Preservings $20 Issue No. 26, 2006 - Home at Plett Foundation

concerning the Points of the Christian Faith”).
The Confession itself was first published with
a preface and introduction at Haarlem in 1633
with the title Confessie ende Vredehandelinge
(“Confession and Peace Agreement”). 5
The Flemish, Frisians and the High Germans
continued to work towards unity in the
following years. In 1636 there was a gathering
at Amsterdam and all three parties expressed
their willingness to unite, and a meeting on April
26, 1639 finally achieved formal union. For
the occasion, three thousand persons gathered
for a five-hour meeting that included worship,
fellowship and celebration. It was a significant
event in that for the first time in about a half a
century the Flemish, Frisian and High German
Mennonites experienced genuine fellowship and
a warm spirit of being a part of one family.
It would be preferable to end this story on
such a high note, but events among the Dutch
Mennonites would turn for the worse, and
church conflicts would re-emerge in the 1650s
and 1660s. Ironically, the troubles stemmed
from the confessions themselves in that Mennonites
could not agree on how much authority
their faith statements should have in the life of
church. Some gave the confessions virtually as
much authority as Scripture; others had no use
for doctrinal statements whatsoever. The groups
argued back and forth, and eventually another
large split among the Dutch Mennonites ensued.
Evidently, confessions of faith could be instruments
of unity, but when improperly handled,
they could also facilitate division.
No Generic Theology
Like most Mennonite confessions of this era,
the Dordrecht Confession of Faith includes in
its 18 articles the whole range of Christian doctrine
including teachings on God and creation,
the fall of humanity, the coming of Christ and
salvation, the nature of the church, the practice
of baptism and communion, church discipline,
relations with government, the importance of
non-resistance, the rejection of oath-swearing,
and teachings about the final judgement. Some
of the articles clearly highlight Anabaptist distinctives,
such as adult baptism, non-resistance,
and the rejection of the oath, but most reflect the
views held by other Christians. And yet, even
in these articles, the Flemish offer their own
distinct theological accent.
Scholars have sometimes remarked that
Anabaptists and Mennonites held to beliefs
common to all Christians except for a few distinct
emphases. In one sense this is true of the
Dordrecht Confession; the framers of this statement
held to general Christian teachings like
their Lutheran and Reformed counter-parts and
even used the language of the Apostles Creed
in talking about Jesus. And yet the language of
the Flemish is distinct in the same way that all
churches and denominations have a particular
way of speaking about the faith. There is no
“theology in general” in Dordrecht, nor could
there be in the same way that we do not find
a generic interpretation of Christianity in the
Lutheran Augsburg Confession, the Heidelberg
Catechism of the Reformed Church, or in the
Apostles’ Creed, for that matter, which was
originally intended as statement of faith in the
context of specific Gnostic heresies. Christian
language, like any language, is always perspectival
and tradition-bound in some way; it
is always, historically conditioned shaped by
context. Even non-denominational churches
that hope to be “simply Christian,” or “only
Biblical,” or hope to transcend denominational
baggage in some way never manage to do so.
We are all shaped by certain traditions and all
draw from specific schools of thought even if
we claim otherwise.
There is no clear answer to the question as
to why the Dordrecht Confession was adopted
by so many Mennonite groups throughout the
centuries. The confession is irenic in tone, well
written, and relatively brief. Menno’s divisive
celestial-flesh Christology is hardly noticeable,
and the traditional Anabaptist emphasis on free
will is not explicitly present either, which suggests
that the Flemish might have consciously
produced an accommodating statement that
outsiders like the Calvinists could accept. The
civil authorities are praised for their “laudable
rule” signifying perhaps that the Flemish
wanted to escape criticism from the state. And
yet, the Dordrecht Confession is not so agreeable
at every point. It places a strong emphasis
on repentance and amendment of life, the new
birth, church discipline, the rejection of the
sword, and the swearing of oaths. While some
parts of the confession sound accommodating,
other sections reflect strict resolve to stay on
the “straight and narrow.” Whatever the reasons
may be, this Flemish statement of faith has
for centuries served as a useful orientation for
Mennonites, striking an acceptable balance in
its description of the faith.
The Dordrecht Confession of Faith is hardly
used today, having been superseded by current
confessional statements that, no doubt, more
adequately express the church’s teachings for
our present world. Whether their legacies will be
as enduring as that of the Dordrecht Confession
will be for future generations to assess.
Endnotes
1 This presentation draws heavily from two recent publications:
Karl Koop, Anabaptist-Mennonite Confessions of
Faith: The Development of a Tradition (Kitchener, Pandora
Press, 2004) and Karl Koop, ed., Confessions of Faith in the
Anabaptist Tradition 1527-1660. The first work provides historical
and theological background to Mennonite confessions
of faith of the early seventeenth century. The second volume
is a compendium of fourteen early confessions of faith in
the Anabaptist tradition including the Dordrecht Confession
of Faith, translated by Irvin B. Horst. Both volumes can be
ordered from the Canadian Mennonite University bookstore,
or directly from the publisher.
2 Michael D. Driedger, Obedient Heretics: Mennonite
Identities in Lutheran Hamburg and Altona during the Confessional
Age (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2002), 51.
3 Mennonite Encylopedia IV, s.v. “Olijftacxken,” by
Christian Neff and Nanne van der Zijpp.
4 Hans-Jürgen Goertz, “Zwischen Zwietracht und Eintracht:
Zur Zweideutigkeit Täuferischer und Mennonitischer
Bekenntnisse,” Mennonitische Geschichtsblätter 43/44 (1986-
87), 33.
5 Irvin B. Horst, Mennonite Confession of Faith (Lancaster
Mennonite Historical Society, 1988), 13.
Roots In Medieval Flanders:
Searching For The Genesis Of Mennonite Inheritance Practices
Royden Loewen - Chair in Mennonite Studies, University of Winnipeg
In 1955 a detailed and thoughtful history
and social study of Manitoba was completed
by E.K. Francis, a young Austrian scholar.
That book, In Search of Utopia has become a
standard work, explaining who the Manitoba
Mennonites were and what was unique about
them. 1 In an obscure footnote in one of his
works relating to Mennonites in Manitoba,
Francis spoke of the history of Mennonite
inheritance practices. He wrote that he had
found evidence that the root of those practices
could be found in medieval Flanders. But he
left no further explanation.
Clearly Mennonites had a very distinctive
inheritance culture, one which they codified
in elaborate documents called Teilungverordnungen.
Knowing just what must happen
when a parent dies, when both parents die,
when a step parent dies, or when children
die, continues to be an important part of Mennonite
community life, especially in Central
and South America. 2
The inheritance practices that our Mennonite
ancestors carried to North America in
the 1870s included what scholars have called
“bilateral, partible” practice. “Partibility”
meant that upon the death of the parents, the
farms or estates were divided among the children,
often literally, into fragmented eighty,
forty and even twenty-acre parcels. “Bilaterality”
meant that both sexes, girls and boys,
inherited land equally. This system was in
contrast to many German systems where farms
were divided but only sons could inherit; the
sisters had to rely on land inherited from their
husbands or on a special marriage dowry from
their parents. The ‘Mennonite’ system also
differed from “impartibility,” where the entire
farm was left to only one child, a system often
seen in England. This system varied, with
“primogeniture” meaning that the oldest son
inherited the farm and the younger and female
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