Book Review: From Martyr to Muppy: A Historical Introduction to Cultural Assimilation Processes of a Religious Minority in the Netherlands – the Mennonites, Amsterdam University Press, (1994).

 In its earliest manifestations at least Anabaptism eschewed nationalist rhetoric. For example, Michael Sattler provocatively suggested that he would rather fight the Christian than the Turk – in other words, fight against his fellow countrymen.

But if Anabaptism could be identified with one nation (of rather, what would be subsequently seen to be one nation) it must surely be the Netherlands (in latter centuries I guess the US has overtaken them somewhat). Some of the earliest – and it has to be said weirdest – were of Dutch provenance, most famously the post-Melchiorite Munster Anabaptists. Of more lasting significance however was the leader who restored order to the disparate remnants of the post Munster Anabaptists, namely Menno Simons from whom the term Mennonite is drawn.

It was Simons who through a significant about of pastoral oversight helped formed the disparate and often schism prone congregations into a movement that was recognisable to the image one has of Anabaptists today of a gathered church that eschewed violence and, with this eschewal – or shunning, to use an apposite Mennonite term – they also sought to maintain a strict separation of what we would now term Church and State. It is this image that is, I think, the presiding image of Anabaptism for those who have got over the whole Munster thing. And, in the course of maintaining this separation there was a collision and by retaining the faith many individuals were killed by the state for their religious convictions. These were the martyrs of the book’s title.

Over the course of the last five centuries however the Mennonites have not been killed with anywhere the same frequency in the Netherlands. Certainly, a major reason for for this is the increasing tolerance of the Dutch authorities who increasingly accepted the Mennonite appeal to religious tolerance. But, as this book shows that is only part of the story.

The other part is the assimilation of Mennonites into Dutch society. The assimilated Mennonite is the Muppy (the Mennonite urban professional); and here we enter the world where businesses are launched by borrowing from Church ‘poor funds’ and where a mennonite can be a major arms dealer whilst remaining a member in good standing. I find it very difficult to read much of this story as anything but the betrayal of Anabaptism.

As with any collection of essays there are good and less good essays but this assimilation is a fascinating (but depressing) story for which notwithstanding the good recital of historical figures is wholly lack in scholarly rigour, whether that is in the form of historical interpretation or, what would have interested me most, theological analysis (there is a little of this in respect of the relations with Reformed christianity). From Martyr to Muppy is, I think, the only recent english language study this Mennonite assimilation and, as such, it does have worth but I am not sure that when a further work is done it will have much redeeming value at all. One to avoid.

Should you be interested the articles in the book are listed below:

Table of Contents

1. Alastair Hamilton – ‘The Development of Dutch Anabaptism in the Light of the European Magisterial and Radical Reformation.’
2. Sjouke Voolstra – ‘The Colony of Heaven: The Anabaptist Aspiration to be a Church Without Spot or Wrinkle in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries?
3. Otto de Jong – How Protestant are the Mennonites? Isolation and Assimilation of Dutch Mennonites in the Framework of Dutch Protestantism
4. Simon Verheus – Congregational Assimilation in a Historical Nutshell: Martyrs, Mennonites and Muppies in Haarlem
5. Edmund Kizik – Religious Freedom and the Limits of Social Assimilation: The History of the Mennonites in Gdansk and the Vistula Delta until their Tragic End After World War II
6. Piet Visser- Aspects of Social Criticism and Cultural Assimilation: The Mennonite Image in Literature and Self-criticism of Literary Mennonites
7. Marijke Spies – Mennonites and Literature in the Seventeenth Century
8. Piet Visser – Jan Philipz Schabaelje, a Seventeenth Century Dutch Mennonite, and his Wandering Soul
9. Louis Peter Grijp – A Different Flavour in a Psalm-minded Setting: Mennonite Songs from the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
10. Mary Sprunger – Waterlanders and the Dutch Golden Age: A Case Study on Mennonite Involvement in Seventeenth Century Dutch Trade and Industry as one of the Earliest Examples of Socio-Economic Assimilation
11. Bert Westera – Mennonites and War in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: The Brants Family between Pacifism and the Trade in Guns
12. Andrew Fix – Mennonites and Rationalism in the Seventeenth Century
13. Jelle Bosma – Mennonites versus Calvinists: A Comparative Study of Mennonite and Dutch Reformed Homiletics during the Enlightenment
14. Sjouke Voolstra – The Hymn to Freedom: The Redefinition of Dutch Mennonite Identity in the Restoration and Romantic Period (ca 1810-1850)
15. Anton van der Lern – Men of Principles and Men of Learning: The Mennonite Backgrounds of some Dutch Historians, with Special Reference to Johan Huizinga and Jan Romein.

the historic function of the entire supernatural world of religion was to represent to us the world of linguistic meaning – a world that has always been curiously difficult to enter and to think about except through poetry and myth … religion’s mythicization of the world of linguistic meaning also functioned to keep meaning under control. God the first speaker was the master of meaning, its lawgiver, and its guarantor of stability.

