Mennonite Views on Creation and Origins, 1921 to 1963 and Beyond — Marlin Sommers

Lesson Transcript

It is true that God could have made use of evolution as the method of creation, but the Bible teaches distinctly that a man was not evolved from animal species, that he is not the result of development but of special creation. Hmm. And that becomes the linchpin here for him, is like, well, the Bible says that man didn't develop from animals, and he says things like, "Obviously evolutionism has atheistic tendencies." In other words— and again, that's another jab to say atheistic evolution isn't going to work.

Marlin, welcome to the Anabaptist Perspectives podcast. You're, uh, the director of Anabaptist Perspectives, and I've been doing a lot of work here with the podcast, and there's a particular topic that's covered in various— or maybe not covered, I guess you could say— in various Mennonite confessions and Mennonite books, that we want to dial in on specifically, on that specific topic, starting about 100 years ago and then bringing it up to today. So introduce the topic that we'll be examining in these confessions.

Yeah. Mennonite views of creation. And so one of our— one of the aspects of our mission, Anabaptist Perspectives, is to talk about stuff in ways that is, we say, historically, biblically, theologically informed. So in this case, it's kind of a, you know, a recent history for Mennonites and conservative Mennonites: how have we talked about creation in our more or less official documents?

So we're looking at some confessions of faith, the language there, but also books by Mennonite leaders who— actually, Mennonite leaders who fit into two categories at the same time. So both were kind of central to the Mennonite Church in their time. In other words, they were operating from close to the center, wrote widely respected books.

But also, another kind of grid for those authors is authors that are still widely respected by conservative Mennonites, because, you know, obviously in the last 100 years the Mennonite Church, as we know, has diverged into kind of the main wing and the conservative wing. But— so I'm talking specifically about documents and writers that are still highly respected in conservative circles, and how they talk about creation in different ways. So it's kind of our heritage, the state of the conversation a little bit.

And I'll say a little bit how, you know, that has adapted more recently, but most of our stuff will go from, you know, 1920 to 1960s. Mm-hm. So where would you like to begin on this topic? So a few— two things just in the backdrop. So one, the backdrop for, you know, the Swiss Mennonites in America as the Amish, in terms of a confession of faith, was the Dortrek Confession, adopted in Holland and then adopted in America by Swiss Mennonites. That was in place for a long time.

And that was a very much a narrative-style confession, right? They talk about doctrines, but they like to do it by talking about the story. So you'll get Adam and Eve, creation, Garden of Eden, Six Days, Told Us a Story, the kind of modern controversies— like, they're not referenced there, they're just telling the biblical story, the Six Day story. The other piece I'd like to do as a backdrop is this little book called Modern Religious Liberalism, and it still circulates in our circles.

I picked it up a few years ago at the Eastern Pennsylvania Mennonite Church, like, their publications board bookstore in Pennsylvania. It was— had several revisions, but originally in 1920. I want to use it just to set the backdrop, like, if we look at the confessions of faith, what— what were some of the things in the culture, things they were concerned about that they had to deal with? And this is John L.

Horsch, who was a very prolific Mennonite writer, kind of did a lot to kick off Anabaptist Historical Study: Mennonites in Europe, probably his most famous book, or at least most famous, still circulating in conservative Mennonite circles.

And in here he is going after liberalism, and not liberalism in the sense we think of as, you know, more permissive dress standards or that kind of thing, but liberalism as in modernist Christianity, where the Christian language became kind of, you know, a metaphorical way of talking about it. You know? Ah, yeah. Liberalism as in, no, we don't really believe in the deity of Christ or the virgin birth or whatever, but we still want to use Christian language.

Trying to push back against that and bring it back to what's orthodox Christianity. Is that maybe a fair way of saying it? Right. Yeah. Yeah, and this was a widely regarded book. In fact, this one copy has an introduction in it from a former president of Moody Bible Institute. Oh, really? Explaining why they used it in their pastor training course. Wow. That was something.

Anyhow, his chapter on evolutionism is what I want to look at, and to paint, again, the scene of— again, this is, you know, 100 years ago— what was he arguing against? I'll read a few different excerpts here. "The Scriptures teach that the world is the result of the creative work of God. God is the creator, preserver, and ruler of the world. This is denied by modern naturalism. The prevalent type of naturalism is evolutionism.

The theory of evolution offers another explanation for the existence of the material universe." And he goes on to say, "Evolutionism says it's all the result of natural processes that are somehow just imminent within matter." The idea that matter always existed. And then, you know, he keeps fleshing it out.

He says, "It has been supposed that evolutionary theory could be made acceptable to Christian believers by making evolution simply the method of divine creation." So in other words, some people proposed a theistic version of evolution: this is how God created it. And his comment here is interesting.

He says, "Various writers have so modified evolution that it has become quite another thing from the hypothesis that passes by that name, and with which the modern world is so familiar." Which I take him to be saying, well, some of these writers may be proposing a theistic evolution that has changed it so much that you wouldn't even recognize it as evolution.

It is true that God could have made use of evolution as the method of creation, but the Bible teaches distinctly that a man was not evolved from animal species, that he is not the result of development but of special creation. Hmm. And that becomes the linchpin here for him, is like, well, the Bible says that man didn't develop from animals. And he says things like, "Obviously evolutionism has atheistic tendencies." In other words— and again, that's another jab to say atheistic evolution isn't going to work.

