[This is the speaking script for the address, not a transcript of the recorded message.  The message was not read word for word,  and there will be minor differences.  RGS]

 

RBC recorded the address.

 

Evangelicalism is hard to pin down.  I=ll go with a very basic theological definition: a trans-denominational expression of the Christian faith which emphasizes salvation and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  I=m sure I=m open to the charge that this definition is what I want evangelicalism to be, more than what it is.  Beyond a definition rooted in beliefs as we want them to be, though, it gets difficult.  Get the historians and sociologists in on the act and evangelicalism becomes impenetrable.  There would be some things we here in this room would probably all want to add to our idealized definition of evangelical faith, for example: a high regard for the scriptures, and an impulse to invite others to salvation in Christ. 

Similar things could be said about the difficulty of defining Anabaptism.  Is there a simple theological definition of Anabaptism?  The 1987 Update to the Mennonite Encyclopedia goes for an historical definition using 3 points said to have crystallized between 1525 and 1540.  I have dumbed it down. 1. Justification by Synergism with the sermon on the mount as a guide. 2. Baptism free of clerical control. 3. A community in Christ based on congregations.@ I will say up front that I have real trouble with that point on synergism, and would suggest it is a misreading for a concept of sequence, but maybe it’s just me.  I=m speaking to the theologically literate here.

Consider Harold Bender=s Anabaptist Vision from an earlier timeBthe 1940. He liked three points, too.

AFirst, a new conception of the essence of Christianity as discipleship; second, a new conception of the church as a brotherhood; and third, a new ethic of love and nonresistance.@

 Both definitions I=ve shared are thoughtful and learned.  Bender lived in a time of startling optimism on this topic, before the various scalpels of scholarship vivisected such  neat definitions.  Bender had said that AAnabaptism is the culmination of the Reformation, the fulfillment of the original vision of Luther and Zwingli, and thus makes it a consistent evangelical Protestantism seeking to recreate without compromise the original New Testament church, the vision of Christ and the apostles.@  Ah, to live in such a world when things can be said that way, but I don=t. I will say this, I agree with Bender, but with fear and trepidation, because I know that we and our 16th century counterparts are full of inconsistency and compromise.

Both definitions of Anabaptism are historical by nature.  They look back to the genesis of the movement almost 500 years ago.  By the time the historical, sociological and theological points are made in our time, what is Anabaptism today?   I=m willing to take my own stab at simple definition.  Anabaptism is an expression of the Christian faith that gives priority to the New Testament. In my experience with Anabaptism through Mennonites, I can say we may either hang on to stubbornly, or flee screaming from traditions, but in either case we are usually talking about  traditions of much more recent patent.  It is rare indeed for any modern Mennonite to think they we need to march in lockstep with any particular expression of Anabaptism that, as the article stated, Acrystallized between 1525 and 1540.@

By taking the sophisticated technological approach of squishing two things together, my very simple definition of an evangelical Anabaptist then might be put, AA Christian who emphasizes belief in salvation and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, who gives priority to the New Testament, and wishes to add that he or she has a high regard for the scriptures and a strong impulse to invite others to salvation in Christ.@

One thing is certainly true about both evangelicalism and Anabaptism in my lifetimeBthere is no end to soul-searching, re-defining, and fresh looks.  You could spend a lot of time just keeping up with the latest re-evaluations, affirmations and repudiations of both evangelicalism and Anabaptism.  You literally could spend all your time, becoming an expert on the various definitions.  There is a kind of built in problem with that kind of pursuit for both Evangelicalism and Anabaptism, namely, namely the need for a life - the living, breathing existential life in Christ.  The idea of a livable faith walks hand in hand with both evangelicalism and Anabaptism, and makes the quest for a  final best definition in academic terms a bit off center.  The quest for some definition had better maintain an eye on living the faith, or it won=t be true to either group.  With that in mind,  I=ll let the academic experts pin the dead butterfly in a shadowbox, and it may be quite beautiful, but I seem to BE an evangelical Christian, and I want to BE an Anabaptist, and  I=m sure its less than beautiful. Living things are hard to pin down, but they have the great advantage of being alive.

We must dance back and forth between the terms Anabaptist & Evangelical now. Examine one hand then the other. 

In the great soul-searching and redefining of evangelicalism, there are identifiable trends.  There is the Evangelicals are stupid and uneducated school of supposedly loyal critics.  There is the Evangelicals are immoral and hypocritical pond scum school.  Both these exercises in self-castigation speak loudly to those inside and outside the movement, who are surprised to find that evangelicals are humans after all.   In any event, watch for the next The scandal of book...fill in the deficiency.  Let us not forget another school of self-criticism the >Evangelicals produce bad art, and are cultural rubes whose aesthetic sensibilities are the worst examples of American shopping mall culture.= Of course there are sober academic and pastoral  appraisals made all the time that don=t get published.  Critics outside, critics inside.

