A Pilgrimage Of Faith, J.B. Toews, 1993

uched the sad chapter of self-defense. Some of the Mennonites viewed the suffering they experi- enced as the judgment of God for their militaiy experiment. The report of a conference in Halbstadt in 1925 expressed deep repentance for having taken up arms in self-defense, and declared anew their commitment to peace and nonresis- tance. The same conference also decided that church mem- 144 IN THE SHADOW OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION bers who violated the peace principle by accepting military service could not remain part of the church fellowship/1 The political implications of the Selbstschutz continued to haunt the Mennonites, Their image as a defenseless religious body was shattered. Young Mennonites were now inducted into the military for service. Of 131 young men who applied for exemption from military service in 1925, 1 was one of only sixty-four who received exemption on the basis of their reli- gious conviction. Forty-seven were sentenced to labor camps; twenty yielded to pressure and entered military service. From the Mennonite colonies in the Caucasus, twenty-two men were sentenced to prison; four of them died in prison and fourteen were executed. In the years that followed there were many cases of imprisonment, forced labor and execu- tion for those who declined service in the Red Army.22 The functional oneness that the Mennonite Brethren and the Mennonite Church had achieved in 1910 was invaluable. Widespread renewal could not have come without healing in this relationship. The large Bible conferences between 1918 and 1925 provided devotional mutuality. Remaining unre- solved, however, were issues of conversion as a condition of baptism, church membership and New Testament disciple- ship. At the 1924 Bible conference in the Ohrloff Mennonite Church there was open disagreement over John 3:3: "Except a man be bom again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Mennonite Church leaders insisted that it implied a process of becoming, which could also be an unconscious growth into faith, while Mennonite Brethren maintained it meant a con- scious volitional decision and change of life as suggested by John 9:25T "One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see." Differences in interpreting salvation led to a wider separation during the 1925 Bible conference in the Mennonite church in Alexanderkrone,23 The two bodies never reached official doctrinal agreement on this issue. However, they did maintain the common ground essential for their survival as a 145 A PILGRIMAGE OF FAITH Mennonite people in the difficult years that followed. The spi