He quotes William Jennings Bryan, which is interesting. Great phrase. Mm-hm. Well, and for context, William Jennings Bryan would have been part of the infamous Scopes trial, right, on the teaching of evolution in schools here in Tennessee. Just like 30 miles from here. Yeah, just right down the road here in Tennessee. And basically taking the side of, like, no, we should not allow the— I mean, this is ridiculously oversimplified, but he would have taken— Not allow the teaching of human evolution.

Human evol— yes, there you go, human evolution in schools. But anyway, continue there. Right. So the quote: "The theory that links man and generations with the ape has paralyzed religious thought and the usefulness to so many of the intellectuals of the world during the last half-century." Hmm. "That man bears the image of God, and not the likeness of the animals below him is the foundation stone upon which one must build." And he keeps going. But yeah, the theory that links man and generations with the ape. Mm-hm.

That is clearly, like, the offensive— the preeminent offensive point here. Mm-hm. So as to the way he links that in with modernism— and again, to give us a flavor of what people were dealing with— he says, "Evolution, according to the Unitarian Confession, means the continuous progress of man onward and upward forever. It means that mankind is traveling gradually and steadily up an inclined plane to the city of God, as someone has said.

Christianity is regarded a gentle stimulant to the splendid cosmic climb." So I've brought this in as a little backdrop to these confessions of faith, because it illustrates that he's dealing with and seeing evolutionism in, one, kind of atheistic agenda, but two, it's this idea that mankind developed from the animals and is still developing, you know, anti-supernaturalist, modernist idea of progress, climbing, which of course— it's outside the scope of this a little bit— but that had to tie into things there with

the eugenics and the kind of, you know, using evolution for racism, because some races are more advanced, and all that other stuff that's— all that other nasty stuff that's, you know, in the air in the early 1900s.

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Like, so this is some— this is some backdrop, and I think it's worth noting, you know, we're not professional historians or anything necessarily, you know, but going into the text of, like, what were they saying at the time, what were the big issues of the day, how does that inform the confessions? I'd be curious, though, which confession you would like to start with here. Like, what— what did they actually put down as, "This is where we stand on these issues"? Right.

So the Mennonite Church, the main body, what we call the old Mennonite Church, you know, Swiss Mennonites in America, did two confessions in the first part of the 20th century: 1921 Garden City Fundamentals, and then a new one was adopted in 1963. And then there were additional confessions, or at least another one in 1995, but that— by that point, the kind of branching off between the mainline Mennonites and the conservative Mennonites had happened.

So 1963 is kind of the last, you know, from the United Mennonite Church that conservative Mennonites look back and say, "This is ours." So what I want to do is compare those two, because they are strikingly different, between 1921 and 1963, and then go back into some, you know, doctrinal theological books that explain the differences between them. Yeah, do— do explain the differences, because obviously you have 40 years between them and, you know, maybe some things changed, etc. Let's do that comparison.

So let's start with 1921. What do we have in that confession? So the 1921 confession, they said, "This is not regarded— this is not supposed to replace the Dortrek. It's supposed to be a concise statement on things that we see as, you know, key issues for our time." The article on creation is extremely brief. "We believe that the Genesis account of the creation is a historic fact and literally true." That's all? Yeah. So it's clearly— it's— Wow. You know, clearly the concern is modernism and— Wow.

You know, making that all a metaphor. So they're really saying, like, "We believe that the Bible is actually true." Basically, like, they're really hammering that this is not some— Right. And again, this is in the context of where Christians have to reaffirm, like, "Yes, we believe in the virgin birth," and— Yeah. "We believe in the deity of Christ," and so on. Hmm. And so it's just a simple statement. Mm-hm. It's a historic fact and literally true. Mm-hm. And then in Article 4 of the Fall of Man— Okay.

—there's another key statement. "We believe that man was created by an immediate act of God, in his own image and after his likeness." And then it goes on to talk about the fall from there. So that's definitely tying in with what you were just saying from— Right. —this other book, where it's like— It's in— We're going to— the point where we are going to really put a line in the sand is man didn't come from apes.

Like, like, he was made in the image of God, and this is a key fundamental— In the image of God, and specifically he's created by an immediate act. Hmm. The rest of us are created by immediate acts because God created Adam and Eve, and they had children through the natural process of procreation, right? We all say we're God's creation, but it's been mediated through natural reproduction. But they're saying, no, like, there was not a connection of generations to the apes. There's an immediate— Mm-hm.

—fresh start, clean creation, not development out of what came before. Okay. That's making sense. It's— it's briefer than I expected, though. I mean, frankly, like, I would have expected there to be a little more. But you can also see, like, these are the points where we want to— we're going to put a stand right here. Right. Yeah. I mean, and this confession overall is generally brief. Yeah. Okay. It's not— Okay. Mm-hm. It is not loquacious. The next confession is loquacious. Uses a lot of words. Ah, okay.

So— In general. That's 1921. So you're referring to now, jumping forward to '63. To 1963. —doing that comparison. Yes. Right. Let's do that then. So Article 3 on God's creation and providence. "We believe that in the beginning God created all things by his Son, and that all existence is therefore finite and dependent upon God, the source and end of all things visible and invisible. He created man in his own image, which set man apart from the animal creation.

In free will, moral character, superior intellect, and spiritual nature, man bore the image of his creator." And then there's an additional section there talking about God's providence, Jesus upholding creation, man's free will, and things like that. And then similarly on the statement about man and his sin, so corresponding to that statement about the fall.

