A History of the Mennonite Brethren Church, Ja Toews

rcent accepted alternative service, either farm or reconstruction work; and 30 percent remained in the camps until the close of the war, most of these not having had an opportunity to appear before the Board of Inquiry. 22 In discussing this phase of M.B. history, J. H. Lohrenz makes a positive evaluation of the stand taken by members of the church. He claims (although without documentation) that members of the M.B. Church "refused combatant service (and that) most of them declined any form of service within the military establishment. . . ."" The experiences during the war shook the churches in their complacency and many brethren began to rethink the teachings of Christ with regard to nonresistance and peace. In spite of the apparently good record of most young men from M.B. churches, the feeling was widespread that the brotherhood had not been adequately prepared for the tests of faith and practice that the war had brought. (It might be mentioned here that up to 1919 the M.B. Conference had not issued a single statement on the subject of nonresistance, and there had also been no committee in charge of peace and nonresistance concerns.) The 1919 conference constitutes a significant landmark in the history of the brotherhood with regard to this aspect of Christian GIVING TO CAESAR 349 discipleship. At the convention held in Mountain Lake, Minnesota, that year the delegates accepted a statement which reaffirmed the historic Anabaptist-Mennonite position with regard to war and military service. The statement, written as a supplement to paragraph sixty-six in the Confession of Faith, begins thus: . . . On the matter of war we believe and confess, that the way it is waged by the worldly powers, it is manifestly contrary to the principles of the kingdom of Christ, and therefore our members are forbidden to participate in it. We much more have to wage a spiritual warfare against the powers of darkness . . . (There follow a number of Scripture quotations). 24 The same conference also created a Committee on Nonresistance to which H. W. Lohrenz, Gerhard Wiens, and John Berg were appointed. This committee was reelected at the 1921 convention. That the social concerns of the Mennonite Brethren in that immediate post-war period went far beyond the question of the church's relation to government service can be seen in the decision of the conference to send a special "letter of thanksgiving" (Dankschrift) to President Warren G. Harding in late 1921. The letter is one of recognition for the President's interest in disarmament and the abolition of war." Three years later, however, the Committee on Nonresistance presented a report which expressed a concern about the ultimate objective of certain "peace conferences" which members had attended. According to the report, the aim of these conferences appears to be the creation of a "warless world" which the brethren found unscriptural. 26 In 1927 the Southe