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

, it bolstered the posi- tion in the 1902 Confession of Faith that recognized all true born again believers, irrespective of organizational and con- fessional affiliation, as brothers and sisters in Christ. This strong inter-confessional position was a source of serious ten- sion, since many of the culturally isolated Mennonites in Rus- sia felt threatened by the prospect of closer fellowship with believers from other confessions. Jacob W. Reimer, called the pioneer of Alliance move- ments among the Mennonite Brethren, offered untiring leader- ship in relating to believers of other groups and vigorously taught the oneness of all true believers. The forming of the Alliance Mennonite Brethren fellowship in Lichtfelde, Molotschna (1905), later called the Licbtfelder Gemeinde, must be accepted as a direct result of the influence of Blankenburg. This influence, even though strongly resisted by the majority of Mennonite Brethren, paved the way for a more conciliatory relationship between fellow believers in the Mennonite world. The periodical Das Allianz Blatt enlarged the growing sense of the oneness of all believers and openness to other fellowships. Published in Germany during the first quarter of the century, it circulated widely in Mennonite Brethren homes. Blankenburg also affected the long and difficult struggle 125 A PILGRIMAGE OF FAITH over open and closed communion, Jacob W. Reimer met se- vere opposition for his effort to widen the fellowship of the Mennonite Brethren by accepting believers not baptized by immersion. In fact, a resolution to excommunicate him was introduced at a Ruekenau conference (just prior to the out- break of the First World War). But the love and warmth of Reimer's testimony, and his insistence that even severance would not diminish his concern for his opponents, stayed the resolution.21 Thus it can be said that the resolution passed at the Mennonite Brethren convention in Winnipeg in 1963 to al- low non-immersed believers into the membership of the church has a long history dating back to the contact of the Mennonite Brethren with the Blankenburg Conference and the Pietistic movements of Western Europe between 1890 and While much good can be said for this positive Pietistic im- pact, other strains of influence were less beneficial The Dar- byistic system of scriptural interpretation with its tight escha- tology also came to the Mennonite Brethren through Blanken- burg, Jacob W. Reimer, the prophetic voice in eschatology both in Russia and Canada, developed his basic system of in- terpretation through his contacts with the