Below are links to the songs from this year’s Shippensburg Christian Fellowship Men’s Chorus program. I think it’s pretty good music.
(WMA files – Mac users click here – heh)
Oh Come Ye Servants of the Lord
Dear Lord and Father of Mankind
There’s Within my Heart a Melody
The following was written by Peter Hoover to a message group on August 1 2009. I enjoyed the broad historical background. I think it is one of the more kind treatments Peter has given the movement. Peter talks of Charity as running on its plain background, not commenting much on the “remnant” (non-Anabaptist seekers) element which is obviously a large aspect. However it is still an interesting summary particularly to those interested in history.
I was surprised by the outcome of the little back-and-forth between Peter and Charity Missions over the article on the Russian Mennonites in the missions newsletter. I’m impressed that CM was willing to take down the article in question, which according to Peter was badly inaccurate. Apparently their response was generally humble and open which I think is commendable. Peter wonders near the end of this piece whether Charity’s general tone, particularly toward other plain groups, is changing to a less critical note. I think it’s possible. I never heard of Charity working together much with other plain churches until the last couple of years during which they have had several joint tent meetings with other local Mennonite and Beachy churches.
Anyway Peter writes:
The castle at Sand in Taufers, South Tyrol, Italy, where the Hutterite missionary Hans Kräl lay in a dungeon until his clothes rotted away (all but the collar of his shirt that he managed to send as a greeting to his home community). Many other South Tyrol believers got imprisoned, tortured, sold into galley slavery or burned alive.
Is it any wonder the Anabaptists of Hans Kräl’s time failed to see much good in their Roman Catholic background? Not really. Writing on notepads smuggled into gaol, or hiding in mountain forests after the capture of untold numbers of their companions, they produced a steady stream of Klagelieder (songs of lamentation) and passionate judgements on a background they considered dung, as Paul did, to gain Christ.
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