Why did Mennonites Abandon the Early Anabaptist View of Jesus’ Exception Clause? (Separatism and Confessional Statements)

American Mennonites gradually abandoned the early Anabaptist interpretation of Jesus’ words, “except for porneia(Matt. 5:32; 19:9). They eventually resolved, instead, to exclude from the church any remarried person whose former spouse was still alive, even if their divorce had been triggered by adultery.

In my last post, I shared when this change took place. It began no later than the mid-1800s (likely decades before) and was finalized in a General Conference of the Mennonite Church in 1905.

But why did this change happen, and why at this time? This why question is a little harder to pin down. I don’t think there was a single cause, but rather a cluster of reasons. I’ll begin discussing these reasons in this post.

Brief aside: To avoid (or create!) confusion, I should clarify that I am telling the story here primarily of the “Mennonite Church,” not of all Mennonites in America, let alone of all Amish, too. The Mennonite Church was the oldest and largest branch of Anabaptists in America, composed of primarily Swiss-Germans, both Mennonites and some former Amish. It gave birth over time to many other groups, including Old Order Mennonites and, later, various conservative “fellowships” and “conferences” (including, indirectly, the Midwest Mennonite Fellowship of the church of my youth). Those who remained (along with others who joined) are now known as Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church CanadaThe Mennonite Church has been the most influential branch of American Anabaptists, partly because of its many publications, some of which strongly shape conservative Anabaptists even to this day.

Click here to see a timeline of Amish and Mennonite separations and mergers, created by my friend Ernest Eby. The branch I’m focusing on is  the “Old” Mennonite Church, as well as the Amish-Mennonites who joined them.

Why did the Mennonite Church step away from early Anabaptist teachings permitting divorce and remarriage in cases of adultery? Several background historical conditions played a supporting role. In this post I’ll discuss two: the separatist mindset of Anabaptists, and the role of confessions and catechisms.

In a subsequent post I plan to discuss a possible third: the transition to the English language.

Again, I want to be clear that what follows is a series of informed propositions, not a publishable thesis. I am not sure how heavily to weigh each of these factors, and I’m sure I’m missing other factors worthy of discussion.

A SEPARATIST MINDSET

A first historical factor that probably helped nudge Mennonites toward a stricter divorce theology was their long tradition of seeing themselves as a people apart. Their two-kingdom theology separated them not only from “the world,” but also from most other Christians, who were seen as participating in the world through political involvement and moral compromise. “Their worldview pitted the faithful remnant of true Christians in hard struggle against the established churches and against the vast majority of ‘Christians’ who did not live righteously.” 1

It is important to remember that even on the topic of divorce and remarriage early Anabaptists were mostly2 “conservative” in comparison to Reformers such as Luther and Zwingli, who permitted divorce for more reasons that just adultery. (See this post for more about Zwingli and divorce. See here for relevant quotes from Luther.)

When Anabaptists moved to America, this sense of being a people apart evolved, but continued. On the one hand, these American Anabaptists no longer had the evangelistic zeal of their ancestors, which meant the church was now mostly composed of biological descendants rather than converts. This reinforced their isolation. On the other hand, they were no longer hiding for their lives, facing persecution from fellow “Christians.” This led to some increased assimilation within the surrounding culture. Mennonites engaged in business deals with non-Mennonite neighbors, shared church buildings, attended each other’s services, and even sometimes intermarried.

But before complete assimilation could occur, events such as the Revolutionary War reminded this nonresistant people of their identity:

The greatest result of the whole revolutionary experience for Mennonites and Amish was to heighten their sense of separation from their neighbors. Rather suddenly, they had found themselves to be a people somewhat apart from the new people the patriots were forming. So they… emerged from the American revolution to be, more than before, “the quiet in the land.”3

The Civil War (1861-65) found Mennonites and Amish less united in their response, but “unlike Protestants in major denominations… [they] had not put politics and sectionalism above faith to the point of dividing the church into northern and southern branches”4 Whatever their wartime choices, American Anabaptists experienced renewed debate about how to live as a separate people. Leaders such as Brenneman and Funk—the same leaders who played lead roles in the Herald of Truth divorce debate I summarized in my last post—published new booklets promoting nonresistance.

