Tag Archives: Hymnody

A Theology of Suffering: Suffering and Martyrdom in Sixteenth-Century Anabaptist Hymnody

Posted on by
1

Alec Loganbill

Whoever wants to have fellowship with [Christ]
and be a partaker of his kingdom
must also do like him
here on this earth.
Whoever would inherit with him
must have much pain here
for the sake of his name.1

The strong connection between suffering and salvation displayed in this Swiss Brethren Anabaptist hymn is underscored throughout sixteenth-century Anabaptist hymnody. Such a connection was inspired by Anabaptists’ developing theological beliefs and by their experiences of persecution and suffering in early modern Europe. The writing and singing of hymns were popular and powerful means of religious expression for early Anabaptists, whose music could be heard everywhere from worship spaces to prison cells to the burning stake. They wrote and sang hymns to declare their faith, memorialize their martyrs, and connect to other believers. As music historian Rosella Reimer Duerksen has observed, in the case of Anabaptists, “hymnodists practiced little restraint or sophistication, but presented their views and beliefs freely in the stanzas which they penned.” 2 Thus, their compositions offer an unadulterated look into the hearts and minds of lay people rather than the formal doctrine found in other confessional hymnals of the Reformation. The lack of any formal doctrine in Anabaptist hymnody is also reflective of the fact that, as historian John Rempel has noted, “little time was taken for doctrinal or liturgical formulation; what mattered was spiritual rebirth and a life of surrender.”3 This grassroots form of religious expression and experience emphasized passionate spirituality, concern for living a holy life, and, perhaps most strikingly, the powerful and effective motifs of suffering and martyrdom.4

Among the developing doctrinal and theological ideas with which Anabaptist hymnodists interacted, adult baptism appears as one of the most prominent, for it was both the distinguishing feature of the confession theologically and politically. In the sixteenth century, adult baptism, or believer’s baptism, was “cited more often than any other doctrine as the crime condemning an Anabaptist to execution.”5 The connection between baptism and death was not lost to hymnodists, who frequently set baptism in a context of suffering. In addition to the baptismal sequence of grace followed by water, Anabaptists understood there to be a third rite of baptism: that of blood.

The Lord Jesus Christ, therefore,
assigns three witnesses for us.
The two are called water and Spirit.
The third, blood, that is, suffering.6

In a very real way, Anabaptists thought of baptism as the first step on the path to martyrdom. Baptism was a commitment to a godly life and a suffering life, a statement of faith that was a violation and rejection of the state church punishable by death. The emphasis of suffering in sixteenth-century Anabaptism, especially among the Swiss Brethren, was both a response to their experiences as a persecuted people and their theological formulation that true Christian discipleship demanded that Christians follow in the way of Christ, suffering as Christ suffered.

The importance of believer’s baptism was stressed in the context of martyr hymns, like in the account of the imprisonment, trial, and execution of Claesken Gaeledochter. In recounting Claesken’s inquisition, the hymnodist stresses her commitment to believer’s baptism, intimate knowledge of Scripture, and personal and passionate spirituality—all of which are common themes in Anabaptist martyr hymns.

About her baptism he did question;
But she, without alt’ring her course,
Courageously the Scriptures told:
That of new life and repentance
Both John and Christ most clearly tell;
‘Repentance first!’ was taught the people.7

Not confined to a baptismal context, Anabaptists’ theology of suffering consistently appears throughout their robust oral and literary traditions, most especially in their hymns.8 Like other confessions of the Reformation, Anabaptists connected their own suffering to the larger narrative of Christian persecution. One Passau hymnodist recounted the lineage of Christian suffering, declaring that “it began with Abel.”9 The author goes on to write:

Afterwards, all the prophets
and other pious also—
some were killed,
other experienced especially great humiliation
through fear and distress, cross and affliction.10

Anabaptist hymnodists accounted for the suffering of martyrs as well as their own affliction. In doing so, many hymns depicted imprisonment, torture, and execution in graphic detail. Stanzas told of burning, beheading, drowning, and stretching on the rack, along with other forms of physical torment. One of the most gruesome examples appears in the hymnal account of Elisabeth van Leeuwarden:

They had two thumbscrews put on
When for a long time she refused to confess,
So that they smashed thumb and fingers
Till the blood spurted out from her nails.11

However grim this theology of suffering may seem, it was often closely linked to messages of consolation and hope. The acceptance of “innocent suffering,” as one wrote, was not only a manifestation of discipleship but necessary for salvation.12 This union between suffering and salvation simultaneously inspired, sustained, and consoled sixteenth-century Anabaptists. Often, consolatory hymns took the form of prayers, pleading for God to grant peace to the suffering:

In anguish and distress,
Give us the bread of heaven,
And in the pain of death
Let peace to us be given.13

Anabaptist hymnodists also looked directly to Christ to inspire their work, as in this stanza, adapted from the Sermon on the Mount:

