrs’ Synod in Augsburg), and celebrates the globalization of the Anabaptist-Mennonite by culminating with the 2027 MWC Assembly.

—Mennonite World Conference release