With such deficiencies, and all of them true enough, is it any wonder that evangelicalism in my lifetime has been subject to predictable defection to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, predictable radical reactions calling for de-institutionalization, predictable cottage industry and entrepreneurial initiatives that are ready to pounce and  make the newest cutting edge of reform old before its time.  Along with these go other predictable responses: there are  predictable heels dug in as people hold on more fiercely to what they=ve known.  There are predictable pietistic dodges rooted in experiential religion, particularly, recently,  worship experience.  We are now in the closing days of an energized worship movement that attempted to redirect and rejuvenate evangelicalism through the act of worship.  That=s evangelicalism in my lifetime.

In Anabaptist redefinition, it was also predictable that mid-twentieth century confidence like Harold Bender=s would have to be submitted to re-examination.  As many of you know,  pious, devotional type definitions of Anabaptism haven given way in the last 50 years to new definitions emphasizing poly-genesis, in which 16th century Anabaptism was proven to be a very colorful place, to say the least. There are many revisionist visions of Anabaptism to choose from in the 21st century.

We have all this redefinition, refinement, and revision of terms like evangelical and Anabaptist.  In both cases, revision is an old story at this point.   Why bother having a symposium at Rosedale Bible College on Evangelical Anabaptism?  Submitting these terms to analysis is nothing new, and certainly we come late to the game.  Let me answer why it should be done. 

In all the defining and redefining, we, if I may be so bold as to speak for my colleagues for a moment,  find ourselves for want of better terms, Evangelical Anabaptists.  The terms still work, certainly not perfectly.  The existing definitions don=t say it well enough, and may cause some confusion.

Some of the other definitions have come closer than others to satisfying us, but we feel the need to say who WE are, as best we can, and we=re bold enough to suggest others may be drawn to these same ideas.  We sense that we are doing something that is not merely academic, but is part of our obligation as churchmen and womenBleaders many of us. Our definition and vision must have academic integrity, but it must be pastoral, it must be alive.  As evangelicals we see a world that is lost spiritually for whom we have the profound responsibility of serving as witnesses for Jesus Christ.  We can=t treat that as an academic issue, in the worst sense of academic. As Evangelical Anabaptists this call to evangelism comes down both family trees, and we cannot permit it to be lost.  

In short, we believe like all evangelicals in the new life in Christ, in salvation, in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  We believe in the Bible as the word of God.  We believe the church is the body of Christ held together by him, not merely the secondary sociological or historical markers that academics identify and measure.  That list makes us Evangelicals.  Were we to adopt or reject various institutions, various cultural expressions, various variations of Evangelicalism, our approach will still boil down to evangelicalism as long as we insist that an adult must make a responsible commitment to follow Jesus Christ.  When that happens they are born again through the mysterious activity of the Holy Spirit.

We are also inspired and informed by Anabaptists from 1525 down to 2007.  Some of us identify here and there with different players and factors in that  history, but we see continuity in our Anabaptism, and claim fellowship with a line of witnesses.  It goes without saying  that it is more complicated than Bender indicated, and that it would be an uneasy relationship in many times and place.  We struggle to get along in our own time, its that much worse reaching down through the centuries.  I keep toying with the idea that I would have made a good Waterlander, but I=m still working on that...

All the criticism and soul searching of contemporary Evangelicalism employs a lot of academics, sells a lot of magazines and books, and generally for a group of people said to be unreflective, must surely indicate a group that tolerates an almost unprecedented amount of  merciless self-criticism.  If it doesn’t kill us, it can only make us stronger.  No amount of falsity exposed in the broader movement nor refinement of perspective, has changed my  mind that the central question of human existence is the possibility of a new life in Christ.

The academic revision of Anabaptism, on the other hand,  comes largely from within the Mennonite world but it hasn=t really spoken for us.  The revisionists  have consistently identified, pietism, evangelicalism, or fundamentalism as the intruders in Anabaptist Christianity. Fair enough, we=ll consider their evidence.   But quite consistently and conspicuously they have failed  to state that theological liberalism is the real intruder,  the interloper, the  foreign element in our time.  In short, Anabaptism deprived of the New Birth, unmoored from confidence of a univocal inspired Bible doesn’t look like Anabaptism at all to us.  If an Anabaptist subspecies with such features  has been discovered, it=s interesting but not compelling.  That group didn’t speak for us then or now.

