Transitioning toward historic anabaptism

[cmbl]

cmbl, you can tell me if you want this discussed elsewhere...

It seems to me that some groups of Anabaptists are transitioning towards historic Anabaptism in some ways while transitioning away from it in other ways. I'd even go so far as to suggest that most groups are doing this. Each group picks out a few things they want to focus on that is in harmony with early Anabaptists while doing one or more of the following.
1. adopting from a smorgasbord of other ideas and practices that most early Anabaptists would be quite shocked at
2. trying to freeze certain contemporary or "golden era" ideas or practices that most early Anabaptists would be quite shocked at
3. resorting to maintenance mode which results in the net value decreasing each generation because of energy degradation and dissipation

I think that is worthy of its own thread, not because I want it "off" of "mine," but because it's a subtle and very interesting topic in its own right.

[MennoSimons1998]

• Dante's Divine Comedy

Wow very interesting to see Dante be cited on an Anabaptist to-read list!, what is the relation and appreciation that historical Anabaptists had to the Divine Comedy?, I already know that German Lutherans had very a positive view of it (often more than German Catholics) despite it being a Roman Catholic work.

(I am asking this as an Italian person currently living in Italy myself, Dante is still very beloved here til this day as the father of the Italian language!)

[barnhart]

cmbl, you can tell me if you want this discussed elsewhere...

It seems to me that some groups of Anabaptists are transitioning towards historic Anabaptism in some ways while transitioning away from it in other ways. I'd even go so far as to suggest that most groups are doing this. Each group picks out a few things they want to focus on that is in harmony with early Anabaptists while doing one or more of the following.
1. adopting from a smorgasbord of other ideas and practices that most early Anabaptists would be quite shocked at
2. trying to freeze certain contemporary or "golden era" ideas or practices that most early Anabaptists would be quite shocked at
3. resorting to maintenance mode which results in the net value decreasing each generation because of energy degradation and dissipation

I think that is worthy of its own thread, not because I want it "off" of "mine," but because it's a subtle and very interesting topic in its own right.

Cmbl, what is the historic Anabaptism you refer to in the title. The first decade?

[JohnH]

• Dante's Divine Comedy

Wow very interesting to see Dante be cited on an Anabaptist to-read list!, what is the relation and appreciation that historical Anabaptists had to the Divine Comedy?, I already know that German Lutherans had very a positive view of it (often more than German Catholics) despite it being a Roman Catholic work.

(I am asking this as an Italian person currently living in Italy myself, Dante is still very beloved here til this day as the father of the Italian language!)

Most Anabaptists wouldn’t read this or have any idea what it even is.

[Jaran]

• Dante's Divine Comedy

Wow very interesting to see Dante be cited on an Anabaptist to-read list!, what is the relation and appreciation that historical Anabaptists had to the Divine Comedy?, I already know that German Lutherans had very a positive view of it (often more than German Catholics) despite it being a Roman Catholic work.

(I am asking this as an Italian person currently living in Italy myself, Dante is still very beloved here til this day as the father of the Italian language!)

Several caveats. First, this is, as I said above, "a partial list of the books that helped me, not necessarily as a list that I would recommend to you." In other words, I wouldn't call this an "Anabaptist to-read list." Secondly, I'm not a Dante scholar. Much of it was too dense or culturally loaded for me to make sense of. I read it as an assignment under the guidance of a medievalist teacher. The work made an impression on me, and I returned to it several times since, still not quite grasping everything.

Divine Comedy and Newbigin's Proper Confidence had a similar effect on me in the way they situate knowing and knowing God as relational feats. I am especially moved by the final lines of the final canto where the pilgrim is arriving at the destination of his quest and finds God:

... just like a wheel
That spins so evenly it measure time
By space, the deepest wish that I could feel
And all my will, were turning with the love
That moves the sun and all the stars above.

The closer he gets to God, the more he realizes that God's love has infiltrated his will and is driving his actions. This same love that can motivate the human will is what keeps the universe in motion. My task is that of Dante's pilgrim: to seek relational proximity with God and to thereby know him and see the world as it really is.