"We believe that God created man sinless and holy, and subjected man to a moral test as a means of bringing him to full spiritual maturity." And then talks about man yielding to the temptation of Satan, sin bringing depravity and death to the race. So one is distinctively longer. Mm-hm. But two, and this kind of screams at you once you see it there, is it avoids the kinds of specifics in 1921. That language of man being created by an immediate act is gone.

It just says, "He's in the image of God and so special apart from the animals." Oh. That is interesting. Okay. So asserting the same thing, like, man is in the image of God and separate, but not— not making an assertion about details of creation. And on the Article of Creation, it's like, instead of saying, you know, "The Genesis account is literally true," it's these big words, like, "All existence is finite and dependent on him." Mm-hm. And things like that that sound perhaps a little philosophical and— Hmm.

—and hard to parse. Mm-hm. So what happened there? What's the— what's the difference between them? So there's two— two books that are still extremely popular in our circles, the more conservative Mennonite circles. One is Doctrines of the Bible. Mm-hm. The classic edition in 1928. There were some precursors to it. Mm-hm. By Daniel Kaufman. And so we'll look at how he handles things, the kinds of assumptions that must have been behind the 1921 confession.

Kaufman didn't write the 1921 confession, but he was definitely a major figure when it was written. Mm-hm. Very active in the kinds of debates and conversations going on and so on. He was the editor of this book, not the sole author, but he wrote, I believe, the vast majority of the content in it as well. And that book is very widely used still today. I mean, that's actually my copy there. I got that at SMBI for one of my classes.

Sharon Mennonite Bible Institute, like, I don't know, COP, Christian— Christian Light would sell that, I believe, and so forth. Which is interesting that it stood the test of time. I mean, that's almost 100 years. It's still in print. But anyways, continue. Right. And something that the conservative Mennonites have kept. Mm-hm. I don't think it would— it would be of more historical interest to the other branch of the Mennonite Church. Yeah. There.

The second one they want to look at, after going through Doctrines of the Bible, is Introduction to Theology by J.C. Wenger. Unfortunately, I don't have a hard copy of that book. So Wenger was the primary author of the 1963 confession, and we can get a sense of, okay, what was in his mind as he would have drafted something like this. And his stuff is still very popular.

I don't know if it's as popular as Doctrines of the Bible in the conservative Mennonite world, but sold by major publishers, used as a textbook, recommended. So Introduction to Theology. And then I do have copies from our church library of two other books from Wenger that circulate: Glimpses of Mennonite History and Doctrine, and then this book, Separated Unto God. Mm-hm. Which is a classic defense of a 20th-century Mennonite understanding of what it is: nonconformity, separation from the world. Uh-huh.

And something still widely advocated by a lot of conservative Mennonites that are like, you know, this states our position fairly well. And again, you could still easily get these books from him and Introduction to Theology in many places within the Mennonite world. Yeah. I mean, he's— obviously he wrote a number of other books as well, but Introduction to Theology and these two are the ones that I see the most in our conservative circles. Yeah. So let's get into that then.

Maybe start with Kaufman and what— yeah, what does he have to bring to the conversation here? Right. So how is he thinking about this? Start near the beginning of his chapter on creation. He says, "On the other side of Genesis 1:1, everything is an absolute blank, so far as the knowledge of man is concerned." So he says, look, we're starting there.

"God created the heaven and the earth." And then he says, "What happened between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2 is not stated." So Genesis 1:1, "God created the— in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis 1:2, "And the earth was without form and void." Oh. He says, "What happened between them is not stated, but the condition of the earth at the beginning is given.

It was without form and void, a waste, as light had not been created, and as the sun, moon, and stars were not yet formed." Because they're, you know, on a day of creation, "There was no reckoning of time such as we know it now." So you can't keep time without light and things like that. Mm-hm. "How long this waste period lasted is all a mere guess. Some scientists assert that the earth is more than 6,000 years old.

The Bible does not state the age of the earth, although it gives fairly approximate data as to how long it is since man was created." And then he goes in from there to walking through the days of creation. But what he says is— and it's not particularly popular anymore— but this idea that, okay, maybe there was a gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, gap theory of various kinds. So he looks at that and says, "Yeah, maybe. We can't tell. The Bible doesn't say." I mean, there's— you know, there's not light, it's darkness.

Like, what's time mean then? But then he says, "We've got pretty good data as to how long it is since man was created." Okay. See, there's— there's a— so I'm looking at his line here. "The Bible does not state the age of the earth," he says. But then he finishes the sentence by saying, "Although it gives fairly approximate data on how long it's been since man was created." So he's making— Right. —that's the— that's the— I don't know, what would you would say?

The starting point, the critical thing we can start dating things from, maybe? I don't— Right. —I don't want to put words in his mouth here, but— Right. And you notice, you know, a very similar anchor to what we've seen before. Yeah. The creation of man is a huge concern. I'm really seeing that coming out. They are very concerned with man in the image of God created, you know, specifically that immediate act of creation, like you were showing in the 1921 confession. Mm-hm. Yeah. What else is there?

Though I think you have more there from Kaufman. Right. On man created in the image of God. And then he says, pretty flatly here, "There is no way of harmonizing the simple matter-of-fact statement that God created man in his own image and out of the dust of the earth, with the unscriptural theory that man evolved from the lower animals through a gradual process of development covering perhaps millions of years. The Bible and evolution cannot both be true." So solid stake in the ground there.

