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

not a matter of national restoration but rather de- pended on personal, individual response to God's provision of redemption.21 Henry W. Lohrenz, a contemporary of William Bestvater, RE. Penner, and J.W. Reimer did not write specifically on es- chatology except in his wider exegetical exposition of Scrip- ture, Some of his eschatological thinking, which balanced the more extreme views of some of his contemporaries, can be gleaned from his writings on 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians 15, and Matthew 24 and 25.22 The Sermon on the Mount, which some dispensationalists saw as kingdom ethics applicable to the restoration of the Jewish nation, Lohrenz identified as appropriate for the church in all times. He treated the eschatological references in Thessalonians in the context of the character and life of the people of God in the light of Christ's expected return. Like- wise, his extensive writings on the resurrection dwelt on Christian character rather than on any timetable of events. For Lohrenz, the focal point of eschatological interest was clearly the importance of the blessed hope for the life of the church,23 On the matter of dispensational certainty he may have held the position of John A. Toews, one of his contem- poraries, who stated: "It could be that the unfolding of the es- chatological events will follow the timetable of the dispensa- tional chart of William Bestvater and J.W, Reimer. I would feel much more at ease, however, if these brethren would say 'it could be so' instead of their insistence, 'it will be so'."24 A 1907 article by Abram Kroeker, editor of the Friedens- stimme, entitled "Die darbystiscbe Gefahf (the danger of Dar- byistic eschatology) indicated uneasiness with this eschatology in the Mennonite Brethren Church at the turn of the century. In his concern he pointed to prominent evangelicals of the 112 ESCHATOLOGY: NOT WITH ONE VOICE day-Hudson Taylor, George Miller and A. Baedecker-who had disassociated themselves from the dogmatic eschatology of Darbyism. Kroeker's voice in the early days of this century was strongly representative of the wider Mennonite Brethren fellowship,25 STRONG CENTRAL FOCUS What does this eschatological ferment, this tolerance of widely divergent views, suggest about the Mennonite Brethren Church before 1950? First, eschatology clearly occupied a central place in the Mennonite Brethren consciousness. None of the variations re- lated to the central teachings of Scripture: the Lord's return, the rapture of the church, the resurrection of the dead, the judgment, and the consummation of the