When you are slandered and abused now,
Persecuted and beaten for my sake,
be joyful, for see, your reward
is prepared for you on heaven’s throne.14

Many hymns that connected suffering to consolation and salvation were created by those who immediately needed such a message, namely, the imprisoned. The most famous collection of such hymns is the Ausbund, the primary hymnal of the Swiss Brethren. The core of this hymnal was first published in 1564 and consisted of fifty-three hymns, which were composed by Swiss Brethren Anabaptists imprisoned in Passau between 1535 and 1540 and include hymns written by well-known early Anabaptist leaders such as George Blaurock, Felix Mantz, and Michael Sattler, and others.15

Motifs of sorrow and distress underscore much of the Ausbund, a clear reflection of the immediate situation of the hymns’ authors. These understandable themes, however, are offset by “a note of triumph [and] of a conviction that [the authors’] past of sorrow and tribulation is leading them to everlasting life.”16 In one hymn, Michael Schneider joins the reality of bondage and suffering with the hope of salvation in the opening and closing stanzas:

We cry to you, Lord God,
and lament to you all our distress,
which now confronts us
in dungeons and in stocks
where they have stuck us.
Give our spirit power and much strength
that it may lay hold of the goal
which has long stood before us,
so that we might obtain it.
O God, Release the captives! Amen.17

Schneider’s urgency, religious conviction, and belief in the salvation of and from suffering were common themes often repeated in many of the hymns composed in Passau.

While the composition of many hymns was often an individual practice of meditation and expression, singing hymns was nearly always communal. For early Anabaptists across Europe, the singing of hymns was decidedly a shared practice, be it in a congregational, familial, or clandestine setting.18 Because of the wide variety of Anabaptist hymnody, songs were sung to worship God, express religious ideas, commemorate martyrs, and give comfort and hope to the persecuted and imprisoned. Dutch martyrologist Hans de Ries believed that “songs of the cross” were “profitable to be sung at times when the congregation [was] burdened with the cross and suffering.”19 Anabaptists readily recognized and employed the power that singing hymns could have for a community of believers. Simply, the hymns of the Ausbund and other hymnals were written by the suffering, for the suffering.

Related to the motif of salvation and suffering was the prevalence of a belief in imminent eschatology. Several hymns in the Ausbund expressed the hymnodist’s belief that Christ would soon return and usher in the Kingdom of God. Here, hymnal messages were intended to instill a sense of urgency to convert, repent, and “console the suffering and encourage them to endure a little longer.”20 Michael Schneider conveyed the urgency of repentance in the face of imminent eschatology on multiple instances throughout the Ausbund:

God burned Sodom
for its sinful deeds.
You should accept this.
It is certainly an example
for all who live godlessly
in this time.
God will give them their reward.
The fire is already prepared.21

In another hymn, which anticipates the New Jerusalem in a remarkable forty-six verses, Schneider consoles his audience:

You, Church of God, keep your pure covenant,
namely the covenant of your groom, Christ.
For a short time be patient and suffer.
He will soon give your rest.22

Prominently, Anabaptists experienced and expressed their suffering through the drama of martyrdom, which included not only execution but also imprisonment and prosecution. Although Protestants and Catholics of the sixteenth century also published their own extensive martyrologies, those of Anabaptists were unique in that they were preserved primarily through song. When Anabaptist hymns were published, they rarely appeared with musical notation but rather with a familiar tune designation. Believers preserved these tunes, often adopted from popular folk songs, and the lyrics through communal singing and rote memorization.23 Anabaptism’s distinctive separatism, strong in-group orientation, and low literacy levels among believers contributed to hymnal martyrology for Swiss Brethren and Dutch Anabaptists in the sixteenth century.24

The extant of hymnal martyrologies was not long-lasting among some Anabaptist groups, however. Hans de Ries, who published a new Dutch Mennonite martyrology in 1615—one that became the basis of the Martyr’s Mirror—refashioned much of the content from earlier hymnals into prose. Although no information was lost, a certain distinctiveness was. This editorial decision reflected a transition in Dutch Mennonite life: the stories of martyrs were no longer memorized and sung in secret by illiterate Christians; instead, they were studied openly by the educated.25 The Swiss Brethren and their descendants, on the other hand, continued publishing updated versions of the Ausbund in America until 1785 and in Europe until 1838, which helped to maintain a “theology of suffering…long after the actual experience of martyrdom had become relatively rare.”26 Generally, however, the intense attention paid to the theology and experience salvation and suffering, sustained through early believers’ hymns, faded with their own martyrdom. Nevertheless, an interest in Anabaptist martyrdom is still alive among many present-day Anabaptists.

