Mennonazis: the interior problem

[PetrChelcicky]

Here I start two new topics because I think that the two angles of the problem deserve to be studied for themselves. On the long run more important is the problem I call "interior":
First, Anabaptists sit on a fence and can come down on both sides of it.

The one side is: Anabaptists became a "normal" garden variety of a self-centered community, just as everone around them. That is what happened to the rural Mennonites in Ukraine or in Paraguay, or to the more urban Mennonites in Germany. These kind of communities are not doomed to become excentrically Nazi, but they are doomed to become egotistical to the point of ruthlessness against outsiders, perceived enemies or dangerous people. And yes, sometimes this may imply "colourful" activities with Nazi flags or uniforms, but the outfit is not the real problem in it. The problem is a quite "normal" self-centeredness, which makes these kinds of communities rather "worldly", not much different to other non-religious communities.

Now MC USA is coming down on the other side of the fence, in a direction I have observed often with mainstream churches here in Europe. I'd call it a "charitable organization" or, in a broader sense, a "redistribution bureaucracy" with a group of (rather) wealthy donors (members) at the one end of the line and a group of poor receivers at the other end.
This is the kind of normal or stable churches we find most often now in Germany. There are at least two problems with this development. Firstly, the churches have no real use for members who are not upper-middle-class-wealthy and cannot participate in their distributional activities. (That's why poorer people tend to drop out and for instance join evangelical "sects".) Secondly, the receivers are reduced to a status as dependent "receivers" and don't really mix with the donors - in the end there is no community at the center, but only a bureaucracy. This state of affairs is quite stable, in particular when there is a welfare state which finances part of the bureaucracy's activities. But the church becomes just as "worldly" as all other bureaucracies of the welfare state.

My personal proposal is somewhat in-between. There are always people looking for orientation, and the Anabaptists ought to form "model communities" which show to those people how to live a good life: work, frugality, quietness, tenacity etc. This may sometimes imply to give some financial help or credit and may sometimes imply giving advice, but at the center it means "showing" something. (It also would mean inviting singular "troubled" persons to share the life over a period, but on the long run likeminded persons should be counseled to form their own new communities). "Show a man how to fish" - I suppose that this sounds rather libertarian - but then imho the Swiss Anabaptists were the libertarians of their time!
If the center of the church's sending is not redistribution but "showing how to fish" resp. "showing how to live", the poorer members can be an asset of the church, too.

But in this sense I think that the Anabaptists have to stay sitting on the fence: a worldly self-governed village is not enough, but neither is a worldly welfare bureaucracy.

[Neto]

The situation in the colonies in New Russia was a complicated one that grew out of both internal and external causes. With the settlements centered around 'villages' - some rather large industrial areas, it was not at all 'rural' in the sense in which we think of the term in North America. (I don't know what the European concept of 'rural' would be.) The Mennonites (and other groups who had been settled in colonies in the same area, Lutherans, Jews, etc.) were, in a sense, confined to their designated areas. A travel visa was required, for instance, for any travel outside one's own colony. Landlessness resulted from external decree - farms were not allowed to be subdivided so that each son could have a small farm. Internal factors of personal greed also contributed to the growing divide of landed vs landless families, and the landless were excluded from many parts of the internal governance as well. As this problem became more and more severe, and also complicated by the Czarist decree that freed the serfs, delegations were sent to meet with Russian officials, and large tracts of land were authorized for purchase in other areas of Russia, to establish 'daughter colonies'. These ventures were heavily financed by the 'mother colonies', and support continued for years after. So it seems to me that we had there both sides or extremes which you outlined in your post.

[barnhart]

...I think that the Anabaptists have to stay sitting on the fence: a worldly self-governed village is not enough, but neither is a worldly welfare bureaucracy.

Yes.

