Jacques D’Auchy was a highly-educated Dutch martyr, whose argumentation before his inquisitor constitutes an important confession for understanding the development of Mennonite theology and belief in the 1500s. Despite D’Auchy’s compelling testimony, however, the Jan Luyken engraving that accompanies D’Auchy’s story in the Martyrs Mirror is not focused on him, but on his wife and Keep Reading…
John Schrag was a prosperous Mennonite farmer who lived Harvey County, Kansas. He was a member of the Hoffnungsfeld (Hopefield) Mennonite Church. In 1917 when the United States went to war against Germany, Schrag refused to buy bonds to help pay for the war. Many Mennonites reasoned that war bonds were like taxes. Payment could Keep Reading…
Over the past few weeks, we’ve shared on the blog and on Facebook about Sang-Min Lee, a young Mennonite from South Korea who has refused to fulfill his mandatory military service, as a matter of faith and conscience. On April 30th, Sang-Min was convicted and sentenced to an 18-month prison term. Many people around the Keep Reading…
The following excerpt is taken from Vincent Ndandula and Jim Bertsche, “An open Bible at rebel headquarters,” in The Jesus Tribe: Grace stories from Congo’s Mennonites, 1912-2012 ed. Rod Hollinger-Janzen, Nancy Myers and Jim Bertsche (Elkhart, IN: Institute of Mennonite Studies, 2012): 82-87. Co-published with the Institute for the Study of Global Anabaptism. By the Keep Reading…
One of the complications of telling martyr stories is that they can deepen current divisions and animosities. In a letter sent to Mennonite educators and historical societies in January of this year, representatives from Mennonite World Conference acknowledged that the way we tell and remember stories of costly discipleship from within our tradition has an Keep Reading…
This story of the Binh Thanh congregation in Ho Chi Minh City (then Saigon) begins in the weeks following the People’s Revolutionary Army’s takeover on April 30, 1975. The following excerpts are taken from: Luke Martin, Nguyen Quang Trung, Nguyen Thanh Tam and Nguyen Thi Tham, “The Mennonite Church in Vietnam,” in Churches Engage Asian Keep Reading…
On Tuesday, we posted about Sang-Min Lee, a young Mennonite in South Korea who has refused to fulfill his obligatory military service. Yesterday we received some surprising correspondence from him. The judge has delayed his trial, without any explanation! So Sang-Min is not in prison at this moment, which is reason for rejoicing. At the Keep Reading…
By John D. Roth It was one of the passages narrating the week of Jesus’ passion that first led Sang-Min Lee to consider the way of peace. Soon after he became a Christian, Lee was moved by Jesus’ teaching to love our enemies, especially his rebuke to Peter for defending him with a sword in Keep Reading…
Deep in the mountainous south of Austria, Andreas Wurtz grew up in the province of Kaernten. As a young man he married and began a new home in Sankt Peter, in the valley of the River Drau. Like everyone they knew, he and his wife were Roman Catholics, and when their first child was Keep Reading…
One of the reasons Martyrs Mirror has continued to be read by Anabaptists for centuries is because it enlivens and illuminates the Biblical texts. Jesus’ injunction to “love your enemies” (Matt 5:44), for example, takes on new life in the story of Dirk Willems, the Dutch Mennonite who abandoned his escape route to pull a Keep Reading…