Separation over military participation reinforced separation over marriage. Almost all Mennonite and Amish groups in the 1800s tried to prevent interdenominational marriages. Many churches excommunicated members who married outside the church; others placed such members on probation. A few churches gave reluctant permission, and one prominent Lancaster minister (1890) mourned the fact that Mennonite youth who were not yet members were forced to get conduct their interdenominational marriages elsewhere:

Why must our menonite [sic] children when they are united in the bonds of matrimony, be sent to those least esteemed in the church? We try to raise them up in the nonresistent [sic] doctrine in our Sunday schools, but when they get married, we must send them to those war ministers to get married.5

Such a strong separatist mindset probably also shaped how American Anabaptists felt about divorce and remarriage.

To be clear, Anabaptists had always warned strongly against (wrongful) divorce. It appears that American Anabaptists even pushed against the traditional practice of calling church members to shun spouses who were under church discipline; when Amish leaders in the 1860s tried to force a wife to shun her husband, church members called her an adulteress when she reluctantly complied! This suggests that, among American Anabaptists, the marriage bond was seen as even more binding than it had been seen by some early Anabaptists (such as Dutch Mennonites and Hutterites).

As divorce and remarriage gradually became more frequent in the surrounding culture and churches (more on this in a future post), Mennonite leaders were keen to observe the rulings of other denominations and to urge a strict course for their own churches. Though I have not found any record of actual church decisions on the matter from the 1700s or early 1800s, I suspect that as churches around them veered “left” on divorce, Amish and Mennonites gradually pulled harder to the “right.”

An author in the Herald of Truth put it this way (1883): “Instead of divine law, to regulate it [marriage and divorce], the civil law is made the criterion by many Christian churches.”6 Similarly, the Herald reported in 1895 that two men, “neither of them having been born in a Mennonite family,” gave a presentation titled, “Why am I a Mennonite?” Their sixth reason was summarized thus:

6. Nonresistance. Also that adulterers (divorced persons remarrying) cannot enter the kingdom of God. Virtuous life required of every member…7

A strong stance against divorce and remarriage was part of the “brand” of American Mennonites, part of their identity as a people apart. Their separatist mindset tied them to their Anabaptist ancestors, even though they had come to embrace a somewhat more stringent doctrine about divorce and remarriage than what their ancestors had taught.

CONFESSIONS AND CATECHISMS

Confessions of faith have been one important way Anabaptists have remained rooted in the theology of their ancestors. Significantly, however, the confession of faith that became most popular and authoritative for both Amish and Mennonites in America, the Dordrecht Confession of Faith (1632), does not mention divorce or remarriage at all. (Here is the Dordrecht Confession’s article about marriage.)

This is surely an historical accident, in the sense that the authors of this confession almost certainly did, with all other Anabaptists of their time, permit divorce and remarriage in cases of adultery. It is also an accident in the sense that the popularity of this confession had nothing to do with its silence on this topic. Historical accidents, nevertheless, can produce real results.

American Anabaptists did use some other documents that preserved the historic Anabaptist teaching. For example, the “long” confession (c. 1600) included in the Martyr’s Mirror did explicitly affirm remarriage after adultery (as noted by the 1882 Herald of Truth article quoted in my last post). Menno Simon’s writings, republished in America, taught the same. But most people probably had to go digging through long texts to find those witnesses. The Dordrecht confession, by contrast, was used alongside several catechisms for instructing candidates for baptism and membership. Virtually every Mennonite encountered it.

Did the catechisms clarify the historic Anabaptist affirmation of remarriage in cases of adultery? No, they did not. While many Anabaptist catechisms and confessions from 1600 to the 1860s affirm divorce in cases of adultery, I have not found any documents from this period that mention the question of remarriage in such cases. They certainly do not forbid remarriage, but neither do they explicitly affirm it. They are silent. Many of these post-1600 documents probably assumed the historic Anabaptist teaching without repeating it.8

The Church of God in Christ Mennonite denomination (started in 1859 by John Holdeman) offers an informative contrast. This was a restorationist group, so they intentionally reached back to early Anabaptist writings to shape their own theology and practice. This excerpt from their 1896 confession cites both the “long” confession (c. 1600) and the writings of Menno Simons as it affirms, mostly intact,9 the historic Anabaptist teaching on remarriage after adultery:

We do believe that the Lord prohibited divorcing excepting in case of adultery. Yet we do not believe that a brother or sister should apply for a divorce. We understand the Savior’s expression in Matthew 19:9, as did the Martyr brethren in their 33 articles of faith as we read in “Martyr’s Mirror,” page 387, article 25, when they expressed themselves as follows: “And thus re-establishing marriage between one man and one woman, and so inseparably and firmly binding the bond of matrimony, that they might not, on any account, separate and marry another, except in case of adultery or death.” Also read in Menno Simon part 2, page 311.

