General Conference Mennonite Church

The General Conference Mennonite Church was an association of Mennonite congregations based in North America from 1860 to 2002. The conference was formed in 1860 when congregations in Iowa invited North American Mennonites to join together in order to pursue common goals such as higher education and mission work. The conference was especially attractive to recent Mennonite and Amish immigrants to North America and expanded considerably when thousands of Russian Mennonites arrived in North America starting in the 1870s. Conference offices were located in Winnipeg, Manitoba and North Newton, Kansas. The conference supported a seminary and several colleges. In the 1990s the conference had 64,431 members in 410 congregations in Canada, the United States and South America. After decades of cooperation with the Mennonite Church, the two groups reorganized into Mennonite Church Canada in 2000 and Mennonite Church USA in 2002.

Background

Mennonites first came to North America as early as 1644. The first permanent settlement was in the Germantown, Pennsylvania area when a group of 34 Mennonites and Quakers from Krefeld, Germany arrived in 1683. A total of 4000 Mennonites and 200 Amish, a closely related group, settled in eastern Pennsylvania by the 1820s. [Dyck p. 196.] This group tended to separate from their neighbors because of refusal to participate in the American Revolution, opposition to public education and rejection of religious revivalism. [Pannabecker p. 12.]

In the first half of the 19th century new waves of emigration and migration brought thousands of Mennonites to Pennsylvania, Ontario, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. By the 1860s Mennonites were found in Missouri and Iowa. The recent arrivals from Europe tended to be more educated than the eastern Pennsylvania group and had adopted new ideas and practices.

These various groups of Mennonites were loosely organized. The settlements west of Pennsylvania were scattered and had difficulty communicating with each other. A concern arose independently among these congregations for a way to connect and organize families that were scattered from Ontario to the American frontier.

Franconia Conference

By 1769 a group of 22 Mennonite congregations in eastern Pennsylvania had organized Franconia Conference. [Kaufman p. 5. Franconia Mennonite Conference is now part of Mennonite Church USA.] Member congregations sent representatives to regular meetings where policy and membership issues were discussed and decided. Decisions were based on Biblical interpretation. The group felt no need for a written constitution and no meeting minutes were recorded.

In 1842 John H. Oberholtzer became a minister within the Franconia Conference and shortly thereafter a bishop. In this role he attended the conference sessions. As a schoolteacher and locksmith, he had greater contact with the outside world than other ministers. Early on he resisted the expectation of ministers to wear a particular style of colonial coat, preferring more contemporary attire. Observing the process the more conservative members of the conference used to apply pressure to bring him in line with their expectations, it was evident to him that a clear set of rules and a fair process would be better for the conference than relying on arbitrary interpretation of scripture passages.

At a subsequent conference session Oberholtzer proposed a set of guidelines, a minimal constitution, for the organization and suggested that minutes of meetings be recorded so that decisions would be documented. When a majority of the more influential members of the conference refused to let him even present his proposal, or distribute a printed copy, a rift developed among the conference delegates.

East Pennsylvania Conference

After attempts to reconcile the two groups failed, Oberholtzer and about a quarter of the members formed a new group, the East Pennsylvania Conference. Oberholtzer purchased a hand printing press in 1851 and set it up in his locksmith shop. He began publishing "Der Religiöse Botschafter" ("the Religious Messenger") with a circulation of 400, the first successful Mennonite periodical in North America. The financial burden and the demands on his time ended the operation after three years. In 1856, with funding from 92 shareholders, the Mennonite Printing Union was organized and printing resumed with a periodical named "Das Christliche Volksblatt". Besides the periodical, books and other material were printed at this new facility. Oberholtzer's contribution as publisher and editor was to have significant influence on Mennonites in North America.

Through wide circulation of his paper, visits to Mennonites in Ontario and Ohio and correspondence with Mennonites in Europe, Oberholtzer begin developing a network of contacts with shared interests. These Mennonites were more open to interaction with other Christians and were interested in education and mission work. "Volksblatt" published reports from among the scattered North American Mennonites and from the more educated Mennonites in Europe.

