Sunday, April 27, 2025

So how do you understand the religious history of Manor Township?

This is the question posed to me by someone growing up here, who moved away to California to become a religious studies professor, but returned now in his 60’s to try to discover the spiritual roots of his family and church history, why they believe what they believe presently, how that impacts their family relationships and what they commit themselves to.

First, I am a simple layman with no particular credential other than I have lived in this community all my life. Everything I say is simply the result of rubbing shoulders with neighbors, absorbing the fulfillment of community, attempting to make sense of wide spectrum of opinion in discussions, and I must say the pain of abandonment.

Most all of us Oldtimers (meaning immigrant families from 1720 -1750) here in the Manor came from the area of South Germany and Switzerland. We came because we were fleeing the state religious systems of both the Protestant and Catholic. We were identified as Anabaptist because we refused to believe that babies were born in sin, saved by baptism. We believed Jesus was God in the flesh and we should take his word literally, commanding us lay down our swords, loving even those the state told us were our enemies. We were Armenian without knowing it, meaning that not everything that happens is God’s will. It was not God’s will that the State Churches kill our brothers and sisters as martyrs for their faith. Evil was rampant in this world, and they accepted as fact that the righteous suffer even as Jesus did. They suffered believing the resurrection will be their experience as it was Jesus’ experience. God is Sovereign in the sense that God is the judge of all for what we do. Vengeance belongs to God alone. As humankind we are created like God in that we can choose good or evil yet mortal. They believed God was with them giving them strength as they suffered and fled to tolerant cities. They lived as migrants with few political rights to hold property working as laborers. My family were weavers from Switzerland who found refuge in Mussig, France.

In 1737 my ancestral family came to Penn’s colony. They lived 7 years in Philadelphia to help pay off their fare before moving to Manor township in 1744. Since they had no documents from England to immigrate it took 16 years for them to become naturalized citizens. They joined many other German Mennonite people who already lived here. I suspect they met together in homes for a number of years before they started to build log cabin structures as meeting houses. 5 different fellowships developed in Manor township, a horse and buggy distance from each other at Mountville, Habecker, Masonville, Millersville, and Rohrerstown. Our church at Habecker Mennonite was first a log cabin. The current brick building is the 3rd building on the site built in 1898. Ministers circulated among the churches.

I wonder how much connection these Germans had with the English world. I am told during the Revolutionary War 500 families fled to Canada to remain loyal to the Queen. They must have felt threatened by the revolutionary government. But largely they laid low as a minority people, known as “the quiet in the land”. Unlike the Quakers, there are only a few accounts where Mennonites participated in what was called the underground railroad. While Mennonites were not allowed to own slaves, they generally were not willing to become active in any resistance movement against slavery. I wonder if our people were just focused on surviving economically, still fearful of the persecution they suffered 200 years earlier that they had little strength to identify with the suffering of others. The Civil War was a major crisis in the Mennonite Church especially for those living in Virginia. Many young men of draft age in Virginia fled to Ohio. I understand young men needed to pay a fine or pay the equivalent amount to support a enlisted soldier. During the civil war conscientious objectors were not imprisoned and tortured as they were in World War I.

I often wonder how much the larger culture's values impacted the separatist German speaking Mennonite community. When I think of values of the dominate Protestant religious world, I have a feeling that it was dominated by a colonial drive to take possession of the land. Reading Puritan John Mason’s description giving glory to God for the fiery oven and smell of burning flesh in the Pequot Indian massacre 1637 set the example for Europeans to forcefully remove or kill the natives and establish what they called the New Israel. Manifest Destiny was the primary belief that it was God’s plan for Europeans to take control and settle the entire continent of North America. Did the Mennonite people accept this idea? I wish I knew. Certainly, they took advantage of the expanding frontier as land became available.