Despite the near absence of sixteen-century hymns in modern Anabaptist worship and experience, these songs were absolutely foundational to the experience of the Christians who wrote and sang them. The composition and singing of original hymns provided consolation, meaning, and continuity to a persecuted religious movement still in its infancy. The themes of suffering and martyrdom pointed to a distinctive and immensely meaningful aspect unique to this Reformation-era confession. Beyond the narratives which many of these hymns outlined, early Anabaptist hymnodists also unveiled their own understandings of the larger narrative of the unfolding of the Kingdom of God, as well as their place in it. Viewed from the twenty-first century, these hymns provide a unique glimpse into the temporal and existential realities of the first Anabaptists.

1. Galen A. Peters, ed., The Earliest Hymns of the Ausbund: Some Beautiful Christian Songs Composed and Sung in the Prison at Passau, Published in 1564, trans. Robert A. Riall (Kitchener, Ontario: Pandora Press, 2003),62.

2. Rosella Reimer Duerksen, “Anabaptist Hymnody of the Sixteenth Century: A Study of Its Marked Individuality Couples with a Dependence upon Contemporary Secular and Sacred Musical Style and Form.” Ph.D. diss., Union Theological Seminary, New York, 1956, 268-269.

3. John D. Rempel, “Anabaptist Religious Literature and Hymnody,” in A Companion to Anabaptism and Spiritualism, 1521-1700, ed. John D. Roth and James M. Stayer (Leiden, The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2007), 391.

4. Rosella Reimer Duerksen, “Doctrinal Implications in Sixteenth Century Anabaptist Hymnody,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 35, no. 1 (January, 1961), 38.

5. Ibid., 44.

6. Peters, The Earliest Hymns of the Ausbund, 266.

7. Hermina Joldersma and Louis Grijp, eds. and trans., Elisabeth’s Manly Courage: Testimonials and Songs of Martyred Anabaptist Women in the Low Countries (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2001), 91.

8. John D. Roth, “Marpeck and the Later Swiss Brethren,” in Roth and Stayer, A Companion to Anabaptism and Spiritualism, 1521-1700, 352.

9. Peters, The Earliest Hymns of the Ausbund, 409.

10. Ibid.

11. Joldersma and Grijp, Elisabeth’s Manly Courage, 119.

12. Duerksen, “Doctrinal Implications in Sixteenth Century Anabaptist Hymnody,” 42.

13. Quoted in Paul M. Yoder, et al., Four Hundred Years with the Ausbund (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1964), 45.

14. Quoted in Gregory, Salvation at Stake, 203.

15. Yoder, et al., Four Hundred Years with the Ausbund, 5-6.

16. Ibid.,6.

17. Peters, The Earliest Hymns of the Ausbund, 143-148.

18. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online, s.v. “Hymnology of the Anabaptists,” accessed March 2, 2019, https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Hymnology_of_the_Anabaptists.

19. Quoted in Brad S. Gregory, Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 239.

20. Duerksen, “Anabaptist Hymnody of the Sixteenth Century,” 259.

21. Peters, The Earliest Hymns of the Ausbund, 133.

22. Ibid.,244.

23. Yoder, et al. Four Hundred Years with the Ausbund, 7.

24. Gregory, Salvation at Stake, 212.

25. Ibid., 237.

26. Roth, “Marpeck and the Later Swiss Brethren,” in Roth and Stayer, A Companion to Anabaptism and Spiritualism, 1521-1700, 352.

Some Reflections on Early Anabaptists and the Creeds

Posted on by
Reply

This past summer I found myself reviewing a number of classic early Anabaptist works as I researched and wrote a chapter on Anabaptist eschatology. As I researched and read I was struck by an unrelated phenomenon—the prevalence of the creeds in several of these writings. In the four years since I first began attending a Mennonite Church, I have sometimes heard Anabaptists referred to as non-creedal Christians. It is certainly true that, when asked to describe what it means to be Anabaptist, most Anabaptists will understandably give an answer that prioritizes doctrines and practices that are not common to the majority of Christian churches, particularly pacifism or credobaptism. Similarly, when drawing doctrinal boundaries around their churches (something they were as ready to do as the state churches, though not at the point of a sword), Anabaptists have tended to appeal to Scripture directly, since its authority superseded any creeds and confessions, however valuable.1 Nevertheless, insofar as the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds can be said to summarize the essentials of the Christian faith, the earliest Anabaptists upheld these teaching with only a few exceptions.