But the confession considered most authoritative by most early American Mennonites (Dordrecht) did not mention the question of divorce and remarriage after adultery. Many other documents they used most often addressed only the first half of the question.

Given this situation, it isn’t surprising that American Mennonites gradually lost clarity and agreement about what they believed on the topic. This lack of teaching set the stage for renewed debate, eventually leading to a new (and different) consensus.

CONCLUSION

The separatist mindset of American Mennonites probably pushed them to become even more rigorous than their Anabaptist ancestors in their interpretation of Jesus’ exception clause. This “push” factor was not counterbalanced with any “pull” in their most popular Anabaptist confession and catechisms, which did not address the topic of remarriage after adultery. Together, these historical factors helped set the stage for the Mennonite Church to retreat from early Anabaptist views about valid grounds for divorce and remarriage.


In my next post I hope to wrestle with the question of whether the language transition from German to English shaped Mennonite views on divorce and remarriage.

Meanwhile, I invite your responses to this post in the comments below. Thanks for reading!


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  1. Theron F. Schlabach, Peace, Faith, Nation: Mennonites and Amish in Nineteenth-Century America, The Mennonite Experience in America, V. 2 (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1988), 20. In this quote, Schlabach is discussing early Anabaptists in Europe.
  2. I say “mostly” because some early Anabaptists affirmed the practice of converts divorcing their unbelieving (non-Anabaptist) spouses and remarrying; a practice which the magisterial Reformers strongly opposed. Except for the Hutterites, and except for the Dutch Mennonite who advocated shunning spouses who were under discipline, within a generation or so almost all Anabaptists had rejected this additional ground for divorce, limiting it only to one: adultery.
  3. Richard K. MacMaster, Land, Piety, Peoplehood: The Establishment of Mennonite Communities in America 1683-1790, The Mennonite Experience in America, V. 1 (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 19850, 279.
  4. Schlabach, 199.
  5. Schlabach, 83.
  6. A. K. Zook, “Matrimony,” original article for The Herald of Truth, Vol. 20, No. 14 (published July 15, 1883), 212; https://archive.org/details/heraldoftruth20unse/page/n111/mode/1up.
  7. “Proceedings of the Mennonite S. S. Conference of Indiana and Michigan,” Herald of Truth, Vol. 32, No. 22 (Nov. 15, 1895), 346; https://archive.org/details/heraldoftruth32unse/page/n176/mode/1up.
  8. See the conclusion to this post, including footnote 36, for more analysis of this documentary evidence.
  9. I say “mostly intact” because of the statement that Christians should not apply for a divorce. This may be based on the idea of some early Anabaptists that marriages initiated outside the church are not particularly valid or binding. The Holdemans seem to have concluded that, in contrast, marriages between church members cannot be broken. Most early Anabaptist writings, however do not appear to restrict believers from divorcing spouses who commit adultery.
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17 thoughts on “Why did Mennonites Abandon the Early Anabaptist View of Jesus’ Exception Clause? (Separatism and Confessional Statements)”

  1. Leonard Gross, long-time historical researcher at Goshen, has clarified the issue that you are discussing but in a different vein of thought. Leonard says that the Dutch Mennonites, influenced by the Celestial Flesh doctrine, understood that those who married were married to Christ first, then to their spouses. With such doctrinal backdrop the entire divorce and remarriage discussion takes on a different dimension. The Swiss German Mennonites refused to adopt the Celestial Flesh doctrine except for the Holdeman Mennonites, which explains their present position. Later, the Swiss Brethren did officially adopt the Dortrecht Confession as a statement of their faith. However, they must have done so with some reservation as subsequent events proved. The entire Amish separation from the Hans Reist group finally hinged on how the practice of shunning should be interpreted. For the Reist group, strict shunning was an innovation imported from the Durtch Mennonites. Again, this stress point is clarified when one considers that the Dutch Mennonites, according to the Celestial Flesh doctrine, needed to establish and maintain a perfect church. The Swiss, emphasizing Matthew 18, were more dedicated to what we refer to today as “koinonia.”
    Quite a bit more could be said here. Please listen to my topic at the 2012 Anabaptist Identity Conference entitled “Dutch Mennonite vs. Swiss Brethren Concept of the Church. Leonard Gross helped me understand the marked differences between the two distinct groups of Anabaptists.
    On another level the Mennonite Church USA, fifty to sixty years ago, reasoned from the same premises you are presenting thus far. By accepting the historical facts you are presenting and using them as justification for accepting divorced and remarried persons in the church at that time, the group laid the groundwork for accepting practicing homosexuals and the LGBT sexual perversions among their membership today. As you know, this toleration is tearing the Mennonite Church USA apart today.

