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Radical Reformation History  /  Lecture 14: The Birth of the Hutterites (Part 2)  /  Discussion Questions
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Question 10
In the worst years—massacres, famine, torture (red-hot iron, gunpowder in wounds), babies killed, people mixing clay with food—the chronicles still say, “we followed the example of our forefathers by sending out brothers…to seek those on fire for the truth”; what inner logic would make mission feel necessary for survival (“if we stop…we’re going to deteriorate”), and what would your life have to change for obedience and gospel advance to remain non-negotiable under real loss?
Another way to ask: Why would spreading the gospel feel necessary just to stay spiritually alive, even during extreme suffering? What would you have to change so obedience and mission stay non-negotiable when you face real loss?

Direct Answer Dean Taylor suggests the Hutterites saw mission as part of their identity and spiritual health: continuing to send brothers was obedience to Christ and a way to avoid internal collapse, even when survival was uncertain. For obedience to stay non-negotiable under loss, the transcript implies a mindset of martyr-faithfulness, communal support, and reliance on God rather than safety.

Support from Transcript:

  • The suffering is extreme: babies killed, massacres, torture (“burned with red hot iron…gunpowder…caught on fire”), famine, and “mixing clay with their food to try to help survive.”
  • Yet in 1622: “we followed the example of our forefathers by sending out brothers…into various places in Germany.”
  • Their mission purpose: to “seek those on fire for the truth and to call people to repentance.”
  • Outsiders were amazed: “our defenseless members set out…when scarcely anyone…could travel in safety,” yet “the Lord was their protector.”
  • Dean gives the inner logic explicitly: “It’s almost as if these brothers knew, ‘If we stop…the mission activity…we’re going to deteriorate…start to die.’”
  • He notes attrition pressures: many “recanted…People left,” making perseverance and forward movement even more crucial.
Discussion Follow-ups If comfort and safety were removed, what practices would keep your faith from becoming ‘afterglow’? What concrete commitments—money, time, mobility, risk—would have to be reordered for mission to remain obedience rather than an option?

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