CURRENTLY IN BOOKS: A history with biases plain to be seen

Harold Jantz

Mennonites in Canada, 1939-1970: A People Transformed. T.D. Regehr. University of Toronto Press, 563 pp., 1996.

One of the more charitable things one can say about Mennonites in Canada 1939-1970 is that the author is a brave man. He puts his biases forth early in the book and seldom deviates from them.

Those who have followed the publication of the earlier volumes of Mennonites in Canada, written by Frank H. Epp, in 1974 and 1982, have waited with some anticipation for the third volume in the series. With the death of Epp, the project nearly faltered, but University of Saskatchewan historian Ted Regehr accepted the challenge. He has amassed a formidable amount of information and written an exhaustive history. But the deeper one reads into it and the more one reflects upon it, the less satisfying it becomes, particularly for Mennonite Brethren.

From the top down

Part of the problem is that Regehr writes a history from the top down. It is an elitist's point of view which comes to the materials with a strong set of biases and finds some groups consistently wanting because they don't fit his vision of what Mennonites ought to be. He himself confesses in the prologue that all historians struggle with "the problem of objectivity". For those Canadian Mennonites who have found an evangelical faith compatible with their Anabaptist heritage, Regehr's book is not only disappointing but frequently alienating.

Moreover, as Regehr recounts, his struggles with the Mennonite Brethren Church of Coaldale in which he grew up, his rebellion against the religious experience it fostered, and his "liberating" entrance into a more "holistic" understanding of faith when he entered the academic world, make it hard for him to appreciate virtually anything about the Mennonite Brethren. Almost everything that he views within Mennonite Brethren is tainted by its association with what he tried to leave behind in Coaldale or with what he feels Mennonite Brethren have embraced from North American evangelicalism.

One would not wish to take from Regehr what likely was a genuine emancipation. But why is it necessary to reject virtually anything that has to do with fervent Christianity, evangelicalism, missions or attempts to convert? He appears to place them all in the category of an evangelist who once came to Coaldale in Regehr's youth: "[He was], I concluded, . . . a charlatan."

Misunderstanding conversion

One wonders whether Regehr really understands evangelical Anabaptism. Many readers are likely to say, "This doesn't describe Mennonites as I've known them." For example, D.P. Neufeld and J.D. Nickel, onetime leaders in the Rosemary (Alta.) General Conference Mennonite Church and known for their evangelical and mission sympathies, are described as working "enthusiastically" at placing teachers in Sommerfelder and Old Colony communities in northern Alberta. The impression is left that this created a "restlessness and frustration for the Old Colony people" that led the young people to take to the streets, to drag-racing, drinking and other negative behaviour. Really?

When Regehr talks about Christian camping, the only thing to come in for biting criticism is the effort of camps to work for "religious decisions and commitments". A director of an MB camp who is not identified except in the endnotes but who was himself the object of considerable controversy, is quoted as describing such decisions as "spiritual rape".

Another section describing evangelistic methods adopted in many churches during the '50s and '60s is almost uniformly negative. The Janz brothers and George Brunk are used as prime examples of those who introduced "hitherto alien North American evangelistic techniques" into Mennonite circles. While Regehr makes some token efforts at pointing out the liberation from "a formalistic and traditionalistic Mennonite community life" that came through the work of such evangelists, he gives more attention to the people who were "seared and severely damaged" by the "revival fires". Typical is the experience of one who describes himself as "crawl[ing] to the Father and join[ing] the spiritually raped, emotionally castrated, pathetic people huddling at the altar in shame".

Curiously, while Regehr vigorously rejects the legalism of his own Coaldale Mennonite Brethren background, he seems quite offended that other Mennonites should want to help liberate Old Colony Mennonites from their narrow traditionalism and legalistic practices.

Misunderstanding Missions

There are other strange twists. Regehr makes a point of reporting how American Mennonite Brethren dominated some important initiatives of Canadian Mennonite Brethren in overseas missions during this period, but then totally ignores the large growth of Canadian Mennonite Brethren foreign missions staff a little later.

The entire section on missions, in fact, is frustrating to read. Regehr appears to favour the point of view that "sensitivity to . . . non-Christian religions" requires "religious relativism rather than insistence on the exclusive claims of Christianity". His use of three mission models articulated by missionary Jacob A. Loewen provides little help in understanding how any of the Mennonite mission boards actually worked. Since Regehr isn't sympathetic to efforts to persuade and convert in the first place, he can hardly embrace any mission efforts, no matter how culturally sensitive they were.

Misunderstanding home missions

Regehr says virtually nothing about the growth of radio ministries during this time, though some were very significant.

The church papers, which played a major role in the life of the conferences, get only passing reference, though Winnipeg's independent Mennonite Mirror, which came into being after this time, gets very positive play.

The entire section on rural evangelism is pre-1939. In fact, the entire chapter on "Missions at Home" is a disappointment. The development of Native ministries, chiefly by the Conference of Mennonites in Canada, is described mostly in terms of controversies, and little of the good that came out of these ministries is reported. Mennonite Brethren come out badly. Mennonite Brethren growth during this period is put down as disappointing, though it was 18%, while Conference of Mennonites growth is seen as encouraging, though it was 17%. The reason for the difference in tone is attributed to the "ambitious goals" set by MBs for their "new strategy".

The section deals at some length with what are described as poorly thought out mission strategies of Mennonite Brethren in B.C. and Manitoba. To be fair, Regehr might have given some indication of the very significant success that Mennonite Brethren, especially in British Columbia, have had in planting churches and in embracing people of many backgrounds. Though most of this happened after 1970, it happened on the foundations laid earlier. At times, Regehr seems simply to misunderstand what is said. For example, he cites the "gross irresponsibility" of G.W. Peters, leader of the children's mission, who said that after children had been evangelized, the "task of the mission is done, there the church must step in." Peters was anything but irresponsible. He knew that any work with children would fail if the church did not become involved.

Misunderstanding culture

In the section dealing with the shift from the farm to the cities, Regehr's interpretation borders on being silly. Much of it is based on writing that originates outside the Mennonite community. It is hard to imagine how one can use descriptions of mainly Anglo-Saxon families to describe Mennonites. To say that the "suburbs fostered a narrowing of intellectual, cultural and spiritual horizions" for Mennonite families is way off the mark. Surely cities represented a larger world, not captivity in the '40s.

In one instance, Regehr places a 1970 meeting of Mennonite leaders with newly elected Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in Ottawa around an official conference table. In fact, the meeting took place in Winnipeg in the Fort Garry Hotel, on "Mennonite" turf so to speak, likely because of the criticism that Mennonites had made that he was avoiding such a visit. And it was around low lounge tables, not a conference table.

Regehr notes that two Mennonite churches were burned in Vauxhall, Alberta during World War II, but neglects to mention the one burned at Newton Siding in Manitoba.

He mentions Jacob G. Thiessen's 1942 admonition to Mennonite Brethren to stay out of the city, but misses the intriguing fact that Thiessen's grandson became the Governor of the Bank of Canada five decades later.

Ultimately, Regehr's history falls short because it tries to impose an interpretation with which many readers won't identify because they won't recognize in it the Mennonite community that they've known. He creates what noted historian George Rawlyk describes as the "core myth" of an "elite voice", which in the end "fails to make sense because it is not--and probably never was--the story of most believers" (Is Jesus your Personal Saviour? 1996).

Harold Jantz is a former editor of the Mennonite Brethren Herald and until recently was editor of ChristianWeek, a Canadian national evangelical newspaper.

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