Of these exceptions, the anti-Trinitarianism of Adam Pastor and of the Polish Brethren was never particularly popular, and in Pastor’s case resulted in his being banned. The more significant exception is Melchior Hoffman’s Christology—his assertion that Christ took no human flesh from Mary, who served only as a vessel, and instead possessed his own, celestial flesh. Menno Simons also adopted and promulgated this Christology—indeed it was one of the most significant features the Mennonites inherited from their predecessors the Melchiorites as they sifted through the legacy of Münster and determined what to retain and what to rebuke. Despite Menno and Dirk Phillips’ defense of this doctrine, support for it faded over the ensuing centuries, as the Dutch Mennonites made common cause with Swiss Anabaptists.2 This teaching was not necessarily irreconcilable with the letter of the Apostles’ Creed (they did still believe Christ to be born of the virgin Mary) but it was unquestionably a departure from the way these creeds had historically been interpreted. Nevertheless, the Dutch Anabaptist Thieleman Janzs van Braght, writing in the seventeenth century, had no trouble including the Apostles’ Creed in the Martyrs’ Mirror as a distillation of true, simple faith, and he described the three representative seventeenth-century confessions of faith that followed as elaborations on this core creed.3

The most enthusiastically creedal of the early Anabaptists was undoubtedly Balthasar Hubmaier. He referred often to the Apostles’ Creed, or the Twelve Articles of the Christian Faith. He considered acquiescence to and understanding of these articles a prerequisite for baptism and included them in his Christian Catechism, published in early 1527.4 During his 1526 imprisonment in Zurich, he even produced a devotional writing centered entirely around the Apostles’ Creed. He expanded upon the creed’s articles and transformed it into a prayer by changing the pronouns for God from the third to the second person, expressing the comfort and hope that he found in these doctrines.5 He also found the Apostles’ Creed polemically useful and appealed to it to advocate against the doctrine of transubstantiation and for believers’ baptism.6 As far as Hubmaier was concerned, the form of Christianity for which he advocated was not only compatible with these twelve articles, it was in fact more faithful to them than Catholic, Zwinglian, or Lutheran forms of Christianity.

The Hutterite Theologian Peter Riedemann likewise drew extensively on the Apostles’ Creed when he wrote his Confession of Faith during his imprisonment in the early 1540s. The Creed formed the scaffolding of the first part of the confession, as he elaborated on each clause: his beliefs on God the Father, the creation of Heaven and earth, Christ the son, the incarnation, and so forth. In choosing this framework, Riedemann appealed to many beliefs he held in common with his captors, but he also provided a distinctly Anabaptist gloss on these beliefs, emphasizing the importance of gathering a church without spot or wrinkle.7 He then went on to elaborate the points where Hutterite teaching diverged, including believers’ baptism, community of goods, and opposition to warfare.

The text of hymn 2 in the Ausbund, as printed in Lancaster in 1856 by Johann Baer and Sons.

Hymnody has long been a method of doctrinal formation for Anabaptists, and the second hymn of the Ausbund provided the faithful in Switzerland with the opportunity to rehearse the teachings of the creeds. The hymn is described as “the Christian faith, in song form,” and consists of three verses, one for each person of the Trinity. It appears to be an attempt to harmonize the two principal Christian creeds: it contains elements unique to the Apostles’ Creed, such as Christ’s descent into hell, as well as to the Nicene Creed, such as the description of Christ as “begotten, not made” and “of one substance with the Father” and the mention of baptism. At times, it elaborates further than either Creed. Nearly half of the stanza on God the Father lists “things visible” he has created—plants, sun, moon, stars, animals, and humans—before concluding with a mention of “things invisible.”8

The first generation of Anabaptists all converted as adults, after having already received some amount of Christian spiritual formation. These creeds formed part of the foundation that they brought with them into their new understanding of Christianity. Even as they were foundational, however, they were largely taken for granted—unlike nonresistance or believers’ baptism, the creeds were never under attack by either Catholics or magisterial Protestants. The creeds, then, could be seen as a quieter, less visible part of early Anabaptist identity—not particularly useful to distinguish Anabaptists from other Christians or explain the persecution they suffered, but nevertheless a useful description of the God in whom they trusted and the future for which they hoped.

1 They did, however, consistently engage in the work of attempting to formulate confessions that they felt faithfully reflected Scripture. See Karl Koop (ed.), Confessions of Faith in the Anabaptist Tradition, 1527-1660, second edition (Walden, NY: Plough Publishing House, 2019).

2 For more, see C. Arnold Snyder, “Christology” in Anabaptist History and Theology: Revised Student Edition (Kitchener, ON: Pandora Press, 1997), 375-390.

3 Thieleman Janzs van Braght, Het Bloedig Tooneel of Martelaers Spiegel der Doopsgesinde of Weereloose Christenen (Amsterdam: Hieronymus Sweerts et al., 1685). https://books.google.com/books?id=UxmlV7PyedoC Support for the Melchiorite formulation of the Incarnation was already reduced by this point. The seventeenth-century van Braght includes take no firm position but instead acknowledge the longstanding debate among the Brethren on this question and content themselves with describing Christ’s incarnation as miraculous, however unknowable the specifics might be.

4 Balthasar Hubmaier, “A Christian Catechism which Everyone Should Know Before He Is Baptized” in Balthasar Hubmaier: Theologian of Anabaptism, edited by H. Wayne Pipkin and John H. Yoder (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1989), 349; Balthasar Hubmaier, “A Form for Baptism in Water of Those Who Have Been Instructed in Faith” in Balthasar Hubmaier: Theologian of Anabaptism, edited by H. Wayne Pipkin and John H. Yoder (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1989), 387.