We are certainly not alone in affirming the indivisibility of evangelicalism and Anabaptism. Yet at these symposia we’re hoping to find our own way of looking at it.  There are other formulations. There are some, I=m assuming more than one, that have an added  layer of social activism of which I=m a little suspicious.  To me, it looks different.  The first commitment of (ESA) Evangelicals for Social Action, for example, is  A to emphasize both the transformation of human lives through personal faith and also the importance of a commitment to social and economic justice as an outgrowth of Christian faith.@  I think it is safe to say ESA draws considerably upon an Anabaptist understanding of the faith, and I recognize a lot of common ground.  However, the nature of that commitment to social and economic justice, most especially the nature of the specific commitments to programs seeking social and economic justice must remain open to question.  For example, are Christian Peacemaker Teams a necessary extension of our rejection of violence?


A common concern with Anabaptist inspired evangelicalism is this idea that it is representative of the so-called evangelical left.  Speaking for myself,  I am determined  that in not stepping to the political right (a mistake many evangelicals have made) that I must not step to the political left.  Wouldn’t it be better to not step in the direction of social activism at all?  There is a type of evangelical Anabaptism, arising from very compatible notions, which, ironically  like much of evangelicalism, has decided that social responsibility means a political agenda. In reacting to the uncritical identification of national interests and patriotism with the kingdom of God that has plagued Evangelicalism, I won=t fooled again by stepping to the left.  It is nonetheless a healthy and timely challenge to us here at RBC in defining our Evangelical Anabaptism to prove that our agenda isn’t really no agenda at all when it comes to ideas of service motivated by the love or Christ in our lives. Our evangelism, on the one hand,  must be distinguished from that species of evangelical that has reduced the gospel almost to jingoism, and also our Anabaptism likewise must be distinguished from an identification with its mirror image on the left.

We could pile up other similar examples of varieties Anabaptism that approximate, but don=t match our own Evangelical version.  Such challenges are nothing new.  For example, would our ethics require us to become Hutterite like Anabaptists renouncing private property? It doesn=t speak for me.  Would our commitments require us to move to that type of Mennonite conservativism that I believe is held captive by ascetic and isolationist impulses that severely restrict involvement with the world.  If we’re honest, our particular Mennonite world here at RBC has rejected that model for the most part, and in large measure rejected it because it isn’t really evangelical. It is almost monastic. I=m sure that culturally conservative Mennonites  would protest the characterization, but I’ll leave it to them to explain how their churches are populated by people from the same ethnic group with a mere handful of German surnames, if they are truly evangelical.  I think we can talk about all this stuff in good cheer and mutual respect, can=t we?

Increasingly I find that the question, >who cares?= is not so unintelligent.  There are a lot people challenging a discussion such as we’re having in this Symposium with a Awho cares?@  Kicking evangelical Christianity is kicking a dead horse. Anabaptism is unheard of, but stick a fork in Evangelicalism it=s done.  They have already moved on to new expressions. I understand and relate to the impulse.  You know how this goes in church history.  The church finds a way to render the older discussions arcane by simply running in a different direction altogether.  Often the players doing this are convinced that their direction signifies a shift of direction of such enormous significance that all preceding movements and concerns are left to the historians. Christians have made these kinds of pious dodges almost from the beginning.  Today in our own evangelical world we have the various post-modern, emergent church discussions.  How do they fit in to this discussion?  Will these new trends prove that evangelicalism is a dinosaur that ought to have the decency to die?

My guess is that they do not change our discussion here much at all.   I=ll venture that they will not turn out too radical for us, and that they will probably prove to not be very radical at all.  They may well challenge the cultural packaging of evangelicalism, but I think they still have to answer some of the questions Anabaptism puts forth.

Clearly, as someone who endured an undergraduate education as a Christian in the hands of secular modernists, you won=t hear me complain about this putative shift into post-modernity.  I can deal with it.  On top of that, though, I=ll say I am always amused when someone paints a picture of the supposedly paradigm-shifted world of today, and  it sounds so very similar to the world I grew up in.

It can go without saying that new directions, to a large extent just reinvent the startling invention of  the wheel, and when sufficient time passes and the newest exciting, purely spiritual, never-make-the-same-mistakes again movement begins to institutionalize, people will once again say there is nothing new under the sun.

I am a little weary of  pronouncements of fundamental shifts in thinking and consciousness, and in particular, those that indicate we’ve  reached some terminal junction.  It may well be the nature of today=s intellectual trends to shift more rapidly than at any time in history in keeping with the speed at which information is disseminated and processed.   Today=s post-modernity may end up in tomorrow=s rediscovered empiricism, and literally TOMORROW or maybe the next day.

