A History of the Mennonite Brethren Church, Ja Toews

g evangelicals in Russia, the Baltic States and Germany. After he moved to Wernigerode am Harz, Germany, in 1910, he began to publish his classic Old Testament studies, entitled Das Lebendige Wort (the Living Word) which appeared in eight volumes. A number of other smaller devotional and doctrinal books were published by this gifted man, who according to Christian Neff, was "recognized as a theologian by leaders of the German, Swiss, and Dutch, Lutheran and Reformed Churches."" A missionary paper Dein Reich Komme! (Thy kingdom come) was also published by Jakob Kroeker for a number of years. In 1876 Abraham Unger of Einlage had published the "Baptist" Confession of Faith which was regarded with a considerable amount of uneasiness by the brotherhood as a whole. This growing uneasiness finally resulted in the appointment of a study commission in 1898, to compare the Einlage confession with the first official Mennonite Brethren confession, commonly known as the 1853 Rudnerweide confession and all subsequent doctrinal statements, and then make appropriate recommendations in the light of the present (1898) understanding and need. -'' After attempts at revision proved unsatisfactory, a new draft was written in 1900. This Confession of Faith, accepted and published in 1902, became the normative confession of the Mennonite Brethren on both sides of the Atlantic and will receive further consideration in connection with the study of theological developments in the Mennonite Brethren Church. Although getting off to a late start, Mennonite Brethren publication efforts were expanding rapidly just prior to World War I. The anti-German attitudes in Russia at the outbreak of war, however, made German language papers especially vulnerable to attack from the propaganda of Slavophiles, and hence all were forced to terminate publication eventually. 4. New Frontiers in Missions As we have noted earlier, the Mennonite Brethren Church was born in an atmosphere of missions which prevailed in the Gnadenfeld Church. This emphasis on evangelism and missions has molded the faith and life of the church from its inception, and constitutes a basic ingredient in its understanding of the nature of the church. "Whereas the old church had lost most of its zeal," Gerhard Lohrenz writes, "and contented itself with peaceful coexistence, the new church soon found ways of 98 HISTORY OF THK MF.NNONITK. RRKTHREN CHURCH implementing the Great Commission." 21 Although at first the Brethren shared their faith primarily with their Mennonite neighbors, they soon began their witness to Russians who lived in villages adjacent to the Mennonite colonies. This certainly was a new and a dangerous frontier [since the law provided that "for the seduction of a member of the Orthodox Church to any other confession the guilty party will be condemned to the loss of all personal property as well as of his rights and privileges. He will be exiled