5 Balthasar Hubmaier, “The Twelve Articles of the Christian Faith, Phrased in the Form of a Prayer at Zurich on the Water Tower” in Balthasar Hubmaier: Theologian of Anabaptism, edited by H. Wayne Pipkin and John H. Yoder (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1989), 235-240.

6 Balthasar Hubmaier, “A Letter to Oecolampad” in Balthasar Hubmaier: Theologian of Anabaptism, edited by H. Wayne Pipkin and John H. Yoder (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1989), 70.

7 Peter Rideman, Confession of Faith, translated by Kathleen E. Hasenberg (Bungay, Suffolk: Hodder and Stoughton, 1956), 38.

8 Ausbund, Das Ist Etliche Schöne Christliche Lieder, Wie Sie in Dem Gefängnis zu Passau in dem Schloss von den Schweizer-Brüdern und von Andern Rechtglaubigen Christen Hin und Her Gedichtet Worden (Lancaster: Johann Baer and Sons, 1856), 5-8. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ausbund/VKZXSla-jKoC

Rethinking 606, the “Mennonite National Anthem”

Posted on by
Reply

Austin McCabe Juhnke

In 2015, Garrison Keillor’s “Prairie Home Companion” recorded a show on the campus of Goshen College in Indiana.1 As he often does, Keillor began the show with an introduction to the local area, describing the Mennonites who live there as “one of the most persecuted people in history.”  According to Keillor, these Mennonites developed a tradition of hymn singing “to keep up their spirits in the midst of all of this horrible cruelty and violence.”2 As if to prove his point, following this introduction, Keillor had the Goshen College choir lead the audience in singing “606,” a unique setting of Thomas Ken’s doxology (“Praise God from whom all blessings flow”) which many Mennonites know colloquially by its number in the 1969 Mennonite Hymnal. After recording the show, Keillor marveled at how his “Mennonite” audience “sang like angels. You just hummed a note and gave them the downbeat, and they sang in perfect four-part harmony.”3 Even though Keillor framed this performance of 606 as an expression of Mennonite-Anabaptist historical persecution, Mennonites have only been singing this hymn widely since its appearance in the 1969 Mennonite Hymnal. Since 1969, however, it has become commonplace for Mennonites to sing 606 not only in worship, but also as a celebration of Mennonite community in public places. The song has even sometimes been called “the Mennonite national anthem.”4 Though this nickname is used with somewhat jocular tone, it is perhaps more fitting than it appears, and it is worth considering the ways nationalist thinking has shaped Mennonite identity and musical practices.

Garrison Keillor and the Goshen College Choir record A Prairie Home Companion May 2, 2015 Photograph by Brian Yoder Schlabach. (https://www.goshen.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2015/05/15_APrairieHomeCompanion_079_bys-1366×911.jpg)
The audience at Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion sing along. May 2, 2015. Photograph by Brian Yoder Schlabach. (https://www.goshen.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2015/05/15_APrairieHomeCompanion_031_bys-1366×911.jpg)

Nationalists of the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries thought of nations as naturally occurring, discrete groups of people. Within these groups one would expect to find essential similarities and between the groups one would find essential differences. Points of national comparison ranged from cultural practices to physical features to emotional temperaments. Today it is generally agreed that nations are constructed, rather than natural entities.5 Nevertheless this enticing idea has made for strong political solidarities that have been used both to resist and reinforce systems of oppression over the last centuries. Thus, at best, nationalism is used as a strategic simplification of the complexity of human social relationships. At worst, however, this ideology fuels a drive to maintain the “purity” of a supposedly natural identity.

One important way of legitimating national identities is history. If a group of people saw themselves in the same historical narrative, it helped create the sense of belonging to a national “we” that united people across space and time. “Praise God from whom” (606) was added to The Mennonite Hymnal during a period in which American Mennonites were more consciously looking to history to make sense of themselves in the modern world. Between the First and Second World Wars, Mennonites formalized a belief in nonviolent pacifism, identifying their tradition with the phrase “historic peace church.” In 1943 Harold Bender, founder of the Mennonite Historical Society and professor of history at Goshen College, penned his influential essay “The Anabaptist Vision.” In it he connects present-day Mennonites to an “authentic” Anabaptist lineage.