What does this mean for me as an Anabaptist? I can take courage in my role in the world as a relational being who is increasingly being motivated by the love of God. My role as a knower is therefore subordinate to my role as a relational creature. As a conservative Mennonite, I have been fostered in an environment that is inextricably relational. When I partake of communion, my brothers and sisters want confidence that, "I am at peace with God and my fellow man," a relational claim and a very Anabaptist-ish stance and is somewhat different from the obsession with propositions that I'm accustomed to hearing from protestant settings.

In short, Dante helped me to be better rooted in a relational approach to Christianity.

Hear this as my experience that I say as I nervously look over my shoulder, wondering if the theologians and Dante scholars are listening.

[Jaran]

• Dante's Divine Comedy

Wow very interesting to see Dante be cited on an Anabaptist to-read list!, what is the relation and appreciation that historical Anabaptists had to the Divine Comedy?, I already know that German Lutherans had very a positive view of it (often more than German Catholics) despite it being a Roman Catholic work.

(I am asking this as an Italian person currently living in Italy myself, Dante is still very beloved here til this day as the father of the Italian language!)

Most Anabaptists wouldn’t read this or have any idea what it even is.

What should I be reading?

What books have helped you?

[JohnH]

Wow very interesting to see Dante be cited on an Anabaptist to-read list!, what is the relation and appreciation that historical Anabaptists had to the Divine Comedy?, I already know that German Lutherans had very a positive view of it (often more than German Catholics) despite it being a Roman Catholic work.

(I am asking this as an Italian person currently living in Italy myself, Dante is still very beloved here til this day as the father of the Italian language!)

Most Anabaptists wouldn’t read this or have any idea what it even is.

What should I be reading?

What books have helped you?

I have no objection at all. I think it’s a good book to read, and is particularly foundational to Western history, intellectual, and the enlightenment. I was just saying it’s not something Anabaptists either early or present have given much thought to, and rarely would read or even recognise.

Some current favourites of mine are Jacques Ellul and Christopher Lasch. I feel an urge to pick up Wendell Berry right now in respect of his recent passing, tho.

[joshuabgood]

Most Anabaptists wouldn’t read this or have any idea what it even is.

What should I be reading?

What books have helped you?

I have no objection at all. I think it’s a good book to read, and is particularly foundational to Western history, intellectual, and the enlightenment. I was just saying it’s not something Anabaptists either early or present have given much thought to, and rarely would read or even recognise.

Some current favourites of mine are Jacques Ellul and Christopher Lasch. I feel an urge to pick up Wendell Berry right now in respect of his recent passing, tho.

Some how I got this far in my life without reading Wendell Berry. (I read only about him...). I know that this has to end now...

[Jaran]

I have no objection at all. I think it’s a good book to read, and is particularly foundational to Western history, intellectual, and the enlightenment. I was just saying it’s not something Anabaptists either early or present have given much thought to, and rarely would read or even recognise.

Gotcha. Yeah. You're right, I think.

Some current favourites of mine are Jacques Ellul and Christopher Lasch. I feel an urge to pick up Wendell Berry right now in respect of his recent passing, tho.

That's a good list. I just got into Ellul for the first time this year, haven't heard of Lasch (though I'll look into him), and have been meaning to get into Berry since I keep hearing about him with high praise. Thanks for sharing.

[HondurasKeiser]

I have no objection at all. I think it’s a good book to read, and is particularly foundational to Western history, intellectual, and the enlightenment. I was just saying it’s not something Anabaptists either early or present have given much thought to, and rarely would read or even recognise.

Gotcha. Yeah. You're right, I think.

Some current favourites of mine are Jacques Ellul and Christopher Lasch. I feel an urge to pick up Wendell Berry right now in respect of his recent passing, tho.

That's a good list. I just got into Ellul for the first time this year, haven't heard of Lasch (though I'll look into him), and have been meaning to get into Berry since I keep hearing about him with high praise. Thanks for sharing.

I think you would like Lasch. He's not easily boxed into the liberal/conservative binary. My favorite work is The Revolt of the Elites and my wife's is the The Culture of Narcissism