And then he talks about evolution as like the development theory or something. Mm-hm. He says, "The prominent factor," he's talking about evolution, "there are various modifications of it ranging all the way from downright atheism to the attempt to make it harmonize with the Bible, to give a theistic version of evolution. No matter which form of modification is considered, it is open to serious objections for the following reasons." And he goes through various kind of appeals to nature, science.

But he also states, "It's hard to reconcile the specific six days of creation with the theory that these six days were six long geological ages covering millions of years." He has a kind of openness to this gap theory. Well, who knows what happens in a period of chaos?

But this more what we call a day-age theory or whatever, the six days are creative epochs or something, he says, "It's hard to reconcile that with the specific six days listed in Genesis, and still harder to describe man as coming from this process." So even there, age, nature of the days is a big issue, but, you know, man not being linked in generations to the apes is clearly, like, the big thing. He makes a similar point to Horsch.

"We object to evolution now taught in most high schools, colleges, and seminaries because it is but a way station on the road to atheism." Hmm. Yeah. And that's kind of an appeal to observation, like, this is what happens. Yeah. It's his statement. Again, it's like the concern here is we're— they're worried, concerned, whatever, against this idea that evolution is teaching man it comes from an animal, therefore not made in the image of God. Like, you can— I'm really seeing that coming through.

I haven't engaged with these texts yet, so as I'm hearing you read this, I'm like, oh, wow, that was clearly a major concern for them. No, like, mankind, there's something special here, made in God's image. Right. Yeah. It's— this is making a lot of sense. Mm-hm.

And then a couple other things I want to touch on with the book, partly because we're thinking about this in terms of, you know, how these themes compare to themes, arguments in our— in our own day, with, you know, young Earth creationism, old Earth creationism, theistic evolution. We've seen pretty clearly what he thinks of theistic evolution and what he thinks of some versions of old Earth creationism here.

He says, "The age of man is ascertained approximately by two genealogies found in the 5th and 11th chapters in Genesis." And goes on to say, "Archbishop Usher—" this famous chronology— "computed the time from Adam to Christ at 4,004 years." He says, yeah, there's some variation when people calculate it, but, you know, if Adam were living today, he'd be about 6,000 years old. You know, that's worth noting there because he explicitly says these genealogies in Genesis can be used to calculate ages. Mm-hm.

And why is that significant? I mean, the dispute, the kind of exegetical dispute, which was— which was there before Kaufman's time, was, well, we know that other places in the Bible, genealogies aren't exhaustive. They don't necessarily list every generation. Right. And that would be multiple examples. Mm-hm. But I think what Kaufman would be going for here is, well, the ones in Genesis are different from other ones in the Bible because they say so-and-so had this son at a certain age. Mm-hm.

So we're going to presume that if it says he had this son at a certain age, it's not mentioning his grandson or great-grandson or something like that. And then his statements about the flood, and he brings up the question, you know, was the flood universal? And by this he means was the whole Earth covered with water, not just the place where people lived or whatever. He gives a number of observations, quotes the text, says it's clear and explicit.

But he says that the flood was universal, covered the whole Earth, is evident because, one, the language of scripture admits of no other interpretation. There's a biblical appeal. "The nations of the Orient, of the East, have a traditional account of the flood as handed down from generation to generation, which finally got into their literature. Some of the primitive American races have a similar tradition." So saying, like, flood stories are all over.

In other words, everybody remembers it in their historic cultures, which is a familiar point from more modern literature. "There are many fossil remains of aquatic plants and animals, which indicate that at one time places now far inland were underwater." Mm-hm. Which also shows up in modern creationist discussions. And then the next one is longer. I won't read it, but mentioning the idea that he thinks there was plenty of room in the ark for all the animals.

And even if not, you know, all things are possible with God. Mm-hm. And the theory of an upheaval of the ocean beds for the flood. So obviously he's not developing it in ways that, you know, more recent creation scientists have attempted to develop models or whatever. He's more gesturing at things here. But I think that gives— gives the flavor and kind of main concerns fairly well for Doctrines of the Bible. Mm-hm. And again, this is kind of a history of official documents. So this obviously became a central text.

Kaufman was a central leader. I did not do the, you know, work of a historian and read conference minutes and periodicals and letters to the editor and, you know, get that kind of on-the-ground view. But it gives us a good sense of, hey, what are highly respected leaders saying in highly respected books?

And I think it's fair to say that this is going to reflect very closely the kind of concerns that led to that 1921 Garden City Confession of Faith, what they meant when they said the Genesis account of creation is a historic fact and literally true. Yeah. Man created by an immediate act of God. Fair to assume that Doctrines of the Bible is going to give a pretty good interpretation of that. So you mentioned Introduction to Theology, and that's another significant text. I'd be curious what angle he takes with this.

You're definitely laying some good groundwork here in it. Mm-hm. That's really coming to the surface for me what these guys were carrying about at the time. It's like, man created in the image of God. This is extraordinarily important. You know, you can't say we came from animals or— well, and also fighting back as, like, this is a way of atheism for some people. And that's not— not okay, obviously. But what does— what does Wanger's take on this? Introduction to Theology. What did you find in that text? Right.

So yeah, and I'm using that text to help us understand kind of the mindset behind the 1963 Confession. Ah. The Introduction to Theology was actually written in the '50s, so it's— Okay. You know, it's a bit before. But I do think it explains— there's definitely language in Introduction to Theology that's like, oh, okay, that's why the 1963 Confession, like, doesn't say details. It doesn't say man was created by an immediate act. It doesn't— Mm-hm. —talk about reading Genesis literally or whatever.

