Click to download a 20-page historical paper:
The “Divorce Evil” and the Response of the Mennonite Church (1880s to 1905)
In 1905 the Mennonite Church in the United States and Canada officially resolved that no divorced and remarried person should be accepted as a church member. How did they arrive at this absolute position, given the strong consensus among early Anabaptists that divorce and remarriage were permitted in cases of adultery?
The reasons are complex and not fully clear. I have written several blog posts (here and here) discussing various historical factors that probably helped pave the way for the Mennonite Church to take a harder stance against divorce and remarriage. These factors include a separatist mindset that encouraged the Mennonite Church to adopt unusually stringent teachings, the historical accident of American Mennonites losing touch with the early Anabaptist confessions that most clearly affirmed divorce and remarriage in cases of adultery, and the transition from the German language to English.
The 20-page paper I’m sharing today discusses several more immediate factors that help explain how and why the Mennonite Church reached a newly strict consensus on divorce in 1905. These factors include the development of Mennonite periodicals, the practice of church conferences, the eventual development of a General Conference, and, perhaps most importantly, a growing concern about the “divorce evil” in America.
In my last blog post I described three contrasting perspectives on marriage permanence, labeling them radical freedom (no restrictions against any mutually-desired divorce), radical faithfulness (second-mile devotion in marriage but acknowledging marriage can be broken by adultery, abuse, or abandonment), and radical permanence (nothing but death can end a marriage). I also suggested that radical permanence tends to be “a reactionary stance.”
It seems to me that the historical evidence shows this to be true, to a significant degree, for the Mennonite Church. Simply put, the early Anabaptists affirmed forms of radical faithfulness, but the Mennonite Church in 1905 affirmed radical permanence as they witnessed the growth of radical freedom in American society around them.
In the following paper I share a lot of primary source evidence, mostly from Mennonite periodicals, that shows how Mennonites took an increasingly hardline stance against divorce as they became increasingly concerned about the “divorce evil” in society around them.
The challenge for us today is to avoid mistakes of the past and present without becoming merely reactionary ourselves. May God give us grace to teach and practice radical faithfulness—first to the heart and will of God as expressed in Scripture, and then to each other in our marriages.
If you wish to discuss this paper, please leave a comment here. I realize my historical survey and analysis are incomplete, but am grateful to be able to share part of a story that is otherwise difficult to discover, buried as it is in historical documents and the memories of Mennonites now deceased.
Click to open or download paper:
The “Divorce Evil” and the Response of the Mennonite Church (1880s to 1905)
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Thanks as always for sharing. The paper you wrote was quite helpful, and gives lessons that apply beyond the question of divorce and remarriage.
It appears the church was so desperate for a meaningful guck response to the “divorce crisis” that they ended up asking the wrong questions of Jesus’ teaching. They seemed to ask, “How can we use Jesus’ words to respond to the divorce problem?”what they should have asked is, “What does Jesus teach us about the divorce problem?” It’s a subtle but meaningful distinction. My reading of Kauffman in other areas seems to bear out that this was his approach. Scripture was generally atomized so it could be lobbed out to defend the solutions already arrived at by the earnest defenders of truth.
While the history of Mennonite views on this question is scarcely decisive in answering the question about what Jesus teaches, it certainly helps tp consider my own presuppositions and blind spots.
Thank you, Dru. I appreciate that you took time to read the paper, and your comments are well spoken. And perhaps an even more foundational question might be “What did Jesus mean to teach in the passages that mention divorce?” Only after answering that question well are we able to know what his words teach us now as we consider the problems of divorce and broken marriages.
Thanks again for your engagement with me multiple times on this topic. As I told a friend recently, you have a good way of prodding me to think more deeply, sometimes disagreeing but always in a way that helps us both continue learning.