[Neto]

I think that I must have misunderstood the point of this thread. The word "worldly" is in both of the expressed "extremes" or "options". (I don't know if either of these characterizations accurately reflect what Petr meant.) I was responding more to the ideas represented in a focus on differences between isolationism coupled with self-centered capitalism vs a sort of economic-political activism that aims to redistribute wealth & power through philanthropic efforts. But there were also parts of the initial post that seemed to focus on rural vs industrial as a characterization of Mennonite communities in Germany (perhaps present day) vs the Mennonite colonies in New Russia (what is now Ukraine) in the 1700's & 1800's. So, I may have been so confused as to the point, that my comments may be completely missing the central topic.

[Ken]

Historians have a word for those who joined the Nazis, not because they hated Jews, but because of hope for some renewed patriotism, preservation of religious values, convenience, ethnic solidarity, or preservation of community.

That word is Nazi.

No one really cares about their motivations anymore.

[MaxPC]

...I think that the Anabaptists have to stay sitting on the fence: a worldly self-governed village is not enough, but neither is a worldly welfare bureaucracy.

Yes.

Indeed.

[PetrChelcicky]

Neto,
thanks for your additions. I wanted to make a systematic argument and to illustrate it with an historic example and I probably have oversimplified matters grossly.
But I find the point you are making interesting. Most people are, like me, thinking in terms of "first agriculture, thereafter merchandise and industry". But in early modern times there was a certain amount of going back to the country, going back to agriculture. And for instance the Amish or the Hutterites seem to be examples for that, probably also the Ukrainian Mennonites? (And what's with the English "Diggers"?)
I am wondering if this can be compared to the Tolstoyans around 1900 who also tended to return to agriculture. On the other hand the Tolstoyans are contemporaries of neoromantic movements like the German Artamanen and the Jewish kibbuzim who both tried to combine farming with military defence. Do all these "back to the farm" movements have socio-psychological parallels - or are they to be explained simply by economical conditions?

[Neto]

It is true that the early Dutch Mennonites were by far predominantly tradesmen, tailors, butchers, etc., residents of small villages and larger cities. The trade that was centrally important in the invitation to settle in Prussia (now part of Poland) was the ability to manage swampland, build dikes and windmills to move water to where it was needed (and often simply away from where there was too much water). The situation there in Prussia, as I understand it, was that the population in that area had been decimated by war and pandemic. Large tracks of land that had been previously developed into profitable farm land had fallen into disuse, the dikes eroded, the land flooded. So the Dutch 'immigrants' were sought after, but after everything was back in top shape, the local people tired of these foreigners with their strange religion. It was at that point that Russia, having recently "acquired" what is now Ukraine, wanted that new area to be developed. Previously it was home to the nomadic Tatar people groups. Mennonites were appointed to teach these nomadic peoples how to farm, to get them to settle down and "be more productive members of Russian society".

Sorry for kind of loosing my focus here, but what I was trying to illustrate is how there were outside forces that drew the Dutch Mennonites into a much more farm centered way of life. But there were also highly developed industries in the colonies, silk farms, industrial factories building not only farm implements but other types of equipment as well, and some even designed & built gasoline engines, experimental airplanes, and from some things I've seen possible automobiles as well. In the class of agriculture, orchards were something that was apparently not readily accepted. Large areas were put in fruit trees on the order of the Czar. I recall reading that one village, in rebellion against this order, intentionally planted the trees they were given upside down, with the roots in the air.

As I mentioned before, there were Jewish colonies near the Mennonite ones. Some Mennonite men were put in charge of agricultural efforts (as supervisors and trainers) in the Jewish colonies as well. I've often wondered why, when the Jewish people fled the failing Russia, they almost always settled in the large cities, like Chicago, New York, etc. It seems that very few took advantage of the homestead act, which provided each family with 160 acres, in places like Kansas & Nebraska. To what extent was this caused by the rule of a Sabbath's day walk, I wonder.

[barnhart]

Neto, how different were the social and economic conditions you describe from the conditions that mennonites followed in de-populating and de-populating the american midwest.