Andrew Murray
And God Created Woman
Difference between Anabaptists and Evangelicals
Kingdom
Mysteries
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Sermons by Eli Hofer
03/14/01
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08/11/02
The Writings of Ulrich Stadler
Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3
Volume 4
The Anabaptist Voice
06/24/2009
Proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom of
God: Love, Joy and Peace in Jesus.
Dear friends,
How are you? We pray you are well under the grace and the love of our
Heavenly Father. It is getting rather hot over here in Tucson, Arizona, in the
mid 90s. Since the humidity is so low, it is not so uncomfortable. We keep the
temperature in the house set at 79 degrees, about 15 degrees cooler than
outside. The sun is rather hot and when shining on our house the outside walls
become too hot to touch.
Our sons called to wish their father a happy Father’s Day. Jim is
scheduled to visit Patrick and his family at James Valley today, and will be
staying about a week. We pray they will have happy time
s.
Naomi fell Sunday evening and hurt her back, but not her spine. She did
not feel too good the next day, so she cancelled her physical therapy session.
She was not up to go to the worship service at Linda Dowdle’s house either, so
Michi and Naomi did not go. She is doing better, and Tuesday afternoon, she
went to Mary’s house and did crocheting. She enjoys the visits very much.
Donna brought her home and stayed for our daily 5 pm church with us, which was a
blessing to us.
Michi is learning to pray more. When she goes shopping by herself, she
used to listen to classic music while driving, but nowadays, she has been
praying or singing praise. It lifts her spirit up. Last Thursday, she went
shopping at Costco. The parking lot was full and shoppers are walking with
their shopping carts. She did not like to back up the car, so she asked the
Lord, “I would like to drive forward as so many people and cars are moving
about.” Just as she started the car, the car in the front of her backed up and
drove away. So she was able to drive out straight ahead without having to back
up in that busy parking lot. That happened just a few seconds after she
prayed. It was wonderful. She felt the love of the Lord. Thank you, Lord.
Our friend Kris (pictured above with her husband Tony) told us about a
wonderful miracle that she experienced on Monday. She was to drive up to
Phoenix to attend a class and couldn’t find her keys. She looked all over the
apartment, in all the “normal” spots and under the bed, on the bed, on the
floor, and even in the corners, all over the house, then finally she fell to her
knees and prayed, calling out to God for His help... she had a HUGE final exam
the next day in Phoenix, what was she going to do?
Then her husband Tony called. As she was talking with Tony on the phone,
she went back to the bedroom and THERE THE KEYS WERE.... They were NOT there
before, but now they are sitting there in plain sight right on top of her bed!
Instantly she started to cry. Tony was on the other end of the phone
asking her what was wrong. She couldn’t speak…all the hairs on her arms were
standing on end. All she could do was mutter… “the keys, the keys, the keys
are there…”
She got so frightened she didn’t know what was going on, and she lost her
balance gripping onto the phone, but managed to catch herself from falling, as
she cried, asking Tony if she was crazy. Kris said, “PRAISE JESUS. He put them
there for me, I know He did, He alleviated my anxiety.”
For the last three years Kris has been praying to God fervently asking
God to reveal Himself to her. PRAISE JESUS, He answers prayer, in His time
,
even the least of them. When we seek God with all our hearts, minds and soul,
we find Him.
May
the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of
the Holy Spirit be with you. (2 Cor 13:14)
Your brother and sisters in Christ (in photo),
Don, Michi & Naomi Murphy
Tucson, AZ, phone 520-297-1639
www.AnabaptistChurch.org
Jesus said, "People will know that you are my
disciples by your love for one another." (John 13:35)
The Christian
Communalism of the Hutterian Brethren
By Robert Friedmann, presented at the
American Society for Reformation Research
December 29, 1954
The epistles and confessions of faith and the tracts [of the 16th
century] by Jacob Hutter, Peter Riedemann, Ulrich Stadler, Peter Walpot, and all
the lesser known brethren, the numberless martyrs and witnesses to their faith,
clearly disclose three major motives which produced the Christian communalism of
the Hutterian Brethren which has endured for almost 500 years.
Motive one is brotherly love in action, the strong longing of
Christians for brotherly sharing and togetherness.
Motive two is "Gelassenheit," a term derived from the mystics and
almost untranslatable. It means yielding absolutely to the will of God with a
dedicated heart, forsaking all selfishness and one's own will.
Motive three, finally, is obedience to the divine commandments,
understood as the inevitable consequence of the attitude of Gelassenheit. As
one gives up one's own will, one naturally accepts God's commandments as the
basis and guidepost for all further actions.