The modern breakdown of supernatural belief is a breakdown of the old mechanisms that used to govern language and prevent it from running out of control. Hence we now live in the time of the angels, a crazy time (76).

The reference to the time of angels is a reference to Iris Murdoch’s novel The Time Of The Angels which was written in 1966 at a time when there was much intellectual discussion on the Death of God (e.g., Altizer and Hamilton). Her novel is evidently (I have not read it yet) itself a reaction to this wider discussion. The premise, as Cupitt explains it is one where the “central authority [God] having broken down, errant spirit powers wreak havoc in the world” (75). Or, as the oft quoted Yeats put it, where the centre does not hold ‘mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.’

I don’t want to dwell too long on this as I hope to write a longer piece on the correlation between Cupitt’s death of God/language and the postchristendom moment we find ourselves approaching  in Britain. Briefly however, Cupitt links the death of God as part of an inexorable process of philosophy (through Kant, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Ayer, Wittgenstein and Rorty) and an increasing falling away of a platonic view of language. It is for this reason that Cupitt can make the startling claim that “the god of realistic philosophical theism, the metaphysical God, the super-being out there, was made possible by Plato, and dies with him” (62).

Crucial to his argument is a view of religion (spirits) as a correlate of words (language). Hence,

in the course of history of thought, the archaic world of spirits was transformed by Plato into his Intelligible World of general ideas of Forms. Later again, Plato’s world-above was transformed by Kant into an order of concepts in our minds, and that in turn was transformed into modern philosophy into the vocabulary of our language. Telescoping the whole of this long and complex process, we now see from our point of view that the magical supernatural world of religion was, all along, a mythical representation of the world of language (15-16).

I do not ascribe to this view and the resulting nonrealist religion Cupitt advances but the birth of language decoupled from the external authority which is found in the reformation but especially in modern philosophy (which marries the birth of multiple states and hence the multiplication of gods and, conversely, their deaths) seems to me to itself be an analog of the death – or rather, death throes – of Christendom. With the death of God comes the time of the Angels where mere anarchy is unleashed upon an unsuspecting world. It is in such a time, I think, that the Word can be released from the institutional and hegemonic constraints that have for too long bound it.

The Church of England‘s most senior openly gay cleric is understood to be considering suing his employers for discrimination unless he is made a bishop.

Dr Jeffrey John, the dean of St Albans, was forced to stand down by the archbishop of Canterbury after being appointed suffragan bishop of Reading in 2003 following objections from conservative evangelicals.

Two years ago, John – a celibate priest who is in a longstanding civil partnership with another cleric – was prevented from becoming the bishop of Southwark after the archbishops of Canterbury and York stepped in.

Reports on Sunday suggested John had become so exasperated at his treatment that he had hired Alison Downie, an employment and discrimination law specialist and partner at the law firm Goodman Derrick, to fight his case under equality law. Four years ago, Downie successfully represented a gay youth worker who was found to have been discriminated against by the bishop of Hereford because of his sexuality.

It is thought John’s case could hinge on a damning memorandum written by a former dean of Southwark Cathedral, which lays bare the divisions over sexuality at the very top of the church.

In the leaked memo, the late Very Rev Colin Slee described how both the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and the archbishop of York, John Sentamu “behaved very badly” at a meeting to choose the bishop of Southwark in 2010, and “were intent on wrecking both Jeffrey John and [another candidate] Nick Holtam equally”.

The memo goes on to record how the meeting descended into acrimony.

“The archbishop of Canterbury was bad-tempered throughout,” it says. “When it came to voting, certainly two – possibly three – members were in tears and [Williams] made no acknowledgement but carried on regardless. At a critical point Archbishop Sentamu and three other members simultaneously went to the lavatory, after which the voting patterns changed.”

The first thing that jumps out is the characterisation of Rowan Williams. I realise we should take such reports with a very large pinch of salt but I have to show the picture of Williams especially shocked me. Much as I have become increasingly disappointed with his primacy evidence of such personal animosity is one I would not have thought likely. I really hope it’s not.

