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

"von der Erde reiss mich lof (From this earth O Lord detach me)44 were favorites sung repeatedly in churches and in homes. Our early Mennonite Brethren may not always have been correct in defining their relationship to society, but one can- not deny their deep, sincere effort to live as a people in the world but not of the world. 80 CHAPTER 7 A Missionary Movement hile the Mennonite Brethren were conscious of being a missionary movement, they did not claim to have a unique theology of mission. The Anabaptist movement of the sixteenth century and the belief in the "believers church" nourished their missionary vision.1 ANABAPTIST ROOTS The Anabaptists were among the first Christian groups fol- lowing the apostolic era to see the Great Commission as bind- ing upon all church members.2 Their missionary energy was legendary. But by the nineteenth century this vitality had largely vanished. With regard to evangelism, the Mennonites of Russia seemed to share the view held by many other Protestants-that the Great Commission had been a specific as- signment to the apostles and had expired with them. This casual view would have horrified sixteenth-century Anabaptists for whom personal salvation was crucial. For them "the world was populated with two kinds of people-those who witness and those who are witnessed to. For them there was no third category."5 As the redeemed com- munity, the church, their task was to witness to the world con- cerning God's redemption. To be the church, and to evange- lize, were interdependent tasks. Mennonite theologian John Howard Voder said that the Anabaptists "considered evange- lism as belonging to the essential being of the church."4 The sixteenth century Anabaptists rejected the broadly in- clusive Corpus Christianum of the state church. A church of born-again believers was not part of the kingdom of this world. The Kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world 81 A PILGRIMAGE OF FAITH were diametrically opposed to each other, as opposite as light and darkness.5 According to George H, Williams, the propo- nents of the Radical Reformation viewed the whole territorial Christianity-Protestant scarcely less than Catholic-as anti-Chris- tian or sub-Christian, Nominal Christianity was part of the world, thus in need of the message of redemption,6 Matthew 28:18-20 and Mark 16-15, which appear more frequently in the confessions of faith and in the testimonies of the Anabaptists than any other portions of Scripture, were a call to obedience to the Great Commission.7 To receive per- sonal salvation meant Nachfolge-to