Five-part series marks 500th anniversary of Anabaptism
It was a hard time to be a pacifist during World War I.
When the U.S. officially entered the war in 1917, American Mennonites and other Anabaptists largely held fast to the pacifistic stance of nonresistance. Young Mennonite men were conscripted into military training camps upon the government’s promise they wouldn’t be coerced into service against their conscience. Some accepted noncombatant roles and served in medical or supply and support services, while others were allowed to work on farm furloughs or went to Europe to serve with the Friends Reconstruction Unit, said Dr. Andrew Suderman, associate professor in theology, peace, and mission at EMU.
“The War Department, however, in fact, intended to persuade as many pacifists as possible to join the war crusade,” he said.
A number of conscientious objectors (COs) were court-martialed and sent to prison, he said, with some COs used as test subjects during the war. These tests included “positional resiliency”—forcing COs to maintain uncomfortable or strenuous positions for extended periods, often under harsh conditions—as well as nutritional limits and needs. “In other words,” Suderman said, “how few calories does a human actually need to live?”
“Due to this conflict … some European Mennonites saw the need for Mennonites from different nations to come together and wrestle with what it means to be a community of faith that spans different nationalities, including the nationalities that were in conflict with each other,” he said. “This led in June of 1925 to the first gathering of the Mennonite World Conference, which also commemorated the 400-year anniversary of the Anabaptist movement.”
The professor, who serves as director of global partnerships at Mennonite Mission Network and as the secretary of Mennonite World Conference’s Peace Commission, delivered the fifth and final installment in the “Anabaptism 1525/2025: Five Centuries, Five Lectures” series on Thursday evening in Martin Chapel. He spoke about the history of Anabaptism in the 20th century and explored how the faith movement, which began in Europe and largely remained in the North Atlantic region during its first four centuries, has become a truly global phenomenon.
Today, there are over 2 million Christians in the world who identify as Anabaptists, he said, including 72% of whom live in the Global South or “Majority World.” Suderman shared his own experiences of witnessing the Mennonite presence and influence in Colombia and South Africa.
The lecture series was sponsored by the Shenandoah Mennonite Historians, planned by Caleb Schrock-Hurst ’18, MA ’22, and Elwood Yoder ’81, and partially funded by the Kennel-Charles Lecture Series at Eastern Mennonite School (EMS). It featured five speakers who traced the journey of the Anabaptist movement throughout the five centuries. Starting on Thursday, Jan. 30 (video link), Dr. John D. Roth, project director of MennoMedia’s Anabaptism at 500 initiative, highlighted the emergence of Anabaptism in the 1500s. On Feb. 6 (video link), Dr. Mary Sprunger, professor of history at EMU, spoke about how Anabaptists were already in places and positions of wealth and privilege by the 1600s. On Feb. 13 (video link), longtime EMS teacher Yoder shared how Anabaptists in the 1700s were pressured because of their faith and how it challenged some of the social norms. On Feb. 20 (video link), Schrock-Hurst, a member of the Virginia Mennonite Conference, highlighted the ways Mennonites were affected by and leaned into modernization during the 1800s. This lecture series was a grassroots collaboration by historians, theologians, and church leaders to mark the 500th anniversary of Anabaptism.
In his lecture, Suderman spoke about the dangers of continued deconstruction of the Anabaptist narrative. “Because of our growing distance from life-and-death struggles, perhaps largely because of our general affluence when compared to the rest of the world, Anabaptism too easily becomes a concept that we can debate rather than an embodied way of life,” he said. “Our global companions, however, experience Anabaptism as a life-giving, emancipatory way of being in the world.”
Watch his lecture on YouTube here.
The Shenandoah Mennonite Historians have promoted the study, interest, and awareness of Mennonite history since 1993. They conduct tours, hold an annual meeting, and produce a quarterly journal called Shenandoah Mennonite Historian. The Historian officers who endorsed this lecture series are Jim Hershberger, Chair; EMU Professor Emeritus of History, Gerald Brunk; Jim Rush; Gary Smucker; Norman Wenger; and Elwood Yoder.
Learn more here: mennonitearchivesofvirginia.net
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