It sticks in these more philosophical categories. But to pull a few quotes from there. So he's talking about Genesis, and he says, "Since the whole account is theocentric as to emphasis, geocentric as to standpoint, written in non-scientific language and highly poetic in character, it is evident that scientists will be disappointed if they seek information concerning God's creative process from the record in Genesis 1." Interesting.

So he's just like, look, this is talking about— this is— we're looking for God's point of view. It's geocentric in standpoint. In other words, here we are in the Garden of Eden, or we're on the Earth, we're looking out. Oh, yeah. Okay. You know, we see the sun, we see the stars as they relate to us, the plants, the animals as they relate to us. It's not scientific language, highly poetic in character. In other words, it's very structured. Hmm.

And he says, "Scientists will be disappointed if they seek information concerning God's creative process from the record." It's like, okay, right. Okay, that's why it's so much more vague in that Confession. The 1963. Yeah. Now, I don't think that Wanger actually consistently carries that through. He actually says some things that feel to me a lot more like making scientific claims there. But, I mean, he— hmm. —he digs that in further.

Basically, he says, "We have two ways of knowing about reality and creation." So from the Word of God, he says, we get broad metaphysical foundations, which is surely what— Okay. —surely what the 1963 Confession feels like. You start to read these big words and so on, and yes, they are broad metaphysical foundations. Like, God is the creator of all things. Hmm. God is the preserver of his universe. He's sovereign in all things. He's both transcendent and imminent in reference to his creation.

So that's our one source of knowledge. And the other is the research and investigation of men of science. So he's emphatic, like, you've got to take scientific research seriously if you're thinking about creation. So it's like, we can read the text of scripture, obviously, and you have that, but then also looking at the creation God has made and observing it, essentially. Like, that's an important part of the puzzle. Right. Yeah.

If you read this by itself in Wanger's Introduction to Theology, you'd be like, okay, we don't expect him to have a problem with theistic evolution because there's no scientific information in Genesis or whatever. Oh. Which would be, you know, a common argument made by theistic evolutionists. You're just— you're looking for the wrong information if you're trying to answer that question. Hmm. But that is not where Wanger goes. He does actually think there is some specifics that we will get to. Yeah.

I mean, where does he go? Because he's laid some interesting pieces. Like, okay, where are you going to go with this now? Like, it feels like you go multiple avenues. Right. So first of all, we'll follow through with what he does with this idea that you don't press Genesis for scientific details. He says, "Were it not for the evidence which Christian men of science are now accepting, this six consecutive 24-hour days, this would undoubtedly be the common belief of Bible-believing Christians." So. Okay.

If we didn't have scientific stuff, we're reading the text, we'd think, yeah, six 24-hour days. And then he says, "That which is learned by scientists about the creation also helps us understand, or at least not misinterpret, the revelation contained in the scriptures." Oh. "The evidence from science seems to be that this world is older than was held by Archbishop Usher." So Usher being the one that says we count the— 4,004 years. Yeah, count the— no, the genealogies will go back to Adam. Right.

Roughly 6,000 years ago. And Kaufman said, well, Usher wasn't far off. There might be a little details here that are tough, but he's close.

And so there we see that Wanger is willing to say, look, we learn about the world through science, and so six consecutive 24-hour days, he sees compelling reason not to do that and says, well, the Bible wasn't— you press the Bible wasn't trying to answer that because it's— it's God-centered from the sake of people, you know, God-centered, communicating to people living on Earth, describing the world as it's pictured there. And he is open to the idea that the days are creative epochs.

So that'd be some version of a day-age theory. So day-age theory is essentially saying— Six days are like six epochs, six ages of creation. Basically, day-age is open to the six days of creation could be something besides a 24-hour day as we think of, like, the sun rising and setting in a 24-hour period. Right. Specifically the idea that they are ages. Yeah. So as in it could be a really long time or whatever. Right. I think there's some variation within those theories, I believe, but I think that's— Right.

So he— he— basically he's— So Wanger is explicitly open to that. Kaufman said that's hard to reconcile with the specific language of Genesis. Is Wanger saying anywhere in here, looking through your notes and, you know, these quotes, is he saying anywhere in here that he does believe the day-age theory, or is he just saying, hey, yeah, it's an option? He says the day-age theory is possible. And then he says, well, maybe they were six 24-hour days that were widely scattered through time, like. Oh.

Kind of like a punctuated creation. Interesting. God created these things and then— There's a space. —Earth goes on and then he creates the next things in the next day or whatever. Oh. Interesting. —And then concludes and says, well, this is not something that evangelical Christians should— should not something that should divide evangelical Christians. Like, there's going to be different interpretations these days. Mm-hm. So definitely a shift there from what we see in Doctrines of the Bible. Mm-hm.

He is also not going the theistic evolution route. Mm-hm. He's pretty robustly not going there. So I pulled this pair of quotes. He says, "It is not a question as to whether God could have created the universe and performed his activity in reference to this Earth in six 24-hour days or in six seconds. The only question is, what did God do?" Hmm. He's like, yes, I believe God could have created it in six days or six seconds or anything else he wanted to. Mm-hm.

And he also said, "The question is not whether God could have used evolution as his method. The only question is whether he did." And. Interesting. Wanger, I don't know that he closed the door on the six 24-hour days, but it's clearly not what he thinks. He's— I mean, he clearly leans toward either a day-age or these six widely scattered days or something. Mm-hm. He does close the door on evolution.