[W]e know enough today to draw a clear line of demarcation between original evangelical and constructive Anabaptism on the one hand, which was born in the bosom of Zwinglianism in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1525, and established in the Low Countries in 1533, and the various mystical, spiritualistic, revolutionary, or even antinomian related and unrelated groups on the other hand. . . The former, Anabaptism proper, maintained an unbroken course in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and Holland throughout the sixteenth century, and has continued until the present day in the Mennonite movement[.]6

In assuming that there is a definable “Anabaptism proper” and that it has an unbroken lineage to the present, Bender—consciously or not—was taking cues from nationalist models of identity. Later historians disputed the idea that it is possible to determine a single origin point for Anabaptism, but Bender’s “Vision” of a historical Anabaptist-Mennonite essence became an influential articulation of Mennonite identity in the mid-twentieth century and beyond.7

In this context, Mennonite hymnals became a powerful way of mediating ideas about Mennonite history, tradition, and identity. During the 1950s the (Old) Mennonite Church’s Music and Worship committee began to consider revising their 1927 Church Hymnal. There was a sense among many on the committee that the quality of Mennonite singing had been slipping. In 1959 committee member Chester K. Lehman gave a talk called “Congregational Singing – Our Losses and Gains” in which he criticized recent Mennonite hymnbooks for their heavy reliance on the “popular and emotional gospel songs,” which he viewed as a “retrogression” in Mennonite tastes.8 In 1960, another committee member and Goshen College music professor Walter E. Yoder spoke at a Music and Worship conference at Goshen. In his talk, “Raising Our Sights in Our Church Music” he bemoaned the loss of hymns from before Mennonites began speaking English and taking on Protestant- and evangelical-like church activities: “The unfortunate thing was, and we still have this problem with us today, that with the change of language and the taking on of many new activities, the church dropped its good german [sic] hymnody and sub[s]tituted for them the weaker texts and lighter tunes of the Gospel Hymns.”9 The years-long process of compiling and editing the 1969 Mennonite Hymnal formalized a Mennonite musical aesthetic that sought a return to the “solemn, sober, thoughtful and dignified” hymns of an imagined Mennonite past.10

3

606 in the red Mennonite Hymnal (1969). Photograph by the author.

It was in this process of “recovering” the Mennonite musical past that “Praise God from whom” came into Mennonite institutional hymnbooks. The source for number 606 in The Mennonite Hymnal was a nineteenth-century song collection called Harmonia Sacra by Mennonite publisher Joseph Funk. Funk’s instructional songbooks were part of a broader “singing school” movement in the United States that influenced Mennonite and Protestant singing alike.11 The song had fallen into relative obscurity, before its inclusion in the 1969 Hymnal.12 By 1979, however, the song was described as “the favorite of Mennonites everywhere” in the Gospel Herald, and by the 1980s it was referred to as the “Mennonite national anthem.”13

In The Mennonite Hymnal, 606 was placed in the “Choral Hymns” section because the committee thought it was too difficult for general congregational use. Indeed, there are several musical features that make singing 606 especially difficult. Unlike most hymns, in which the voice parts move more or less in the same rhythm, in 606 the soprano, alto, tenor, and bass voices jump in and out unpredictably. One example of this is right at the beginning of the hymn. Here the soprano and tenor voices begin singing “Praise God from whom” in duet. Not until a measure later do the alto and bass voices join in, singing a compressed rhythm to catch up to the other voices by the end of the first musical phrase. Complicating the issue further, there are no verses in 606 and thus no “second chances” for learning one’s part. It is not a coincidence that the “Mennonite national anthem” has these difficult elements. In fact, it is precisely because it is difficult for outsiders to join in that the hymn works as a musical identity marker. For those who are able to sing along, 606 is a powerful auditory and embodied experience of Mennonite community, yet this insider experience is predicated on musical stumbling blocks that produce outsiders in the act of performance.

4

“Project 606” on the banner of the webpage for MennoMedia’s new hymnal project. Screen capture November 7, 2017. (http://hymnalproject606.com)

In the most recent Mennonite hymnal (Hymnal: A Worship Book, 1992), 606 became number 118. Nevertheless, “606” continues to resonate as a favorite hymn and a Mennonite cultural symbol. At the 2011 Mennonite Church USA convention in Pittsburgh, a tally from the delegates put the “Mennonite national anthem” at the top of a list of “heart songs.”14 More recently, 606—or the idea of 606—has become a fundraising and publicity tool for Mennonite Church USA and Canada’s work on a new hymnal. According MennoMedia, the forthcoming hymnal’s publisher, the project aims to “take into account the breadth of the Mennonite Church [USA and Canada], the diverse ways Mennonites sing and worship, and new digital technologies.”15 Still, in an effort to raise money for the hymnal ($606,000), the work on the new hymnal was until recently nicknamed “Project 606.”16 This nickname highlights the tension between the desire to preserve and propagate a practice understood as “traditionally Mennonite” and the hope of making space for diversity within the Mennonite church.