Mennonite isolationism gradually began to break down as the English language became more widely used. My mother remembers her grandfather who died in 1937 was the last song leader to lead German hymns in her congregation growing up. My grandfather born in 1900 could understand German but never spoke it. So, I believe the popular use of German must have gradually disappeared in the late 1800’s in Manor Township. As the English language became more widely used, Mennonites began to borrow hymns and Sunday school materials from the Protestant tradition. The Mennonite People west of Lancaster never divided over issues such as language, missions, and Sunday School as did the groups in Northeast Lancaster County creating the old order Mennonite Church. Transportation limitations with horse and buggy kept the community together in body if not always in spirit. With the advent of the car all that was about to change. Suddenly people could travel great distances to a church of their choice. As result the small community church was not so impressive any longer. There seemed to be a new popular theology with each generation which attracted so many young people.

In my parents’ generation, during the 1930’s through the 1960’s the whole country was taken by storm by a teaching of Cyrus Scofield. He was greatly impressed by a secular Jew, Theodor Herzl around 1890’s, who believed Jews would never escape the antisemitism in Europe until they would have their own nation in Palestine. This dream was the birth of what is called Zionism. Cyrus Scofield got excited that this emphasis is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophesies which he believed were never fulfilled. He wrote a lot of notes in a King James Bible which came to be known as Scofield Bible. He outlined an end times eschatology which became known as Premillennial Dispensationalism. The Bible was divided into dispensations of time. He taught we are currently in dispensation of Grace or church age awaiting the time of the rapture when Christians are taken, the 7 years of the Tribulation, Jesus returning as a conqueror and reigning on David’s throne in the rebuilt temple for 1000 years.

After WW1 the Ottoman empire was divided up because they had supported the Germans and lost. The British got possession of Palestine and opened the borders for Jewish Settlers. Then after WW II in 1948 these European Jews successful fought a civil war against the Palestinian natives, removing them from their home communities forced them into refugee camps and declared Israel an independent Nation. This was an era of great excitement for so many Christians in America because they believed this was a fulfillment of prophesy and that demonstrated that God was behind all of this. Christ would return and reign from the throne of David very soon.

Older Mennonite ministers believed this teaching to be heretical. Jesus refused the temptation to build an empire. He crossed the border to tell the Samaritan women, the time is coming when neither Jerusalem or Samaria was important to God. All children are created by God and equally chosen, and his kingdom is made up of all people to the ends of the earth. When he said, “Destroy this temple and I will raise it up in 3 days”, he meant he himself is the temple. It is through Jesus we speak to God and not from some building. It is completely out of character for Jesus to come as a warring conqueror. Paul says the true sons of Abraham are those who follow Jesus. The Church was the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham and not a piece of land. They believed Jesus would come again, there would be a final judgement, and the righteous would dwell with Jesus forever in a spiritual kingdom we cannot comprehend.

But the excitement of God working out his purposes in real time with the advent of the nation of Israel was just too persuasive for so many young people and many left creating peer group churches; the Bible churches, independent nondenominational churches, plus this teaching influenced many evangelical denominations. In Lancaster this movement started a school called Lancaster Christian School and a radio station called WDAC. People were impressed with ministers who treated the Bible like a magical book, every word was inerrant holding a riddle to be discovered. Truth was found in the written word. People also were excited that God worked through the nations and that our own nation had a significant role to play. The nation of Israel was proof that God existed. People started to become more politically involved, even joining the military in the service of the country.

The driving theology in my generation during the 1970’s in many ways was an exact opposite teaching. While the independent bible church taught a strict literalism of the word, the dispensation of new revelation was closed, miracles were not of this age, and speaking in tongues was of the devil, my generation prayed long prayers into the night for miraculous healings, the gift of tongues, the word of knowledge, and the 2nd baptism of the Holy Spirit. Much of this sensational teaching was modeled after the TV ministers who our people listened to. The Charismatic Churches grew out of this movement of young people. They started their Christian School called Living Word, where speaking in tongues was required of faculty. While the written word was still important in defining belief, Truth became much more experiential. Contemporary worship music was the trademark of this new spiritual expression.