As in he says, like, God— well, yeah, God could have done that if he'd wanted to, but he thinks the Bible says that's not what God did. Oh, okay. I'm tracking now. Yeah, that makes sense. And that's also something Kaufman's saying, you know, is like, that immediate— back to the 1921 Confession, that immediate act of— of the creation of man was like a really significant line in the sand. We're going to draw that— we're holding that line right there. Mm-hm. And it sounds like Wanger's doing the same thing. Right.

So there is actually one interpretation of the days of Genesis that he says, nah, this doesn't fit with Genesis. Hmm. And that's the interpretation that says, well, the days are— they're a literary structure. They're not historical. They're— this is how Moses presented it by presenting this workweek. God doing it in the workweek. So they're not necessarily one day after another. Oh. This is a literary structure. Which, you know, that's an argument that's out there. Mm-hm.

And he mentions that he doesn't think that fits. So he thinks there's flexibility in how you understand the days, but he— he thinks those days are giving a time— excuse me— he thinks these days are giving a time sequence. So he says, "Genesis 1 represents God as creating successively by fiat a variety of life forms, both flora and fauna, each to reproduce after its kind. This simple description is still to be found true by observation." And then he talks about, you know, there can be variation.

You know, obviously we can do selective breeding on animals. Things can change. But the kind doesn't change. So I find this interesting. And I think he is pretty committed to this. So God created successively by fiat, so creates, you know, dispatches plants and animals by a command, not by just they evolved or speciated or whatever. And he does it successively, different batches, flora and fauna, created by command.

So not just man by an immediate act of God here, but, you know, all the different groups of life forms by an immediate act of God. Hmm. And then goes on to talk about within their kind in ways that, again, if you're familiar with the modern, you know, creationist literature where they talk about, okay, a biblical kind and argue about, well, you know, would dogs and wolves and coyotes all be the same biblical kind that could have been the same animal in the flood, or are they different kinds? Mm-hm.

So, I mean, he actually goes right down that road. So I look at this and I say, well, okay, despite the things he says that seem pretty sweeping, like, it's a mistake to look for information about how God created in Genesis 1. He doesn't mean that Genesis 1 doesn't give us some pretty solid historical things. Mm-hm. So, no, it's not going to give us genetics or physics or Einstein's law of relativity or— or that kind of stuff. Mm-hm.

But he's willing to put some historical things there and says, successive creation by fiat, and there's this thing called a biblical kind, like, okay, maybe one animal had the genetic potential to give us coyotes and wolves and dogs, but there's no— what does he call it? Transmutation of species changing into something else, you know, macroevolution. Mm-hm. Apes becoming humans or whatever, even though there might have been, like, you know, one exemplar of the ape kind that developed out of different ape species.

And that's really the thrust of what's said on creation there. So I think it— one, it explains the much vaguer language of the 1963 Confession. Why they don't put these stakes down on literal and creation by an immediate act. And historic too. That's another word that's in 21, right? Right. Literal and historic. But if we look at his position, he does think the Bible actually says some pretty specific historical things. Absolutely, yeah.

That put him squarely in old Earth creationism and squarely not in theistic evolution. Mm-hm. Yep, this is a bit of a surprise. Yeah, I didn't— I didn't know that this was in that book. Mm-hm. Does he say anything on the flood? Because that was something we looked at in Kaufman. And that would be another big one in the young Earth creationist. Right. You know, discussions today, yes, a global flood, you know, actually, like, literally a global flood, et cetera, which is what Kaufman is saying.

So I didn't read the whole book, but just doing— I did some searches on the digital edition and so on. He does talk about the flood, but not much. This is kind of incidental. He says he's talking about the second coming of Christ, and then, of course, Peter compares that to the flood in the New Testament.

So he says, "The return of Christ, an event which will be unforeseen by the scientists of the world, will usher in the renovation of the Earth by fire." So Jesus comes back, the Earth is going to be renewed by fire. He says, "This will not be the first time the uniformity of nature was interrupted by a divine intervention.

Witness the deluge." So he doesn't talk about the flood in detail like Kaufman does, but he doesn't hesitate to say, hey, look, sometimes stuff happens that doesn't fit the normal patterns of nature. You know, that's going to happen when Jesus came back. It happened with the flood. Mm-hm. This wasn't just the 5,000-year flood cycle. This was an interruption to the uniformity of nature. Mm-hm. A divine event. Right. Yeah. In the category of a miracle.

He says divine intervention, interrupted by a divine intervention. And interrupt the uniformity of nature. Yeah. And again, big creationist point, like, God can interrupt the uniformity of nature. Nature doesn't always have to be the same. We can look for catastrophes that might explain why the world's like it is. Mm-hm. There. So, you know, how different is this position from Kaufman? He comes at it from a different angle. He's got different rhetoric.

I think it's a different position than Kaufman, but I— I don't think we should overemphasize the differences. Well, so let's— let's go and back to these Confessions then, the 1921, 1963. Tell me about their uses and, okay, they're written in 1921. What happens after that? Where are they put to use, et cetera? I should refer people to our episode with Edsel Berge, who compared these Confessions, you know, much more generally, not just in the specific use.

So the significance of those Confessions, we'll link that episode with Edsel Berge. So just in a nutshell, like, both 1921 and 1963 live on in conservative Mennonite circles. So the kind of division between what we call the old Mennonites and the conservative Mennonites, the very first kind of official separations are late '50s where you have individual congregations withdrawing from, like, the conferences and started the Non-Conference movement.