The media stories suggest that John has been actively considering whether to sue the Church of England for unlawful discrimination on the grounds of his sexuality. Let me say at the outset John has been treated despicably by the CofE and part of me wonders whether a legal challenge could force the issue of the Church’s issue on sexuality to a head which has been going on too long. I am among those who think that could ultimately be a good thing in the longer term. Episcopal Cafe has helpfully given some context and has shown that talk of suing is at present premature but not ruled out.

At its most basic however unless for a point of principle I will be disappointed if it does result legal action. Aside from the apparent renunciation of a dispute resolution process as laid down in scripture (e.g., 1 Cor 6 – a passage Christian Voice would also do well to reflect on) but more importantly the resort to the forces of law to advance an ecclesiastical vocation strike me as extremely distasteful (and this, therefore, has very little to do with sexuality). At its basis this would represent a legal action for the failure of the church to ‘call out’ and recognise the gifts of one the their own (which is essentially ordination). I have every reason to believe that this failure is a refusal to recognise one of God’s own and is nothing but a symbol of institutional homophobia (not necessarily explicit on the individual level), Or, in other words, Sin! Is not the better way to continue serving faithfully (not submissively) and, by so doing, heap burning coals on the heads of those who resist the divine call.

Rant over.

The Shakers are a quintessentially American religion or, at least, they are often portrayed as such when they are discussed. One recent essay, for example, has suggested that the Shakers are emblematic of ‘the American Soul’.

However, as with so much American culture the Shakers, or the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing to give them their proper name are (for there are a few Shakers still surviving) an English export with Ann Lee the leader of the Shakers having led a small number of believers across the Atlantic to settle first in New York in 1776. But that is to move ahead too quickly. From whence did the Shakers come? The sleeve of the book explains that it tells the story from “blacksmith’s daughter to female messiah, the true story of Ann Lee, founder of the Shaker movement.” Whether these are the words of Richard Francis or of a publicist they concur with one of the central themes of the book, namely that Shakerism cannot be understood without reference to the complicated personality and leadership of Ann Lee.

I am no expert on the Shakers but I can already see that such an argument is a theologically loaded one. Like the argument as to whether Charles Parham or William Seymour is rightly the founder of Pentecostalism the choice to label Ann Lee as Shakerism’s founder represents a statement on the theological and ritual core of the faith. It seems to me that at least two other contenders have a legitimate argument to be the Shaker’s founding mother or father.

First we have the James and Jane Wardley. Both were Quakers who were disenchanted with the apostasy of Quakerism seen, by them, in the cessation of shaking in meetings for worship (the term Quaker comes from the tendency of early Friends to quake in the presence of God; that is, they literally shook). Hence this Wardley group which met predominately in Bolton but grew to include Manchester although the number of ‘shakers’ was never large. In these meetings which,the like many other religious movements of the time were strongly millennial, the presence and judgement of God was felt as believer shook in their bodies. Analogous to the argument for Parham and ‘tongues speech’ if it is shaking that was the sine qua non of the Shaker movement then the Wardleys must surely be seen as the founder of Shakerism? After all, Ann Lee was herself a congregant of the Wardley group and directly received the gift (to use Shaker parlance) from the Wardley’s innovation. An interesting question which the Wardley question poses is to what extent Quakerism influenced the development of Quakerism. They may in their early days have been called The Shaking Quakers but there is little in in Francis’ characterisation of the Shakers that leads me to think that there was a significant incubation of Quakerism in the nascent Shaker movement.

But after Ann Lee there was another who revolutionised the Shaker movement and transformed it into something that make it resemble the shakerism we know (or at least, vaguely know about today), that being the person of Joseph Meacham. Meacham was a convert of Ann Lee’s and was previously a Baptist minister (as were a number of the early converts to Shakerism once they had emigrated to America). In a classic example of Weber’s routinisation of charisma Meacham pulled the Shakers back from a ecstatic shaking and ritualised shaking making the defining feature of Shakerism controllable. In addition, he created an alternative and largely bureaucratic hierarchy and, most importantly, established Shakerism as a communistic religion, something that had never previously been codified. In this then Shakerism as it is presently practised finds its clearest source.

But, for Francis, it is Ann Lee that represents the human(?) source of Shakerism’s birth and early growth. Francis does not even so much as discuss the issue but I think the last words of the book give a clue to why he has adopted such an approach:

Many see [Shakerism] as a repository of Old American values, or an innocent way of life in touch with the environment, where self-help is combined with caring, spiritual integrity and purity are all important. There is some validity in that perspective, but it sentimentalises and marginalises the original strangeness and energy of the movement, its assault on family life and sexual love, its encouragement of bizarre and irrational behaviour. Ann Lee remains such a powerful because she was so utterly uncompromising and completely certain of herself. One can apprehend her in terms of her historical significance and her cultural importance, particularly for enormous and undervalued contribution to feminism. But in the end one must experience Ann Lee as she herself experienced her faith, directly, personally, viscerally.