I will make some specific challenges to the Awho cares it=s all over anyway@ critics.  How will you exclude dangerous and destructive ideas, if it is not through critical Bible reading and discussions that argue points to conclusions as opposed to reporting on everyone=s feelings?  Will intuition and good intentions keep people from prejudice and superstition?  I think Evangelical Anabaptism might be flexible enough to keep us from going down on the ship of modernism, but protect us from the excesses and wrong turns that new, energetic movements always make.

I only hope the new movements will be radical enough.  Because personally, I don=t really care who wants to pierce their navels and tattoo their faces, but I do wonder whether as followers of Jesus Christ a believer can resist popular patriotism that sends Christians to war. As much as the discussion of epistemology intrigues me, in practical terms I wonder how the emergent crowd will understand pastoral authority  in the church, how they will process thorny divorces and remarriages, what they will do when some of THEM are over 50 and a few of them have a whole lot more money than the rest of them. I wonder whether they will send children to public schools, and how they will define a successful life, and what it will mean to them to pursue excellence.  I=m wondering if they will not reflect most of the same pathologies of the established church, and wind up being not much of an alternative to our host societies.  I suppose I=m crazy enough to suggest some Anabaptist models.

Not conforming to the mainstream is business as usual for Anabaptists, but for those not informed by a clear Biblical picture of what they are conforming to, it may turn out that they merely conform to various fragmentary visions of life. Most of those fragmentary visions will present very old moral challenges to God=s people. What will it mean to be different, if you are in a subgroup that expresses Pharisaic pride in looking and acting different?  Put on a golf shirt and look like everyone else? Those changes that Jesus makes in his followers, that coax us away from our sinful inclinations are not going to be any different reaching across the sub-cultural borders of the 21st century than they ever have.  Adultery will remain adultery, greed will remain greed, self-absorption will remain the enemy of selfless love, and the blinking lights of the world will still distract our gaze from our heavenly destination.  And those being called out of this world will still be rejecting it, and still be sticking out like a sore thumb.

When all is said and done and sorted out culturally, I still share this evangelical impulse that sees a lost world and can not sit quietly on Jesus= offer of salvation.  I can tolerate a wide variety of expressions of faith as long as it includes that as a primary focus.

 Evangelical beliefs if extended consistently and logically not only support, but require an Anabaptist expression of the faith. Let us turn to the specific issues we wish to put out to our Evangelical friends for discussion.  We challenge our evangelical family to examine our claim that the New Testament must take priority over the Old, and that when it does, it will lead to a different picture of the Christian life than we see in much Evangelicalism, which will call for a renunciation of violence, and a stronger sense of what it means to be on a narrow way and thus non-conformed to the world.


Anabaptist evangelicalism would have avoided the disastrous identity of Jesus Christ with politics and culture in North America that have surely contributed to the failed evangelism of our time.  And I add, not just failed evangelism, but FAILED Evangelicalism.   So at this time, on the eve of an election year,  when many Evangelicals will be calling for a renewed effort to  restore or strengthen the close identity of the nation with the church and the gospel, we must challenge Evangelicals as to the wisdom of this.  It=s a mistake, a common mistake, rooted in a move made first I suppose by Constantine, but which can only be sustained by making a series, and  a very selective series at that, of extensions from the religion of the Hebrew scriptures to the church.

  Is it bearing good fruit? Is it helping spread the gospel?  Is it bringing light and healing? Is it seasoned with salt, so to speak?  I suggest that it is crippling evangelism both in our country and outside of it, that its tone is increasingly shrill and desperate, and that it fundamentally cannot be compatible with the spirit of Jesus because of its naive belief in the value of worldly political power and violence.

In conclusion,  the challenge for this year=s symposium must be to Anabaptists.  I challenge those who want to hold on to Anabaptism that the New Birth, the call to Christ, a solid evangelical soteriology, that invites sinners to salvation without mumbling can=t be a lesser priority.  I don=t want Anabaptism without conversion, and the world doesn=t need Anabaptism without it.  We can=t allow Anabaptism to be held captive on the one side to a tourist attraction religion no matter how refreshing or romantic it might appear if it is clearly not a viable choice for a sinner in the 21st century.  On the other side we can=t reduce faith in Christ and eternal salvation to a series of social commitments that for all intents and purposes are the image of a liberal Protestantism ethos, and  its naive embrace of various progressive pet projects.  Anabaptism is more than human community of gentle seekers believe in the right causes.

 

[This is the speaking script for the address, not a transcript of the recorded message.  The message was not read word for word,  and there will be minor differences.  RGS]