And then by the late '60s, you have a larger group with the Eastern Pennsylvania Mennonite Church leaving Lancaster Conference and then, you know, similar divisions in different conferences and so on. So some of those groups that have left kept the 1921 Confession, so it's still very widely used. Other conservative groups kept the 1963 Confession, and that has become sort of a demarcator in our circles.

Like, you'll have different ministries, nonprofit organizations that say our constituency is people that adhere to the 1963 Mennonite Confession or an earlier document. It has become kind of a demarcator and still used by multiple groups. You know, so how did that intersect with creation? You know, were conservative Mennonites concerned that the 1963 Confession didn't— didn't say specifics about creation in the way that 1921 did? I think there's evidence that some of them were.

Again, I don't have the historical research. I didn't mine letters and correspondence and sermons and that kind of thing. I'm looking at official documents. So a number of churches that kept the 1921 Confession, but also interestingly in the kind of the Non-Conference movement, a lot of these groups that go by fellowships rather than conferences, they did an expansion of the 1921 Confession in 1964. So this is only a year later, and it's done by people that had pulled out of the Mennonite Church.

And when it comes to creation, they kept the same language from 1921, but they added this one phrase. They said, or clause, "We believe that the Bible is a book of redemption, yet is scientifically accurate." Mm-hm. So putting that peg in and saying, well, yes, I don't know if they were interacting with J.C.

Wenger or not, but, you know, to his thing about, you know, it's a book of redemption, not a book of science, they're like, well, yeah, you know, the point of Genesis 1 isn't to tell us about science, it's to tell us about God redeeming us, but whatever it says is accurate. So whatever touches on science is accurate. So that would be a significant portion of modern conservative Mennonites would have that statement. Also a significant portion that used 1963.

A lot of— or different places would use that as is, or they may adapt things here and there, but as is in respect to creation. But there are a couple notable attempts to take 1963 and make it more specific on creation. Mm-hm. So the one was a Confession produced by the Fellowship of Concerned Mennonites in, I believe, 1990. That organization now goes as Anabaptist Council for Truth. But what they did is they— it basically reads like the 1963 Confession, but they brought back in some things on creation from 1921.

Ah. So they brought back in the phrase, "The Genesis account of creation is a historic fact and literally true," and incorporated it into the 1963. And then they also brought back that language that says humanity was created by an immediate act of God. Mm-hm. So best of both worlds. Mm-hm. Don't have to choose between the two Confessions. At least that's how they approached that article. Yeah. Mm-hm.

And then in 2024, another addenda, the Biblical Mennonite Alliance, which uses the 1963 Confession as their kind of anchor point, published an addenda to it on several points, but it included this on the article of creation, says, "We believe that the Genesis record of creation is historically accurate and literally true." Sounds like 1921, but reworked. That the creation week was seven 24-hour days. So there we are getting specific. Ah. Uh-huh.

And that Adam and Eve were historical figures created by a special and direct act of God. Special and direct being, you know, modern English for immediate. Yeah. There. Yeah, that's kind of how those have been adopted. I did just a little bit of looking around at what I could find on organizations and so on that have written fresh statements of faith that aren't based on either 1921 or 1963. And they tend to use language like six days, six 24-hour days, literal. Mm-hm.

The one said the Genesis account of creation is authentic, which is an interesting word choice. Mm-hm. For sure. Hmm. So certainly statements produced after 1963 tend to be more specific than 1963. But not everybody has felt the need to tweak or revise the 1963 either. But the six 24-hour days language, we don't get that in 21 or 63. Right. That would be a new or new, what's the word, something you're getting with some of these more, you know, maybe they did a revision or they added something, you know. Right.

And even Kaufman, I mean, I would refer somebody to a careful reading of the text adoptions of the Bible. Yeah. I think it's pretty obvious that he would be sympathetic with six 24-hour days. Mm-hm. But to me, it didn't feel like he's quite putting that at, like, a confession of faith level thing, reading that, but. That's not what I got when you read it. It didn't. Right. Yeah, it wasn't like he— he was coming down hard on that. I would say, to me, it feels like he would be leaning pretty hard there.

He certainly did not like the day age theory. Yeah. So I would see him being in that six 24-hour day camp, but not with the same level of definition. Mm-hm. As putting it in a faith statement or something like that. And especially an age of the Earth statement wouldn't have really been there either, because he's entertaining gap theory and saying, well, we don't know. Don't know the age of the Earth in particular. Yeah. Right. Like, that's not really. He's not insistent on young Earth.

He is pretty strongly insistent on young Adam. Yeah. That's an important distinction, for sure. Which none of the— I'm not seeing any revisions or additions or whatever, you know, to these Confessions that say anything on the age of the Earth either. You know what I'm saying? It's implied. It's implied. But I think the six 24-hour days and literal language is understood that way now. I would assume it is, yeah.

Obviously, given what's in doctrines of the Bible, when the 1921 Confession says it's a historic fact and literally true. Mm-hm. You know, I doubt that that was intended to rule out the gap theory because, you know, doctrines of the Bible was written by, like, the main statesman of the Mennonite Church at that point. Yeah. And he didn't rule it out. Wow.

But I think— I think it would generally be almost taken for granted in our modern statements that something like that, you know, also rules out this gap between Genesis 1 and 2 or whatever. Mm-hm. So I think some people will probably say this in the comments and whatever. Like, so what? Like, why does it matter? Who cares about these guys who wrote these books 100 years ago? Yay, that's great, but, like, today is today and, like, do, you know, does it really matter what they were saying back then?