    1. Chester, thanks so much for taking time to read and respond. I value your input, since you have studied Anabaptist history far longer than I have.

      I believe I did listen to your AIC talk that you mention. I do know that it was at your recommendation that I purchased a copy of Golden Apples in Silver Bowls, edited by Gross, which covers much of the ground your are describing. I have wished he would have been able to include a few more specific insights into the minor ways that the Swiss adapted the Dordrecht Confession’s article on marriage! I think he clarifies which parts are changed, but does not reflect on any possible motivations or possible differences in understanding that the changes may imply. I’ve concluded the minor changes probably do not imply any real difference of understanding [edit: on the specific question of divorce and remarriage in cases of adultery].

      On the path of the MSUSA, I definitely share your concern about where they have ended up. It is tragic drift from a biblical position. That said, it seems to me, in my survey thus far of divorce debates in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, that there was a switch from the early Anabaptist way of talking about “forbidding all divorce except in cases of adultery” to instead talking about the “divorce evil” and the pros and cons of “divorce and remarriage,” and that that switch prepared the way for later apostacy. In other words, it seems to me that the following is probably what happened: In the late 19th century the Mennonite Church started focusing on divorce more than adultery, and tightened their restriction against “divorce and remarriage,” making it absolute. Subsequent generations did not like this strict stance against all “divorce and remarriage,” so they started arguing for some grace to allow some “divorce and remarriage.” Crucially, the argument was not to return to a biblically-defined exception (divorce and remarriage only in cases of adultery), but rather to adopt a more “compassionate” stance about divorce and remarriage in general, offering flexibility for a wide range of difficult situations.

      And I actually suspect the seeds for this were sown back when the Mennonite Church started urging a stricter stance against all divorce and remarriage, without recognizing an exception for adultery. Why do we not find the phrase “the adultery evil” repeated in the Herald of Truth like we do the phrase “the divorce evil”? I think Mennonites were letting the national anti-divorce reform movement set the terms of the debate. There was much debate at the time about what laws could and should be set against divorce, but much less public effort against adultery.

      On a personal level, my study of Anabaptist historical practices has made me more eager to stay true to the Scriptures. The same approach to the Scriptures (starting with Jesus, trying to read his words as his first listeners would have heard them, etc.) that I am trying to use regarding the topic of divorce is what convinced me more strongly than ever that Jesus never approved (and does not today) of LGBT behaviors. Perhaps you saw the blog series I wrote on that topic in 2019: https://dwightgingrich.com/was-jesus-okay-with-homosexuality-1-of-5/

      I would love to learn more from you if you have any insights into what Anabaptists of the 1700s and 1800s believed about divorce in cases of adultery. I have limited access to sources, and my inability to read German doesn’t help. There is an explosion of evidence with the start of the Herald of Truth in the 1860s, but I have little hard evidence from before.

      Thanks again!

    2. Men, and especially women, are often drawn to look horizontal, that is to the left (whether literal, or “liberal”), or right (whether literal, or “conservative”), but our brother Paul said “they, comparing themselves, among themselves, are not wise”, and again, “..did the Word of God emerge from you, or did it only reach you?” It is good to study and know history, but, especially in Mennonite groups, “knowledge “puffs up”, it makes you overly proud; proud of heritage (much could be said here) proud of genealogy (which we’re told to avoid), proud of relational or familial ties (and just who is our family?) and so on. Remember, two men went up to the Temple to pray.
      We need to look vertically, to God and His Word, His Son, not add and uphold traditions of men “and many such like things.” Jeus gave us Divine words, and he meant them. To add or subtract, no matter the reason, self preservation is included, is not good. It’s actually damnable so be careful.
      He said “saving for the cause of pornea”, it stands. Not, “the flowers on our womens dresses need to be the size of a quarter or less.” Like, why are you letting your women adorn themselves in pretty attention drawing flowers? Have you ever asked yourself? Is it not YOUR concession to THEIR selfish nature? “And many other such like things you do”, “teaching for doctrine the commandments of men.”
      I am a divorced man who has not remarried, just so you know.

  2. Thanks for the article. I learned a lot of things about the story and belief of Anabaptists, especially about marriage. I do not know if there are Anabaptists in the Philippines. In the seminary we were taught that Baptists originated from Anabaptist.

