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Just finished reading Stories: How Mennonites Came to Be by John D. Roth.  I got this book at Rosedale where Roth was a speaker at a conference last fall.  I have read some Anabaptist history and the history of various periods but I have never read a comprehensive beginnings-to-present story of the Mennonites.  I’m glad I read the book.  I feel like it filled in some of the gaps in my knowledge of how the Mennonites of today descended from the Anabaptists.

This book is a short survey considering the amount of time and material it covers, but it is intense reading.  It is also presented in a very relevant way.  As a conservative Anabaptist-Mennonite it is very interesting to see the story presented in context of the larger Mennonite church.  The book has very little to say about the more conservative Anabaptist groups of today, focusing on what is facing the Mennonite churches associated with the Mennonite World Conference.  How the Mennonite church should relate to other churches is a primary question toward the end of the book.  Mennonites have borrowed heavily from other Christian traditions and Roth seems to present this book as a word of instruction or even warning to Mennonites who are conflicted about where they are headed.

Here is an example of the sort of question John Roth asks in the closing of the book.

“Are Mennonite teachings basically variations on a set of doctrines held in common by all Christians, or should Mennonites think of their theology as coming directly from the life and teachings of Jesus, quite independent of the larger Christian tradition?”

Many of the questions that are asked seem to arise, in my opinion, from the fact that the larger Mennonite church is almost indistinguishable from modern evangelical Christian churches.  Some of today’s Mennonite churches lean toward the liberal post-modern element in popular Christianity.  Some other congregations or denominations blend well with conservative (politically and theologically) evangelicals.  Either way the things that used to be a part of Mennonite identity are fading fast.  Roth says,

“…Mennonites in North America during the closing decades of the twentieth century have also been eager to shed their image as a fringe group associated with the conservative Amish or the liberal peaceniks.  They have increasingly borrowed a theological vocabulary from conservative evangelical Protestantism that has eased their transition into the public Christianity of American culture.  As a result, such teachings as believers baptism, nonresistance, a life of discipleship, and a disciplined church recede to the background, and a growing number of Mennonites are unwilling (or unable) to state what it is – other than the name on their church sign – that distinguishes them from anyone else.”

I would recommend this book as an excellent outline of Mennonite history from the perspective of a mainstream Mennonite historian, that is useful for anyone wanting a big picture of the subject.  Its characterization of Mennonites today excludes what I think are important elements but the book is supposed to be a “compact digest” as the cover says.  Even so I think that the one fault of the book is that the relevance of other more conservative expressions of Anabaptist faith are not mentioned.  But what else would one expect from a Goshen history prof?   By the way I sat across the table from Mr. Roth one day at lunch.  A very nice person – it was a pleasure to have this image with me as I read this book.

Oh another thing that bothers me every time I pick up the book.  What on earth is the cover illustration?  Some kind of abstract modern excuse for art, or what?   Who knows, someone may actually find this post that knows the answer.