In singing, do Mennonites, as Keillor, imagine connecting to a history of European-Anabaptist persecution? If so, will the church be able to embrace the new songs and joyful noises of a vibrant church community? I do not wish to propose here that Mennonites need a new “national anthem,” or that new musical styles will be inherently better or more inclusive. Nor do I mean to suggest that Mennonites must stop singing “Praise God from whom.” More important for Mennonites—particularly those who trace their heritage to European Anabaptists—is to confront the exclusive, ethnocentric mythologies that often inform the ways hymn singing is valued. In so doing, it would make possible a practice of singing that works not to undergird narrow formulations of Mennonite identity, but rather to reveal resonant experiences of the divine in community that transcend the logics of the world.
Austin McCabe Juhnke is a PhD candidate in Musicology at Ohio State University studying music in the Mennonite Church during the twentieth century.

  1. As of November 28, 2017, the show can be heard in its entirety here: https://www.prairiehome.org/shows/48522. ↩
  2.  Garrison Keillor, “Good Enough is Enough,” A Prairie Home Companion, American Public Media, May 2, 2015. ↩
  3.  Michela Tindera, “Quick Q&A: Garrison Keilor” Indianapolis Monthly,  August 6, 2015, http://www.indianapolismonthly.com/arts-culture/quick-qa-garrison-keillor/ (accessed November 28, 2017). ↩
  4.  See Anna Groff, “606: When, Why and How Do Mennonites Use the Anthem,” The Mennonite, March 18, 2008. ↩
  5.  See, e.g., Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, (New York: Verso, 2006). ↩
  6.  Harold S. Bender, “The Anabaptist Vision,” Church History 13, no. 1 (March 1, 1944): 8. ↩
  7.  James M. Stayer, Werner O. Packull, and Klaus Deppermann, “From Monogenesis to Polygenesis: The Historical Discussion of Anabaptist Origins,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 49, no. 2 (April 1975): 83–121. ↩
  8. Chester K. Lehman, “Congregational Singing – Our losses and gains,” (1959). Box 6, Folder 2. Mennonite Church, Music and Worship Committee, 1909-1992.  I-3-1. Mennonite Church USA Archives – Elkhart. Elkhart, Indiana. ↩
  9.  Walter E. Yoder, “Raising Our Sights in Our Church Music” (1960). Box 6, Folder 6. Mennonite Church, Music and Worship Committee, 1909-1992.  I-3-1. Mennonite Church USA Archives – Elkhart. Elkhart, Indiana. ↩
  10.  Yoder, “The New Church Hymnal and its Implications for Worship” (ca. 1962). Box 6, Folder 4. Mennonite Church, Music and Worship Committee, 1909-1992.  I-3-1. Mennonite Church USA Archives – Elkhart. Elkhart, Indiana. ↩
  11.  See, e.g., Walter E. Yoder, “Singing Schools,” in Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online, 1958, http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Singing_Schools&oldid=113641. ↩
  12. “Praise God from Whom” Also appeared in the Songs of the Church, ed. Walter E. Yoder (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1953), 10. ↩
  13.  “World’s Attic Goes to Kitchen for Help,” Gospel Herald, March, 13 1979. For a use of “Mennonite national anthem,” see, e.g., James C. Juhnke, Dialogue with a Heritage: Cornelius H. Wedel and the Beginnings of Bethel College (North Newton, KS: Super Speed Printing, 1987), 75. ↩
  14. “What Songs Will Mennonites Sing?” Canadian Mennonite, http://www.canadianmennonite.org/articles/what-songs-will-mennonites-sing ↩
  15.  “‘Project 606’: Mennonite Song Collection Project Aims for 2020 Release,” The Mennonite, January 4, 2016, https://themennonite.org/daily-news/project-606-mennonite-song-collection-project-aims-for-2020-release/. ↩
  16. MennoMedia, Project 606: A Gift for the Next Generation,  September 12, 2017, http://web.archive.org/web/20170912230138/http://hymnalproject606.com/ . The project has recently been rebranded as Resonate: Join the Everlasting Song, http://hymnalproject606.com (Accessed November 30, 2017), a change that was found after this post was initially published. ↩

From the Shenandoah Valley to No Man’s Land at Christmas

Posted on by
1

img_6176-2

The most recent edition of the Harmonia Sacra (2008) next to some songbooks by the Ruebush-Kieffer company displayed on Aldine Kieffer’s organ. Menno Simons Historical Library

Simone D. Horst

Though I’ve lived in Harrisonburg and worked with the EMU Special Collections for nearly eight years now, it took a British Christmas advertisement for me to fully appreciate the musical heritage of the Mennonites in the Shenandoah Valley. Sainsbury’s is a supermarket chain in the UK and, like many other retailers in the UK, creates specific holiday-themed advertisements to entice Christmas shoppers to their stores. Two years ago I saw their 2014 Christmas advertisement online  and was intrigued to hear a familiar tune.  For this ad they had partnered with the Royal British Legion to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Christmas Truce of 1914. The beautifully shot commercial features British and German soldiers in the trenches singing “Silent Night/Stille Nacht” and then as they join together in no man’s land the viewer hears the strains of “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” (starting at 2:09). When I Googled the hymn to figure out why it was so familiar, I discovered that it was written by an Anthony Showalter from Rockingham County, Virginia. Thus my curiosity about Mennonite hymnody in the Valley was piqued.