Oberholtzer was particularly interested in organizing Mennonites in Ohio, Ontario and Pennsylvania for the purpose of ministering to Mennonite families scattered throughout the region. He proposed a union based on a basic set of ideals: the doctrine of salvation in Christ, the sacraments, good works and freedom in externals. [Pannabecker p. 37.] Although formal organization did not materialize, this type of cooperation was an ongoing theme in "Volksblatt".

Organizing and gathering

In the 1850s the Mennonite congregations of Franklin Center and West Point in Lee County, Iowa adopted a common constitution in order to cooperate in various projects, stressing the desire to preserve the religious faith of the small frontier groups of Mennonites. At their 1859 conference meeting a resolution was adopted to invite North American Mennonites to join this union in order to promote home and foreign missions. [Pannabecker p. 44.] This invitation was extended to all Mennonites and published in "Volksblatt".

At a meeting the following year, four individual from outside the local congregations attended the gathering, including one from Ontario and Oberholtzer from Pennsylvania. An association of Mennonite congregations was proposed that would accept any congregation, regardless of other connections, that held a basic set of Mennonite beliefs: baptism, non-swearing of oaths and the authority of Scripture. Complete freedom was to be permitted in all matters not explicitly taught in the Scriptures. [Pannabecker p. 49.] Although Mennonite beliefs such as rejection of violence were not specifically mentioned, these were assumed to be covered by the authority of Scripture.

Throughout its history, the General Conference Mennonite Church organizational structure was divided among various committees and boards. Around 1970 the boards were reorganized into commissions, including "Commission on Education" to oversee various educational activities and interests, "Commission on Home Ministries" which worked with mission activities in North America such as church planting and helping other Mennonite groups in Central and South America, "Commission on Overseas Mission" which dealt with overseas mission activities, "Higher Education Council" which worked with Mennonite colleges, "Faith & Life Press" which was the publishing and printing agency of the conference, "Ministerial Leadership Services" which worked with ministerial leadership and congregations and "Division of General Services" which oversaw the financial and business aspects of running the conference. Conference offices were maintained in Winnipeg, Manitoba and North Newton, Kansas. The conference printed two periodicals: "the Mennonite" and "Der Bote", which reached ninety percent of members' homes [Pannabecker p. 347.]

Political involvement

Mennonites in North America originally avoided political involvement if possible. This began to gradually change among General Conference Mennonites. Immigrants from Russia were slow to become citizens citing reservations over implied responsibilities, specifically military service. Those that began the naturalization process did so to participate at local polls and in national elections. [Based on a study of Kansas Mennonites. Juhnke pp. 31-33.] In the United States, the Mennonite vote was split among the major political parties until 1940 when it predominantly favored the Republican Party. [Juhnke pp. 166-174.] Philanthropist Jacob A. Schowalter (1879–1953) was an early Democratic Party officeholder but it would be two decades before academics and church leaders began emphasizing social justice and peace-related ideals that more closely aligned with the Democratic Party, with a corresponding shift in voting patterns.

One of the first Mennonites to become politically involved was Peter Jansen (1852-1923) a sheep rancher from rural Beatrice, Nebraska. Upon arriving from Russia in 1873, he met with President Grant [Kaufman p. 94.] who was interested in the proposed immigration of Mennonites from Russia. Jansen was impressed by the contrast between the pomp and glitter of Russian officialdom and the practicality he found in Washington. From that point, Jansen took an interest in politics and supported causes he felt would better his adopted country. He participated in county and state Republican conventions. Jansen was elected alternate delegate to the 1884 Republican National Convention and was a delegate-at-large to the 1896 convention that nominated William McKinley.

