Discussion Questions
The speaker insists that “memory is a conscious work of interpretation marked as much by deletion as by selection” and that a community’s future is shaped by what it remembers or forgets; where do you see “blessed forgetfulness” operating in your own church story (what gets deleted, what gets highlighted), and what future does that forgetting create? JumpstartAnother way to ask: In your church’s story, what parts get left out and what parts get emphasized? How does that “forgetting” shape what kind of future your church is building?
The speaker’s grammar point (“the noun is the strongest word”) is used to argue Christians must be “Christian first,” yet he tells of Mennonites who chose to be “German first, even before Christian”; what loyalties or identities today function like “German” did for them, and how would you recognize when they’ve become the true “noun” in your life? JumpstartAnother way to ask: What identity today (nation, politics, race, party, class, etc.) can become “first” like being “German first” did for them? How can you tell when that identity is really the main thing guiding your choices instead of being Christian?
The account of German Mennonites “losing their non-resistance a little bit at a time” and coming to “love the martial spirit” (bands, parades, emotion) suggests compromise can be incremental and even pleasurable; what are the modern equivalents of those emotional pulls, and how do you discern when an emotion is discipling you away from Jesus? JumpstartAnother way to ask: What kinds of feelings today (pride, fear, belonging, excitement, anger) pull Christians little by little toward compromise? How do you know when your emotions are training you to move away from Jesus?
The speaker says Prussian Mennonites knew the *Martyr’s Mirror* but decided “the past did not apply to the present,” treating martyr stories as “good for that day”; where do Christians today make the same move with Scripture or church history, and what do we gain or protect by declaring obedience “not applicable now”? JumpstartAnother way to ask: Where do Christians today treat Scripture or church history as “for back then, not for now”? What do we think we gain or protect when we say obedience doesn’t apply anymore?
The shift to German rationalist “higher criticism” (Bible as “human documents,” trusting “human reason” over the supernatural) is presented as a key step toward collapse; what view of God’s authority and speech is at stake in that shift, and how does a community’s theology quietly determine what it will or won’t resist politically? JumpstartAnother way to ask: What changes when people start treating the Bible as mostly human words and trusting human reason more than God’s power? How can a church’s beliefs quietly decide what it will or won’t stand up to in politics?
The speaker contrasts Protestant “God and I” with Anabaptist “God and we,” claiming “no man is in Christ apart from his brother”; what practices of accountability, mutual submission, and communal discernment would early Christians assume are non-negotiable here—and what parts of modern church life push you back into a privatized “God and I” faith? JumpstartAnother way to ask: What kind of shared life—accountability, mutual submission, and making decisions together—would early Christians see as required? What parts of church today push you into a private “God and me” faith instead of “God and us”?
Mennonite leaders wrote prayers and praise to Hitler (“God gave our German people a Führer… lead us toward God and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ”) and later pledged “enthusiastic willingness to cooperate”; what does this reveal about how easily religious language can sanctify power, and what “Christian” rhetoric today might be doing the same kind of moral laundering? JumpstartAnother way to ask: What does it show about how easily “Christian” words can make powerful leaders look holy? What kinds of Christian-sounding talk today might be doing the same thing—making wrong actions seem right?
After the Nazis blocked aid to Mennonites suffering in the Soviet Union, the speaker says the German Mennonites “meekly submitted to their Lord,” implying Hitler had become a functional lord; what concrete tests reveal who your real lord is when obedience costs reputation, safety, or economic well-being? JumpstartAnother way to ask: When following Jesus costs your safety, money, or reputation, what tests show who your real lord is? What kinds of choices would reveal whether you obey Jesus or something else?
The speaker highlights complicity: Ambrose’s line (“He who knows evil is being done and does nothing… is guilty with the evildoer”), Mennonites helping Jews only when it didn’t jeopardize them, and the contrast with Quakers/Corrie ten Boom/Jehovah’s Witnesses; what specific forms of “silence” are easiest to justify in your setting, and what would “speaking” look like if it actually risked something? JumpstartAnother way to ask: What kind of silence is easiest to excuse in your church or community when people are being harmed? What would it look like to speak up in a way that actually costs you something?
The story includes Mennonite genealogical work to prove “Aryanness,” congregations filling out racial forms as a church activity, and the claim that not one able-bodied Mennonite man refused Nazi conscription; what would early Christian nonconformity and refusal of oaths/violence require in a comparable moment today, and what habits of conscience-keeping would you need *before* the crisis to avoid “gradual theological adaptation” that ends in betrayal? JumpstartAnother way to ask: If your society demanded loyalty tests, racial paperwork, or joining violence, what would early Christian faithfulness require you to refuse? What habits of conscience and courage would you need to build now so you don’t slowly adjust your beliefs and betray Jesus later?