What would you say to that? So history can't be determinative, right? And of course, these two historical figures, right, Kaufman and Wenger, both, you know, highly regarded in our circles, they don't agree, so. This is true. Yeah. You know, it would be interesting to know what a actual conversation between them would have looked like and exactly how, you know, exactly where they would have agreed and disagreed and where they'd have just said things different.

But I think it would have enough to say that their positions aren't identical. You know, in our mission statement, we say, "Talking about issues in ways that are historically and theologically informed." So a sense of where— like, okay, they're relevant for me and for a lot of us because, like, this is literally our heritage and tradition. I mean, most of my roots are in the Amish side, but people came out of the Amish and adopted doctrines of the Bible and so on.

They're not determinative, but neither would we do well to— to be ignorant of how the previous generation talked about it. And both of these figures are pretty key to, you know, what became the kind of conservative Mennonite synthesis, like how conservative Mennonites, Mennonites, and then conservative Mennonites have put together what we believe and so on. And it breaks the— breaks the monopoly of the present a little bit. You know, especially somebody like Wenger, that position is not articulated a lot.

There's young Earth creationists. There's people like Wenger that are old Earth in this, you know, the Earth is old, but God did a special direct creation of different plants and animals at different places. But we don't seem to hear as much about them anymore. It seems to be either a young Earth creationism or the going where Wenger did not go, a theistic evolution that takes those ideas further. Mm-hm.

And so it is very interesting that, you know, the Mennonite heritage, you know, fair to say that the heritage, especially with the role of doctrines of the Bible, leans young Earth, but it's not quite in the same— same vein as the modern young Earth. But, like, all of them are staunchly anti-evolution. Yeah, definitely. Mm-hm. Yeah. We do well to be aware of those conversations. You know, they don't determine where we're going. They give us a sense of history.

You may conclude that they're wrong in various directions. You might even conclude that they are a cautionary tale of where you should not go. But if you're working within— if you're working within a Mennonite framework and a conservative Mennonite framework, they are a bit of a backdrop to these questions. Mm-hm. You know, another thing I think is worth pointing out, obviously not nearly all of our viewers on Anabaptist Perspectives are— not nearly all of you are in this conservative Mennonite world.

You're kind of looking in. So maybe for you it is more historical interest. But it also reminds us, even getting ready for this, it's not like the Anabaptists here were isolated from, you know, broader Christian movements. The book from John L. Horsch, oh, it has an introduction saying it was used in pastor courses at Moody Seminary. Yeah. Wow. J.C. Wenger was a widely respected biblical scholar. You know, none of these are, like, outliers. They're like certain positions. Mm-hm.

But I think it does remind us, like, okay, Mennonites thinking about this? Well, it kind of went with conservative Christians thinking about this. Mm-hm. And even if— even if your particular background has nothing to do with Mennonites, between Wenger and Kaufman, like, their attitudes capture— they're fairly representative of things that went on in American Christianity in the early part of the 20th century. Mm-hm.

So hopefully there can be of a little value in not purely historical interest, even if you're outside the Mennonite circle. Mm-hm. If you're in the Mennonite circle, it's part of your story. Mm-hm. For how you relate to these things and think about challenges in the present and so on. So it is a snapshot in time. And I think it's worth noting, you know, we don't know how these three men that, you know, you've been reading from their books would respond to, you know, here in 2026, like, current. Current issues.

Arguments, debates. Exactly. How things shaped up. I'm sure the tone has changed. The things that are discussed have probably changed a good bit. You know, the culture obviously has changed. A lot of stuff. So it's hard to— we can't say, right? Right. Although we do have a sense of what did they think the text said. So yeah, we don't know exactly how they would respond to culture and so on, but we do get a— Mm-hm.

A flavor of framework for how they approached the text and so on that I don't think would change as much. Gap theory for, you know, Kaufman is like, oh, this might be a possibility. You know, there might be something here, you know, or day age, you know, obviously anti-evolution. We know that that's when they really stood.

And I think that's what I keep coming back to, is that they're really putting that, we will— we will stake a claim on this, you know, man is a special act of creation from God, you know, an immediate act, et cetera. Mm-hm. And I— it feels like that is the one thing that is very strongly agreed on by all of these and in the Confessions, obviously. So that's an interesting piece of common ground to note in their variations of opinion. That's one that they really come back to.

Anything you want to add in the— in the wrap-up as we bring it to a close here? I mean, I was intrigued by reading these guys in general. So these books are worth— these books and texts are worth reading a lot more broadly than just on things related to creation. Mm-hm. Yeah, well, Marlon, thanks for further reading that you did in these texts and bringing us some things to think about, about our history and maybe some new perspective about a lot of this I hadn't heard before. Actually, this is very interesting.

It makes me want to get a copy of Introduction to Theology and read it. And so we'll put a link for that in the description, of course. But yeah, thank you for the time and effort you put into preparing for this. You good. Thanks for listening to this episode with Marlon about various perspectives that Mennonite writers had on the topic of origins and creation. We did a whole episode with Edsel Burge on various Mennonite Confessions of Faith, and you can find that linked in the description below.

I think you'll find it pretty interesting. We're also producing a 10-part documentary series on the first 100 years of the Anabaptist story, and it's its own separate channel, its own series, and you can find that also linked in the description down below. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll catch you in the next episode.