What was it about Lee that set her apart from her contemporaries as a religious entrepreneur? (incidentally, I am far from convinced the case for Ann Lee’s “enormous … contribution to feminism” is at all demonstrated). Perhaps I am reading too much into the text but it seems that for Francis this “irrationality” is at the heart of Shakerism, and by extension, all religion. At the least, as the most exuberant there seems to be an argument that this period of charismatic Shakerism represents an authentic core. Of course, I have no knowledge of Francis’ own religious proclivities but such a view is certainly not unique to atheists of a certain stripe, many a Christian primitivist would be sympathetic to the view (of whom the Shaker were, arguably, an instantiation).

But that is enough by way of preface, what of the book itself? Francis is evidently predominately a novelist but has two other (intriguing looking) books to his name, Transcendental Utopianism and Judge Sewall’s Apology. However, that he is a novelist does not surprise me; in an engaging book Francis has introduced the strange and charismatic Ann Lee to a general readership which, given the paucity of studies on Shakerism is a positive. It is also written on the back of some solid historical research and will I suspect, despite its popular feel, be of great use to students of religious history.

I purchased this book to learn more about early Shakerism and, truth be told, I am not too much wiser. Aside from shaking itself there are other early beliefs such as the ambiguous role of Ann as a Christ figure (Ann the Word) and their wider theology especially in relation to other groups of the time. For example, how was Ann Lee’s Shakerism different from that of the Wardley’s?; Why was there such an emphasis on Sexual abstinence (one presumes it is, like Paul’s invocation of the same in 1 Corinthians linked to a particular view of the apocalyptic)? Or what was it that attracted the New Light movement to Shaker religion? At base those stories are simply not told, a point which the Economist’s review also comments on. As such, this is an incomplete story since it was as a religious leader that Ann Lee is known (to the extent that she is known).

There is no doubt that Ann Lee was a highly charismatic religious leader (in this respect, together with their mutual emphasis on divine femininity, she reminds me of Octavia another eccentric English religious leader of another time). One thing is sure, any vision that one may have of a Shaker religious as a reserved ‘meek and mild’ phenomenon will have that view – in its historical guises at least – challenged. It is certainly not the last word as a biography of Shakerism’s most enigmatic figure but it is certainly a worthwhile, interesting, and enjoyable place to start.

Note: First published on Blogcritics.

My Science and my Faith

in discord they live together

since what one does, believes and thinks

is nonsense to the other.

The author is one P.A. de Genestet (1829-1861), who was a Remonstrant minister.

A man with no right hand performing a breast implant removal.

Britain’s medical establishment wa plunged into crisis today with the news that the SUPA, the private healthcare giant may shortly make a hostile takeover of the National Health Service (NHS). The new comes after Sir Rupert Percival Hugabottom, a senior civil servant and the Department of Health and Financial Economies (DHFE) told BBC19 in an interview that “Britain’s healthcare system should be the best in the world but it is a shambles, for too long there has been an assumption that all sick people should be able to receive expert care irrespective of their ability to pay. It is for that reason that DHFE is in negotiations with SUPA to asset strip the NHS so that this dangerous approach to healthcare can be stopped”.

It is thought the last straw was the revelation that potentially hundreds of women may demand the removal of breast implants which research in France has linked to a heightened risk of rupturing. In response the NHS offered to offer this treatment to all those who were worried following the disclosure of this alleged health risk. In contrast with the exception of Manic (a private hospital specialising in Mammaries and Noses and Intensive Care) all private healthcare refused to remove the affected implants without payment of a second fee. When challenged that their action could be interpretated as putting profit before people Mr Sodthepoor agreed but refused to elaborate saying “this interview has gone on long enough, if you want me to continue I will require a further interview fee.”

In related news a spokesperson for Manic, the one private healthcare company who agreed to follow the NHS’ lead and give free healthcare to its former patients, has confirmed that three staff members have been suspended whilst an internal review into the matter is conducted. The spokesperson confirmed that “it is not Manic’s policy to give something for nothing. We would like to assure our shareholders that we recognise that we let you down and a humbled by our failure. We will leave no stone unturned in our commitment to ensure nothing like this is ever allowed to happen again.” An anonymous source within MANIC has told this reporter that the mistake was most likely due to substandard recruitment checks after it was revealed the company had allowed someone with a conscience to work there.