    1. Thank you for reading! I am not aware, either, whether there are Anabaptists in the Philippines. I just asked the question to my Facebook friends. Perhaps one of them will provide an answer.

      I don’t know as much about the history of the Baptists. I do think that some early Baptists were influenced by some Anabaptists (Dutch Mennonites, as I recall), but I had the impression that the Baptists had their own separate origin story.

      Blessings!

  3. This is so interesting! The divorce and remarriage issue, specifically regarding the exception clause, is an issue that my family and I have struggled with a lot upon entering conservative Anabaptist circles. I am fascinated to see the development of the conservative Anabaptist position through the years into what it is today, and I look forward to reading more on the subject!

  4. I’ve worked among the old order Mennonites for 32 now, and love and appreciate them. The failure to address divorce and remarriage has done great harm to a number of wives who’s husbands have been unfaithful to them. These women will go to grave without a help meet for the immoral behavior of their spouses.

    1. Barry, you have noted one of the very real potential problems with a strict no-divorce view: Does it recognize the seriousness of adultery? I agree that Mennonites have sometimes focused on the “divorce evil” so strongly that marital faithfulness has been seen as less shameful than divorce. Whatever one’s stance on divorce and remarriage, we need to regain a biblical view of the sinfulness of adultery. Thanks for your comment.

  5. Thanks for continuing to dig into this topic, it is fascinating how the whims and waves of societal “hot topics” can cause such a substantial drift in just one generation, and the next one just picks up where the previous left off and never even realizes that a drift has occurred.

  6. Thanks Dwight…
    Is Mat.19.9 a part of verse 8…” Because of the hardness of your heart”? I mean divorce even if legally okay is still because of the hardness of man’s heart?

    He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. Matthew 19:8 ESV

    And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” Matthew 19:9 ESV

    1. Thanks for reading and taking time to comment. You ask a good question: Does divorce still show that there is hardness of heart, even if Jesus may be saying it is sometimes legally okay?

      In one sense, I agree, because every time there is divorce it is clearly because one or both spouses have sinned. Either one has been unfaithful (an expression of a hard heart) and given their spouse cause to divorce, or else one has divorce without cause (also an expression of a hard heart). In another way, however, I’m not sure that Jesus was intending to say that everyone who divorces does so because they have a hard heart. In the case of the law of Moses, he granted people permission to divorce even when their spouse had not committed adultery; such divorces were without sufficient cause and permitted only because people’s hearts were hard. The emphasis in that law was on going through due process (granting an official divorce certificate that would permit the divorced party to remarry) rather than just abandoning an unwanted wife. But in Jesus’ exception clause, he drew a much more restricted permission for divorce; there had to be actual sexual unfaithfulness; they couldn’t divorce simply because they didn’t like their spouse or felt shamed in some way by them. So I doubt that Jesus was meaning to say that every person who divorces an unfaithful spouse has a hard heart, even though that may be true in some cases.

    2. God divorced. All divorce is not because the innocent spouse had a hard heart but the offender did.
      If Jesus (or John? Because some try to claim he began the “no remarriage” idea) really said that divorce and remarriage is a sin now then did it change immediately when the words were spoken? Were those already divorced in sin now?

      There is also the issue that technically the words still do have some gender differences as was seen in the Old Testament.

  7. I totally agree to that bethren Mennonites are understanding by the Word of God! Porneia doesn’t mean adultery, as the “divorce makers” say. In Ancient Greek EVERY word has a specific meaning. The word in Matthew about the “exception clause” is not belonging to the First Century Christian bethren, it is a misunderstanding of the 4th Century AC (Ambrosiaster). God hates the divorce, then it is not good try to do everything for legalize something God hates and He did not stated in Genesis. It is God that “invented” the marriage and marriage is for life. Today we live in a society that go to the divorce just for a misunderstanding, for something trouble or just with some disappoint… is this image the biblical Marriage? No, for sure!
    Somebody wrote that God divorced, that’s true. God divorced by Israel, but that person forgets to say that God will rejoin with Israel and ALL Israel will be saved! (Rm 11:26). Instead, humans want to divorce to go with others… let’s meditate on this…

  8. There are two reasons why divorce and remarriage is unacceptable for the Christian.
    1. Biblically speaking Jesus and the Apostle Paul do not make allowance for it and God hates it.
    2. The Marriage vows give only one clause for the discontinuation of the marriage: ’till death do us part. Anyone not keeping their vow is living in untruth.

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