Jansen did not seek political office for himself, but in 1880 his neighbors elected him justice of the peace. Later he served as Nebraska state representative and then state senator. He turned down nomination for Governor of Nebraska because of the position's requirement to enforce the death penalty. [Kaufman p. 96.] In 1900 President McKinley appointed Jansen as one of twelve commissioners to the Paris World's Fair. In 1901 he represented Nebraska at the state funeral of McKinley.

One reason for early alignment with the Republican Party was self-interest in keeping commodity prices high. The Daniel Unruh (1820–1893) family produced grain and wool in Turner County, South Dakota. As a result of the Wilson-Gorman Tariff of 1894 the price of wool was so low that it just covered the cost of shipment to Chicago. As with other Mennonite farmers, Unruh's sons became strong supporters of high tariffs favored by the Republican Party. [Kaufman p. 36.]

By 1900 General Conference Mennonites were regularly voting in national elections. Pastor Andrew B. Shelly (1834-1913) openly and proudly wore the Republican lapel. [Kaufman p. 69.] His son was the district attorney and chairman of the Bucks County, Pennsylvania Republican Committee. Shelly was rumored to have told his congregation to vote for Theodore Roosevelt in the 1908 presidential election. Shelly denied this in a front-page article in the "Quakertown (Pennsylvania) Free Press".

The influence of evangelist turned politician Gerald B. Winrod among Kansas Mennonites in the 1930s is indicative of a shift toward right-wing patriotism that gained popularity among Mennonites at that time. [Juhnke pp. 137-143] The influence of Christian fundamentalism and corresponding wariness of modernism combined with Mennonite self-reliance produced an anti-Roosevelt reaction by 1940 that put General Conference Mennonites solidly behind Republican candidates for several decades.

Cooperation and reorganization

Starting in the 1940s the General Conference Mennonite Church and the Mennonite Church worked on several cooperative projects. Among these were Civilian Public Service and Mennonite Central Committee, which oversaw the Mennonite part of the CPS. In the 1950s the two groups created Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary together. Joint hymnal projects were completed in 1969 ("The Mennonite Hymnal") and 1992 ("Hymnal a Worshipbook"). A joint "Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective" [ [http://www.mennolink.org/doc/cof/ Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective.] ] was completed in 1995.

Another force in the movement towards uniting the two groups was simultaneously happening at the grassroots level. As Mennonites moved from rural areas, they formed new urban congregations, bringing together people from both denominations. These congregations would then seek affiliation in area conferences of both denominations. By the 1990s there were dozens of these dual-affiliated congregations. As cooperation between the two groups increased, overlapping area conferences began looking at ways to work together and plan for an inevitable merger.

The increasing cooperation occurred in parallel with discussions about joining the two groups. Starting in 1983, the two groups met together in joint delegate sessions from time to time. By 1989 an intentional effort was underway to devise a plan for merging the two organizations, which culminated in a 1999 delegate session where a new joint structure was approved. The transformation was completed soon thereafter in Canada and by 2002 in the United States. The two groups, General Conference Mennonite Church (GCMC) and Mennonite Church (MC), became two new national groups: Mennonite Church Canada and Mennonite Church USA.

Notes

References

*Dyck, Cornelius J. (1993). "An Introduction to Mennonite History", Third Edition, Chapter 14 "The General Conference Mennonite Church", pp. 252-276, Herald Press. ISBN 978-0-8361-3620-3
*Horsch, James E. (Ed.) (1999), "Mennonite Directory", Herald Press. ISBN 978-0-8361-9454-8
*Juhnke, James C. (1975), "A People of Two Kingdoms: the Political Acculturation of the Kansas Mennonites", Faith and Life Press. ISBN 978-0-87303-662-7
*Kaufman, Edmund G. (1973), "General Conference Mennonite Pioneers", Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas.
*Pannabecker, Samuel Floyd (1975), "Open Doors: A History of the General Conference Mennonite Church", Faith and Life Press. ISBN 978-0-87303-636-8

External links

* [http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/G4647ME.html General Conference Mennonite Church] in "Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online"