Responding to the suggestions of a SUPA takeover a government spokeswoman said talks of a takeover were premature but confirmed that the Government were planning to consult on a wholesale privatisation of  the NHS shortly and would carefully consider some of the submissions made. Lord B’Stard a Minister for the DHFE commented in the House of Lords that “this government believes that the private sector has a lot to teach the NHS. That is why we have set out an ambitious plan to allow private providers to undertake 49% of the NHS’ work. In this difficult economic climate we believe that by adopting the fine example of our private sector partners we believe that can reduce costs”. When challenged that this would only be achieved by forcing vulnerable people to an early death he declined to comment although he was quick to deny any impropriety when it emerged that the said minister was a former schoolchum of Rupert Hugabottom from their Eton days.

Note: This post is satire, perhaps not good satire but satire nonetheless. Non UK readers can get the gist of the story here.

On 2 January 2012 David Norris and Gary Dobson were convicted of the racially motivated murder of Stephen Lawrence on 22 April 1993; today they have been sentenced respectively to fourteen years and three months and fifteen years and one month imprisonment. I will not pretend I will shed any tears for this outcome – I am delighted that after 18 years some semblance of justice will be seen to be done.

The Stephen Lawrence murder exposed an inefficient Metropolitan Police Service and was condemned in the later MacPherson inquiry as being ‘institutionally racist’. To their credit post MacPherson the UK police did change and the state of contemporary policing is much improved although still has some way to go (the changes were applied to all other police forces, not just the Metropolitan service).

Norris and Dobson aged respectively 16 and 17.

I do however have some reservations regarding the conviction of one of the defendants, Gary Dobson. In 1994 Dobson was tried before a jury in a private conviction for the murder of Lawrence and was acquitted. How then, is it that Dobson could face a second trial for precisely the same offence? It is a long established legal principle that a person cannot be twice for the same crime, it is the rule of double jeopardy. In 2001 the UK government sought to change the law through the Criminal Justice Act 2003 which came to have the force of law in 2005 to enable the retrial of the a person previously acquitted of a serious criminal offence if there if there is new and compelling evidence and it is in the interests of justice for a trial to be made. In such cases it is in the power of the Court of Appeal to quash the original acquittal and order a retrial. In May 2011 the Court of Appeal did precisely that in respect of Dobson.

The change in the law was broadly a good one. The case of William Dunlop, who was the first to be retried following a previous acquittal in 1991 for murder is a good example of the law in effect. In this case after his acquittal Dunlop publicly confessed to have murdered Julie Hogg, for which he was convicted of perjury. Following the change in law Dunlop was retried and found guilty of the crime for which he received a life sentence. The new and compelling evidence in this case being the confession of the crime for which he had previously denied culpability. The outcome it seems to me being a just one.

Stephen Lawrence was murdered in a racialliy motivated attack in April 1993. Eighteen years later some of his attackers remain free.

But, in the case Gary Dobson what was this “ new and compelling” evidence? The was no post-acquittal confession of guilt or no new prosecution eye witness who had witnessed the crime. The “new” evidence was forensic evidence which had been in the police’s possession for years! Far from being new evidence this was old evidence which could and should have been identified by the initial investigation. An investigation, it should be remembered, that when it knew in the immediate aftermath of the crime that Norris and Dobson were prime suspects sat by and watched the suspects apparently leave the house with bin liners full of possibly blood stained clothes about which they did precisely nothing.

I understand that the forensic tests are arguably new in a sense that it offers an avenue of investigation that was arguably not available to the initial investigation (as it is laughably called) but then, even if it had been, does anyone really think it would have made an iota of difference? And that is why the conviction while a good news story leaves a sour taste in one’s mouth – it is not fair that Stephen Lawrence’s family are denied the chance to see justice done because of investigatory ineptitude but neither is it right that police misconduct not have consequences, such is the importance of professionalism in the work of those tasked with serving the justice system. In this case and – I suspect – many other non-reported cases besides (innocent people found guilty and guilty people left not prosecuted) the police let us all down.

As it is, two individuals (out of a likely 5 attackers) have been convicted of a murder they committed 18 years previously, that is good news. But the most fitting commentary comes, I think, from Stephen’s mother, Doreen Lawrence. Asked whether she celebrated the court’s verdict she responded in a statement outside the court “How can I celebrate when my son lies buried? … Had the police done their job properly, I would have spent the last 18 years grieving for my son rather than fighting to get his killers to court.”

She is right.