I am not sure how to describe the influence of early 2000's generation in our church at Habecker Mennonite other than to say it may have been an attempt to take the charismatic expression to another level. It was called the prophetic movement. Apostolic leadership where God speaks to the leader directly was advocated. Our young people took mission trips with YWAM and to conventions in Florida called Branded by Fire. While our church was not political in teaching some people were attracted to the beginnings of what became known as the Seven Mountain teaching where Christians were encouraged to be actively involved in the 7 spheres of influence such as government, arts, and education. We held long periods of music where spontaneous spiritual expressions and prayer was encouraged. People were encouraged to see visions or images to be interpreted. The most difficult time in my life was when our church divided because I really loved the young people who sat in the pews. I believed that it is more important to sit together than to believe the same thing. However, someone in Chicago saw an image of sword which was interpreted that our church should divide so it must be so. Truth was now an expression of our imagination.

While these different generational theological perspectives may seem at odds with each other; with respect to a commitment to Zionism, they were identical. When Lancaster Christian combined with Living Word in 2010, with opposite theologies, I was amazed. I asked some patrons about this, and they said they don’t believe all that anymore. The one common denominator they both agree on is a political conviction that God is at work in the European Jewish takeover of Palestine. One can hardly imagine how strong this US support is for the Israeli occupation of Palestine against the natives. The popularity of Christian Nationalism here in US draws it's inspiration from this Old Testament nationalism. When one remembers that Jesus was crucified by European occupiers wanting to please the Jewish nationalist of his own day, one realizes there is very little difference between his day and our present war in Gaza. Jesus would come today as a native baby boy, from Nazareth, born in Bethlehem, (both Palestinian towns), and he would be bombed by European Jews, paid for by the nationalistic evangelical churches of America.

In my personal story, I learned to love the Mennonite Church during my college years from 1970 to 74 at Millersville State College. Millersville was a public college with professors who were Secular, Greek Orthodox, Catholic, Jewish, and Atheist. This was a huge shock for this Mennonite boy who attended Mennonite schools all my life to that point. This was also the time a lot of Vietnam veterans returning from Vietnam. Many of our classrooms were filled with so much anger and criticism toward our government’s continued involvement in the Vietnam war. I only had one professor who defended our country’s involvement in the War in the 4 years I attended Millersville, and he called himself a Christian. I remember thinking how important the peace teaching of our churches was. Many of the students who came from a fundamentalist background which taught the inerrancy of the whole Bible, biblical prophecy relating to Israel, had so much difficulty as professors were very critical of these convictions. It did not matter if it was a World Civilization class, philosophy class, literature class or even Biology class, these subjects would come up. I was enormously grateful that my faith was rooted in the convictions of our older ministers who had only 8 grades of education, that indeed we recognize many conflicts in teaching between the Old and New Testaments. I was taught, if an Old Testament teaching is in harmony with the teachings of Jesus, we accept that as God's truth to us. Jesus is the anchor from which we judge truth. I did not need to defend observations in the Old Testaments that were in direct contradiction with Jesus. It was sad for me to feel more in harmony with the peace advocacy of those who held no faith compared with the teachings of Christians on TV who called themselves the moral majority. It was also sad for me to see ministers in the church who really wanted to teach the teachings of Christ lose their following as political persuasions are so much more powerful than following Jesus.

As a result of 3 generations of abandonment, Habecker Church was left with just a very few members who faithfully attended. I know what it feels like to attend church with no children and all gray hair. Church growth seminars were taught for us to define our strengths, and I hated them. I felt so helpless, hopeless. Can’t you see we are all abandoned old people. Who would take an interest in joining our ranks. When a church loses even one generation in their numbers, they are like an amputee attempting the high jump. We lost 2 generations. Can’t you just let us die? I was bitter, yet I defended the teaching of Mennonite Church as the anchor of everything I believed about Jesus.

