Discussion Jumpstarter
Study leader reference - not a definitive answer
Question 8
Burge says Mennonites didn’t deny crisis conversion, but rejected the claim it was “the only way,” and he highlights the Isaac Long’s barn embrace: “We are brothers” based on a shared crisis experience; what happens to obedience issues like nonresistance, oath-swearing, and infant baptism when fellowship is grounded primarily in an experience rather than a shared way of life?
Another way to ask: If church unity is built mostly on a shared conversion experience, what happens to hard obedience issues like nonresistance, oath-taking, and infant baptism? Do those teachings become less important for belonging?
Discussion Jumpstarter
Direct Answer
The transcript suggests that when fellowship is grounded mainly in a shared conversion experience, it can weaken the importance of concrete obedience practices that historically marked Mennonite discipleship. Burge presents this as becoming “problematic” when people make common cause with traditions that deny nonresistance, practice infant baptism, or swear oaths.
- At Isaac Long’s barn (1770), Martin Boehm and William Otterbein embraced: “We are brothers,” grounded in a shared “crisis new birth experience.”
- Burge: Mennonites had “no problem… with crisis conversion experiences,” but rejected making that experience “the only way.”
- He says it becomes problematic “when you begin to make common cause with other traditions… who are not non-resistant, who baptize babies, who swear oaths.”
- Boehm’s fellowship basis led to discipline: “the other Mennonite bishops had to put him out of the church.”
- Burge notes Boehm then becomes a bishop in what becomes “United Brethren,” illustrating movement away from Mennonite obedience markers.