The Significance Of Menno Simons

by H. S. Bender, 1936

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Menno Simons was not the founder of the Mennonite Church. The Mennonite Church was founded in Zurich, Switzerland, in January, 1525, by Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, George Blaurock, and others, eleven years before Menno Simons renounced Catholicism. Nor did Menno found the church in Holland. If any one deserves that title it was Obbe Philips who began to gather the brethren in Friesland about 1533. Yet there is good historical reason for the Mennonite Church to bear the name of Menno Simons, for in the time of greatest need Menno Simons was the heaven-sent leader who rallied the scattered brethren and gave them the leadership in faith and spirit and doctrine which they needed. He it was who led them safely through the time of great tribulation "in spite of dungeon, fire, and sword."

The greatness of Menno Simons lies in three factors of influence, his character, his writings, and his message.

Menno's greatness lay not so much in his eloquence, although he was a good preacher, not in his literary craftsmanship, although he could write well for the common man. He was no great theologian, although he knew how to present the plain teachings of the Bible with force and clarity. He was not even a great organizer, although he rendered a real service in the guidance which he gave to the bishops and ministers of the growing church. Yet, Menno Simons was one of the great religious leaders of his day and land, perhaps the most outstanding religious leader of the Netherlands in his time. His work and influence have had permanent significance on the history of the people and church which bear his name, and through them his influence has reached the larger circles of the free church of England and America.

The greatness of Menno Simons lies in three factors of influence, his character, his writings, and his message. His character was a steadying, heartening, building influence in the long, hard years of persecution and struggle form 1535 to 1560, based on deep conviction, unshakable devotion, fearless courage, and calm trust. His writings, though they seem at times, as gathered together in his compete works, to be repetitious and insignificant, included some admirable tracts for the times, pointed, plain, well adapted to their purpose. They reached the common people at the right time, and were powerful agents in the building and strengthening of the church and in winning new adherents. But most of all it was the message of Menno Simons which made him a great leader in a great cause. He built no great system of theology, nor did he discover any great new or long-lost principle; he merely caught a clear vision of two fundamental Biblical ideals, the ideal of practical holiness, and the ideal of the high place of the church in the life of the believer and in the cause of Christ.

On the basis of the first ideal he called for a genuine change of life and the faithful practice of the Christian way of life as Christ taught and lived it, the life of righteousness, holiness, purity, love, and peace. For him Christianity was more than faith only; it was faith and works. And this practical Christianity meant for Menno the resolute abandonment by the Christian of all carnal strife and war, indeed of the use of force in any manner, as well as a thoroughgoing separation from the sin of the worldly social order. The ideal of the church which Menno held was the organizing principle of Christian doctrine and life in his entire thinking. For him the church was the representative and agent of Christ on earth, and as such was to keep itself holy and pure in life and doctrine, and was to give a faithful witness for Christ until He came. These ideals of Menno have been the major formative ideals throughout the four hundred years of Mennonite history, for they were shared by the Swiss-South German Mennonites as well. They constitute the genius of the Mennonite Church. Out of them was born the ideal of complete separation of church and state, of toleration and freedom of conscience, of high moral and social ideals, of the preaching and practice of peace, of the supreme sovereignty of Christ over His own in this worldly world of ours -- all ideals far in advance of their day, but which today have become the common and cherished possession of a large section of English and American Protestantism.

It is, therefore, not for the greatness of Menno Simons, the man, and his human achievements, that we bring this tribute -- the tribute we bring is to the greatness of the ideals and convictions which possessed his soul and commanded his life, and which have blessed countless thousands since his day.

--from A Brief Biography of Menno Simons, written for the 450th anniversary of Menno's move from Catholicism to Anabaptism. This biography was included in the 1956 edition of the Complete Works of Menno Simons (Herald Press).

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Mennonite Historical Bulletin, January, 1997