{"id":36871,"date":"2018-02-12T16:10:02","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T21:10:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=36871"},"modified":"2018-02-12T16:17:41","modified_gmt":"2018-02-12T21:17:41","slug":"brunk-impersonation-brings-to-life-menno-simons-and-his-soul-struggle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2018\/brunk-impersonation-brings-to-life-menno-simons-and-his-soul-struggle\/","title":{"rendered":"Impersonation brings to life Menno Simons and his \u2018soul struggle\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If the Catholic-priest-turned-Anabaptist-radical Menno Simons were on a speaking tour, you\u2019d expect him to make a stop at his namesake university. But he died in 1561, and so when Simons showed up last week at Eastern Mennonite University, he looked an awful lot like Gerald Brunk.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_36873\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-36873\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-36873\" src=\"\/\/emu.edu\/now\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2018\/02\/20180208-Gerald-Brunk-Menno-Simons-impersonation-010-1000px-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2018\/02\/20180208-Gerald-Brunk-Menno-Simons-impersonation-010-1000px-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2018\/02\/20180208-Gerald-Brunk-Menno-Simons-impersonation-010-1000px-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2018\/02\/20180208-Gerald-Brunk-Menno-Simons-impersonation-010-1000px.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-36873\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gerald Brunk stands by a portrait of Menno Simons. (Photo by Mia Kivlighan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Brunk, who taught in the EMU history department for 36 years and before last week had already presented his impersonation of Simons 96 times, performed \u201cMy Road to Decision\u201d in a Feb. 8 seminary chapel service. It\u2019s a bringing-to-life of the writings of Simons focused on the 11 years that culminated in his becoming an Anabaptist.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Brunk said that his years of impersonating Simons has had a \u201ctremendous impact\u201d on him.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cIt has enabled me not only to understand Menno, but to try to get some feel of what kind of struggle he went through, and what kind of revelations he had,\u201d he said: \u201cThe courage, the tremendous courage the man had, in him going out as a fugitive and preaching the word.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>A priest\u2019s \u2018soul struggle\u2019<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dressed in black robes and cap and wearing a silver cross around his neck, Brunk embodied the \u201csoul struggle\u201d that Simons faced beginning in 1525. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over the next 11 years, as he came to embrace nonviolence and the \u201cheresy\u201d of Anabaptism, Simons began to read the Bible \u2013 something that in all his monastic years he\u2019d never before done. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><aside class=\"highlight highlight-right\"><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Listen to the <a href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/podcast\/2018\/02\/08\/meet-menno-simons-an-impersonation-by-gerald-brunk\/\">seminary chapel podcast<\/a> of &#8220;My Road to Decision.&#8221;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><\/aside><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">He began to feel \u201cnagging doubt\u201d about whether during communion the wine and bread actually became the blood and flesh of Christ and about church doctrine about baptism. He scoured the Bible for clarity, and eventually concluded that scripture contradicted church teaching. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But he was still an active priest \u2013 until something happened that led him to give up the priesthood: In nearby M\u00fcnster, a group of Anabaptists attempted to establish a \u201cnew Jerusalem\u201d by violently taking over the city. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cMy brother,\u201d said Brunk speaking as Simons, \u201cwas part of a group that took over an old monastery not too far from where we are. One hundred and thirty of them were killed outright, and the rest were executed \u2013 including my brother.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Simons had read in the Bible that Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount had called for his followers to love their enemies, to do good to their persecutors. He had read that in the garden where Jesus was arrested, when his disciple Peter used his sword and sliced off the ear of the servant of the high priest, Jesus said to him, \u201cThey who use the sword will die by the sword.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Simons\u2019 brother\u2019s name was Peter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cHe had taken the sword, and he had died by the sword, just as Jesus said,\u201d Simons told the audience, \u201cand so I would write in one of my books these words: \u2018The regenerated do not go to war. Neither do they engage in strife. They are the children of peace, who have beaten their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What pushed him to act on his growing convictions, though, was seeing his brother\u2019s and others\u2019 courage to act \u2013 albeit violently \u2013 on their faith.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cMy God,\u201d he prayed, \u201cforgive me for my hypocrisy\u2026. Give me the courage to preach your word as I know it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">He began preaching Anabaptist doctrine, then stepped down from the priesthood, and later was himself rebaptised. Although he became a hunted man and faced many difficulties, he was not martyred: he married, had three children, and lived another 25 years before dying a natural death at age 66.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cWhat pains me so,\u201d Simons concluded, \u201care those who have been executed because of me, either because they gave me shelter or my family shelter, or read my books.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Awareness and appreciation<\/b><\/h3>\n<figure id=\"attachment_36874\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-36874\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-36874\" src=\"\/\/emu.edu\/now\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2018\/02\/20180208-Gerald-Brunk-Menno-Simons-impersonation-005-1000px-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2018\/02\/20180208-Gerald-Brunk-Menno-Simons-impersonation-005-1000px-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2018\/02\/20180208-Gerald-Brunk-Menno-Simons-impersonation-005-1000px-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2018\/02\/20180208-Gerald-Brunk-Menno-Simons-impersonation-005-1000px.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-36874\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gerald Brunk as Menno Simons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Seminary student David Gingerich said that Simons\u2019 heartbreak \u2013 over the martyrdom of his followers while he lived \u2013 made him think of parallels both in the life of Jesus, who also knew his followers would face persecution, but also in parenting.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI\u2019m training my kids to have that same faith, hopefully training them to be countercultural in a lot of ways that may be costly for them,\u201d he said. \u201cHow do I do that as a parent? For people in Menno\u2019s time who were withholding baptism from their babies, it probably seemed cruel \u2013 and then at the same time I\u2019m training my children to be able to make their own choices.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Seminary professor Dorothy Jean Weaver was struck by the \u201cmoments in time when [Simons] came to new awarenesses.\u201d People today \u201ccannot fully appreciate how big a step\u201d Anabaptism was for early radicals, she said.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If the Catholic-priest-turned-Anabaptist-radical Menno Simons were on a speaking tour, you\u2019d expect him to make a stop at his namesake university. But he died in 1561, and so when Simons <a href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2018\/brunk-impersonation-brings-to-life-menno-simons-and-his-soul-struggle\/\" target=\"_self\" class=\"more-link\">... read more <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">about Impersonation brings to life Menno Simons and his \u2018soul struggle\u2019<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":36872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17562,265],"tags":[6809,17658],"feature":[17427,17425,17426,17241,17422],"class_list":["post-36871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digest","category-seminary","tag-dorothy-jean-weaver","tag-gerald-brunk","feature-emu-home-page-feature","feature-featured-seminary","feature-myemu-feature","feature-news-feature","feature-news-landing-page-main-feature"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Impersonation brings to life Menno Simons and his \u2018soul struggle\u2019 - EMU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2018\/brunk-impersonation-brings-to-life-menno-simons-and-his-soul-struggle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Impersonation brings to life Menno Simons and his \u2018soul struggle\u2019 - EMU News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If the Catholic-priest-turned-Anabaptist-radical Menno Simons were on a speaking tour, you\u2019d expect him to make a stop at his namesake university. 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