Motive one: the idea of love - brotherly togetherness and mutual
giving and sharing - was present among the brethren at all times. It was the
very center of Jacob Hutter's work. He visualized the brotherhood as a great
family. Since in such a family all material things are shared as a matter of
fact, this should also be the case in a true Gemeinschaft, or community. And
so we read throughout our records confessions like this: “Love is the tie of
perfection... Where she dwelleth she does not work partial but complete
communion. It means having everything in common out of sheer love for the
neighbor. Where Christian love of the neighbor does not produce community in
things temporal, there the blood of Christ does not cleanse from sin.” In
short, “Private property is the greatest enemy of Christian love.” In love, all
men are considered equal and united in the oneness of the Spirit. The
references to communal living in the Book of Acts in these early tracts,
however, serves not as a motivation but rather as an undergirding of this
love-motive, as an exemplification of how it works, and as an assurance that
this way is the right one. It was never to be understood as a strict
commandment of God to be followed in obedience without any further questioning.
The second motive is "Gelassenheit," a term of great richness,
meaning self-surrender, yieldedness, the giving of one's self to God's guidance,
even unto death. Among the Hutterites it also means the forsaking of all
concern for personal property, thus leading almost naturally to a complete
community of goods. At the earliest period this idea of Gelassenheit almost
dominates the thought of the brethren. “To have all things in common, a free,
untrammeled, yielding, willing heart in Christ is needed,” writes Ulrich Stadler
about 1536. “Whosoever is thus inwardly free and resigned (gelassen) in the
Lord is also ready to surrender all temporal possessions.” To the rejoinder
that such a community of goods is not a commandment of the Lord, the same
brother answers as follows: “To serve the saints in this way with all one's
possession is true and genuine self-surrender (Gelassenheit), and it is also
the way of brotherly love. In summary: one brother should serve the other, live
and work for him, and no one should do anything for himself.” Elsewhere we
read, “If you want to become a disciple you must resign to such a Gelassenheit
and must renounce all private property.”
The Hutterites, in their strict biblicism, became extremely sensitive and
alert to the pitfalls of "mammon" in all its forms. “As the beetle lives in the
dung, and the worm in the wood, so avarice (or greed) has its dwelling place in
private property”. Whosoever refuses communal living, they taught, shows
obvious sympathy for avarice (or greed). And then they quote the example of the
rich young man in the parable who could not enter the Kingdom of God because he
was not willing to sell all that he had and give it to the poor. Avarice, the
demon of possession, must therefore be overcome if true Gelassenheit is to be
achieved. But once it has been overcome, there follows complete community of
goods in brotherly togetherness and sharing. The ready acceptance of such
complete community, incidentally, became the very touchstone of the
regenerate. In particular it was also an indication whether or not a brother
was capable and worthy of becoming a leader of the group.
Taken all in all, the Hutterites represent a most original type of
"theocratic society" or "theocratic communism," as it was once aptly called, a
venture otherwise rather foreign to the western world. The brethren were aware
of this antagonism to world and culture, but affirmed time and again that no
other way to salvation was possible. “It is but through Gemeinschaft, that is
communal living, that the blood of Christ may cleanse sinful man. Christ cannot
help us unless we follow him all the way, without any reservation.”
This concept of "theocratic communism" naturally implies also the
third motive, the principle of unconditional obedience by which we “bring
into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (II Cor 10:5, as quoted
now and then in Hutterite tracts). It means what the brethren never tired of
repeating, that what really is needed for a true disciple is this: walking the
"narrow path," breaking the self-will, and subsequently submitting to the will
of God, whatever He may command.
It is quite obvious that this principle of obedience involves a certain
paradox: on the one hand, it is the most profound and most spiritual principle
imaginable where the individual surrenders completely to divine guidance and ask
nothing for himself, doing only that which he feels is required of him, even if
it should lead to martyrdom. “Not my will be done, but Thine.” That means
genuine discipleship. It is the spirit of the first generation of Anabaptists,
in particular Hutterites, who gave up everything in order to obey God.
Suffering was accepted almost gladly as the inescapable consequence of such acts
of obedience.
Although this new life in perfect community of goods did bring a certain
external security through mutual help and service, it meant a hard, daily
internal struggle with that part of man's nature which insists upon self-will
and personal possession. The brethren by no means belittled this desire. In
fact, they liked to quote in this connection a jingle which in the Great Article
Book of 1577 concludes the third article "Concerning community of goods":
Communal living would not be hard
If there were not such self-regard.
(Robert Friedmann (1891-1970) was a professor of
history at the Western Michigan University. For more information about the
Hutterian Brethren, read the article about the Bon Homme Hutterite colony on the
University of South Dakota web site at
www.usd.edu/~hhoover/05Colony.pdf.)