A History of the Mennonite Brethren Church, Ja Toews

ctual stagnation and a leadership with very limited mental horizons. The chief problem of church leadership of that day, however, appears to be a lack of a vital Christian experience and a living, dynamic 20 HISTORY OF THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH faith. J. F. Harms makes the sweeping statement: "Converted preachers or elders were rare exceptions." 12 Bernhard Harder, a gifted evangelist and preacher of the Ohrloff-Halbstadt Mennonite Church, was one of these "rare exceptions." He was one of the "weeping prophets" who remained in the "old" church and diligently worked for reform from within. In a letter to the Mennonitische Blaetter (a periodical of the German Mennonites), dated July 22, 1862, Harder severely criticizes the ministry in his own church. "What is lacking among us?" he asks. In the first place, there is something wrong with us — the witnesses and watchmen. A large number among us lack the very first and all-important capital "A" of Christianity: "Wake up, o man, from your sleep of sin" . . . What can be expected from complacent and self-satisfied preachers who are reluctant to do anything but read an occasional sermon which for a half century has been a part of the family heritage, without consideration whether it is relevant to the times or not ... all that we have left is a dry formalism, a shell without a kernel, a church without living members. 13 This severe indictment of the clergy basically agrees with the chief criticism of the early "Brethren" — that the ministers (Lehrer) are not taking a firm stand against the increasing decay and corruption of the church. 14 On the other hand it may be observed that the critics lacked a deeper historical perspective in their analysis, not realizing that the ministers themselves were the product of a socio-economic and ecclesiastical system, and thus could not be charged with total responsibility for existing conditions. Loss of the Biblical Church Concept For the early Anabaptists the church was a voluntary fellowship of regenerated believers, a Christian brotherhood, a community of the redeemed. Menno insisted that only those who "are born of Christ's Word by means of faith by his Spirit" are to be members of the church. 16 Baptism is an ordinance which has significance only for believers. "The holy apostles have taught and used no other baptism," Menno wrote, "than baptism upon confession of faith." 16 This concept of a believers' church was obscured and almost lost in the Russian Mennonite environment. "Appraised from the perspective of the Anabaptist conception of the church," Kreider claims, "the Mennonites in Russia forfeited at the outset the possibility of being a brotherhood-type of church . . . they accepted a system of privileges which were bound to qualifications, not of faith, but of blood." 11 One had to be an ethnic Mennonite to enjoy the privileges offered to the colonists. Because the surrounding Russian culture