I knew that Mennonites have long been regarded for their unique tradition of acapella singing and talent for four-part harmony. But I didn’t realize how much influence a man who lived in a town ten miles northwest of where I live and work had in shaping the tradition.

The story begins with Joseph Funk. Funk was the son of Mennonite Bishop Henry Funk and moved to Rockingham County, Virginia from Pennsylvania with his family as a young boy. A bit of a jack-of-all-trades, he worked as a farmer, teacher, herbalist, and translator before settling in Mountain Valley (now Singers Glen), Virginia1 and beginning his work as a printer. He found success in the music business, doing a great deal of translation, compilation, and printing. He also ran singing schools, teaching individuals of all ages how to read music and sing. One of his greatest contributions is his development of shape-note music2; a musical notation that employs different shaped notes to denote pitch. He used this method in his singing schools and it quickly gained popularity as it was easy to learn and effective. Funk believed that all church members should be able to “take part in the ‘divine art’ of singing sacred songs” and went so far as to actively discourage the use of choirs in Mennonite and other denominations in order to encourage congregational singing3. Through his singing schools and shape notes he also introduced Virginia Mennonites to three- and four-part harmony and to singing in English, two practices that later spread throughout most Mennonite communities in North America.4

Funk printed numerous song-books, but his most famous work is the Harmonia Sacra, a collection of ‘genuine church music’ that is a beloved songbook still used in Harmonia Sacra ‘sings’ throughout the Valley.

Funk’s grandson, Aldine Kieffer, continued his musical tradition with his partnership with Ephraim Ruebush. They began their collaboration teaching singing schools together before the outbreak of the Civil War, then after the conflict finished (both served, neither having been raised Mennonite), they began the Ruebush-Kieffer publishing company. They started printing in Singers Glen then moved the operation to Dayton, Virginia, in 18785. Through their singing schools and their song books they taught many people in the Shenandoah Valley and beyond to sing the shape-notes and tunes devised by Funk.

One person so influenced by this legacy was Anthony Johnson (A. J.) Showalter from Rockingham County, Virginia. His father was a singing school teacher from the Funk tradition, so Showalter grew up attending singing schools and studying music. He began his career working for Ruebush-Kieffer as a singing school teacher and in the publishing house. Showalter later moved to Georgia and became a prolific composer; his most recognizable tune is “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms,” which he wrote in 1887 after hearing about two friends losing their wives6.

Though many can recognize the tune, few may know its connection to the Shenandoah Valley or its ties to Mennonite hymnody. Once I learned the hymn’s provenance I felt that it was an odd, yet perhaps apt, juxtaposition to have a hymn born out of a Mennonite tradition of song used in a commercial about war that highlights one of the few peaceful moments of the horrific conflict. I’m sure when the advertising executives chose the song, they had little idea of its connections to an historic peace church tradition in rural Virginia, but to me that makes it even more meaningful. 

*If you are interested in learning more about Joseph Funk and the Ruebush-Kieffer legacy, the Menno Simons Historical Library is a great place to start! We have a nearly comprehensive collection of Ruebush-Kieffer and Funk song books, as well as interesting artifacts like Joseph Funk’s writing chair and Aldine Kieffer’s organ (which is still played occasionally by Lois Bowman, former librarian and wonderful volunteer).

References:

Brunk, Harry Anthony. 1959. History of Mennonites in Virginia 1727-1900. Staunton, Va: McClure Print. Co.

Eskew, Harry, Wm. B. Blake, B. C. Unseld, John Walter Wayland, and Weldon T. Myers. 1995. Two notable shaped-note leaders: combined from Musical million, Dayton, Virginia. Wytheville, Va: Available from Jim Presgraves, ABAA, Bookworm & Silverfish.

McNeil, W. K. “Showalter, Anthony Johnson.” Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music. New York: Routledge, 2005. 339-40.

  1.  The town was founded by Joseph Funk and initially named “Mountain Valley.” It was later renamed Singers Glen to honor his and Ruebush-Kieffer’s contribution to music in the area. ↩
  2.  Though Funk is often credited with developing the first form of shape note notation, this is likely not the case. But he did develop one unique to his work and schools.  ↩
  3.  Harry Brunk, History of Mennonites in Virginia: 1727-1900, (Staunton, Va.: McClure Print Co., 1959), 121. ↩
  4.  Brunk, 118. ↩
  5. Weldon T. Myers, “Aldine S. Kieffer, the Valley Poet, and His Work” Two notable shaped-note leaders. (Wytheville, Va.: Available from Jim Presgraves, ABAA, Bookworm & Silverfish, 1995), 21-25. ↩
  6.  W.K. McNeil, s.v. “Showalter, Anthony Johnson” Encyclopedia of American Music, (New York: Routledge, 2005), 339-340. ↩