{"id":248,"date":"2011-02-24T10:11:28","date_gmt":"2011-02-24T10:11:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/?p=248"},"modified":"2012-03-02T14:20:59","modified_gmt":"2012-03-02T19:20:59","slug":"new-look-at-anabaptists-in-post-1500s-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/2011\/02\/24\/new-look-at-anabaptists-in-post-1500s-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"New Look at Anabaptists In Post-1500s Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div id=\"attachment_249\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-249\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-249\" src=\"\/\/emu.edu\/now\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/54\/2011\/02\/IMG_2754_opt-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-249\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mary Sprunger, MA, PhD (U. of Illinois), history professor at EMU.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Mark Jantzen, Bethel associate professor of history, and his  colleague <a href=\"\/personnel\/people\/show\/sprungms\">Mary Sprunger<\/a> (both Bethel graduates, in 1985 and 1984,  respectively), professor of history at EMU, were co-planners for  \u201cMarginal or Mainstream? Anabaptists, Mennonites and Modernity in  European Society,\u201d a conference held on the Bethel (Kan.) campus June  25-26, 2010.<\/p>\n<p>The thesis of the conference was that Mennonites \u2013 far from  retreating into obscurity after the 16th century, as standard textbooks  suggest \u2013 were an important influence on European economics, politics,  religion and other areas of society over the next centuries, into the  \u201cmodern era.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Questions included the negative and positive aspects of Mennonite  participation in European economies as well as the growing need to face  issues of wealth and privilege; the particular experience of Dutch  Mennonites, who experienced societal tolerance much earlier and  therefore assimilated faster; the complex relationship between theology  and culture and whether to speak of theology was even appropriate; and  the extent to which European Mennonites set their own agenda or had it  set by the state or \u201cthe world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Both Jantzen and Sprunger were surprised and pleased by the  number and diversity of conference attenders. \u201cI was expecting 50 or so,  100 at the most,\u201d Jantzen says. \u201cWe had 120 registered, with at least  30 more who dropped in at different times.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI enjoyed the audience cross-section of both scholars and  laypeople,\u201d Sprunger says. \u201cIt made for a bigger audience than you often  get at these conferences. Bethel was well situated, near retirement  communities and museums, with a lot of [local] people with a deep  interest in Mennonite history.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sprunger has taught at EMU for 18 years. During the 2010-11  academic year, she is on sabbatical, writing a book on the social,  economic, and cultural dimensions of a wealthy, urban Mennonite church  during the Dutch Golden Age in the 17th century. Her sabbatical also  permits time for archival research in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and  for teaching in Nanchong, China.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2014 Largely culled from a Bethel press release by Melanie Zuercher<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mark Jantzen, Bethel associate professor of history, and his colleague Mary Sprunger (both Bethel graduates, in 1985 and 1984, respectively), professor of history at EMU, were co-planners for \u201cMarginal or Mainstream? Anabaptists, Mennonites and Modernity in European Society,\u201d a conference held on the Bethel (Kan.) campus June 25-26, 2010. The thesis of the conference was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[75,138,148],"class_list":["post-248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fallwinter-2010-11","category-magazine","tag-history","tag-mary-sprunger","tag-music","issues-fallwinter-2010-11"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":965,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions\/965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}