Can you imagine the amazing miraculous blessing it has been for us as a congregation to sponsor our first Karen speaking refugee family in 2008. It was totally unexpected. My parents had sponsored 3 Ukrainian refugee families when I was a child. They helped our congregation sponsor 3 Vietnamese families after the Vietnam war. These families stayed for a bit until they learned the language, found better opportunities, and then moved on. Sponsoring displaced people was the right thing to do but certainly not expected as a way to build the church. But these immigrants from Burma joined us, gave purpose to our meeting, energy to our fellowship, joy in soul, and life in our spirit. God resurrected our congregation with people with whom we could not speak. They gave us opportunity live the teaching that we only really live out Christ’s teaching when we cross the border and love those most different from us. They gave the opportunity to demonstrate that to be saved we really do need to sell what we have and give to the poor, living sacrificially. We have walked together for now 17 years. Almost all of our people are now citizens. Of our families in the directory, more than 32 are now homeowners. We are blessed with many children. We again have all generations represented in our Church. Our congregational singing fills the building where one’s voice is absorbed with everyone else’s voices to the point where one cannot hear oneself sing. I feel like church represents a bond built on the ordinariness of putting food on the table, a roof over ones head and the respecting the dignity of each person. We have a church based on loving kindness and not persuasion, academic excellence, sensationalism, fear, or salesmanship. We have all levels of intellectual competence, from the near illiterate to highly educated but no one would know the difference. When I see people, I can’t speak with, sitting in the pew praying, I really don’t know what level of understanding they have or the burdens they carry. But I know God hears their prayer and I am challenged. I am not bitter anymore. God healed my spirit in the most unusual way.

Are we a perfect congregation as an expression of a disciplined Mennonite Congregation? Certainly not. Karen nationalism; still fighting the 75-year-old civil war against the Burmese is part of the mindset of many of our people. I worry about the influence of western entertainment saturated with violence and promiscuity on the screens of our people. The addiction to alcohol has been a long struggle for us as a people for which we have paid dearly. But love does cover a multitude of sin and we are church together.

I often think of a story from my history. I don’t know how Mennonites in Lancaster county got started with the raising of Tobacco. How did this happen? Everyone raised Tobacco as the cash crop to pay off the farm. I thought in my growing up years, our people did not know better. But then I spent some time in our Church Archives reading the Heralds of Truth which was the Mennonite Church periodical back in the beginning of the 20th century. I found article after article criticizing the raising and use of Tobacco. I wondered if these articles began the origin of Lancaster Mennonite Conference walling itself off from the broader church in this country. Seeds of that suspicion of the broader denomination are still with us. My father gained a conviction against the raising of tobacco when he went to Eastern Mennonite School in Virginia. He learned the broader church was highly critical of Lancaster Mennonites raising tobacco. When he came home, he married my mother and moved onto the farm my grandfather had purchased for my father. My father told my grandfather he did not want to raise tobacco on the farm. My grandfather did not think my father could make it financially without raising tobacco, but he allowed my father to farm as he wished. He even loaned money to my father to finance the cost of converting the large tobacco barn into a 4-story chicken house. His only stipulation was that my father not rub his conviction against tobacco in the faces of the other church members who still farmed tobacco. This is an amazing story to me in that it teaches that love and unity among the fellowship may be more important than the righteousness of our convictions. Tobacco raising never divided the church. I feel like our congregation is another expression of that value.

While this is my story, it is not everyone’s story. As my friend interviewed more than 30 people who migrated from our congregation during my parent’s generation, no one mentioned eschatology. A good number mentioned their military service was not permitted by the Mennonite Church. Others mentioned wanting to loosen up the dress code or just wanting to be with their friends from school. The conclusion is that people move from church to church for many reasons, but rarely for theological convictions, but in the process unconsciously adopt theologies which facilitate their journey. As I write this, our world is mired in violent conflicts. I believe the eschatological views which our country has adopted based on old testament wars of genocide are responsible for the suffering of so many people. These views are contrary to the teaching of Jesus and our ancestral immigrants. These wars cause us all to reflect on what we believe and repent. May God help us all.

posted by Jonathan Charles @ 8:58 PM   0 Comments