Editors' Preface
Anabaptists and Postmodernity


The conference from which the essays in this collection are drawn had a multitude of origins and was indebted to many sources of encouragement, inspiration, and serendipity, not all of which can be named or even recognized.

One place we might start, however, is with the whirlwind of ideas, events, and people associated with Anabaptist communities in Pittsburgh while we were in that city completing our graduate work at the University of Pittsburgh during the early 1990s. We recall challenging conversations and difficult dreams shared with Scott Holland, pastor at the Monroeville Church of the Brethren, and John and Milonica Stahl-Wert, then pastors at Pittsburgh Mennonite Church.

Our brotherly and sisterly exchanges bore much fruit, including one apple that seemed rotten at first: plans for a conference in Pittsburgh on “Anabaptist Radicalism and Postmodern Publics” that never happened due to lack of registration. Fortunately, John D. Roth, editor of Mennonite Quarterly Review, consented to publish the presentations prepared for that conference in a special issue devoted to the subject of “Mennonites and Postmodernity” in April 1997, thus advancing and broadening discussion of the agenda slated for the “failed” Pittsburgh conference.

As we attended churchwide gatherings in the following years, we discovered that more and more church leaders and academics in Anabaptist-identified communities were dealing with concerns that tend to fall under the rubric of “postmodernity.” Particularly significant was a consultation on “Anabaptists in Conversation: Mennonite and Brethren Interactions with Twentieth-Century Theologies,” planned by Theron Schlabach and hosted by the Young Center for the Study of Anabaptist and Pietist Groups at Elizabethtown College June 19-21, 1997. Discussion after discussion at this event turned from the impact of modern religious thinkers like Barth, the Niehburs, Bonfhoeffer, and Troeltsch to disturbing questions raised by such postmodern writers as Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard, and Gadamer. This consultation inspired us to consider the possibility that a conference such as we had helped to envision at Pittsburgh might now generate enough interest to transpire at Bluffton College, where we were now employed.

On our way home from the Elizabethtown consultation we discussed this prospect with our Bluffton College colleagues J. Denny Weaver and Gerald Schlabach. They were enthusiastic about the idea and subsequently agreed to serve on a planning committee with us for a projected conference on Anabaptists and postmodernity. Fortunately, our planning committee convened in the forward-looking and intellectually inspiring climate of the Bluffton College campus, where an atmosphere of mutual encouragement prevails among faculty and administrators. Such an environment helped confirm for us that what had been postponed in Pittsburgh was now possible at Bluffton.

In the end, the conference on “Anabaptists and Postmodernity” that took place August 8-10, 1998, exceeded our highest expectations. The call for papers received so many exceptional responses that we had to revise and extend our program. The goal of getting at least thirty and as many as sixty people to attend the conference was replaced by the struggle to manage the nearly 200 registrations that poured in.

The spirit and intellect present at that conference was the most immediate source of inspiration for the work of editing a collection such as this. We have sought in the selection and organization of the essays to capture at least some of the wisdom and delight we experienced during those three intense days of presentation, dialogue, argument, and worship.

We owe a great debt of gratitude to the C. Henry Smith Series Editor, J. Denny Weaver, for his painstaking review and correction of our work and for his many helpful suggestions during the process of gathering and polishing these essays into a book. Denny’s greatest gift to us, though, has been his untiring devotion to rigorous and principled scholarship on behalf of the church, a lifework that has profoundly shaped our own aspirations and commitments.

Michael A. King, of Pandora Press U.S., was enthusiastic about this book from the beginning and shepherded us through territory unfamiliar to us as first-time editors. He provided substantial assistance in framing the revisions for which we asked and gave us considerable latitude in shaping the schedule by which we worked.

We are thankful for the financial, institutional, and intellectual support provided by Bluffton College for this project. Wesley Richard, Chair of the Communication and Theatre Department in which we hold our appointments, and John Kampen, Vice President and Dean of Academic Affairs, were both forthcoming with resources—including student assistance and computer equipment—that were crucial. Whitney Lehman, who served as a research assistant to the Communication and Theatre Department while we were completing the book, assisted with numerous word processing tasks and compiled the select bibliography and the index for the book. By accepting the book into the C. Henry Smith Series, the college contributed a sizable subsidy to the publisher associated with that series—thus keeping the book’s price as modest as possible.

Finally, as president of Bluffton College, Lee Snyder has led the way in making the college a hospitable community for hopeful dreams and visions of all kinds, such as those which led to the “Anabaptists and Postmodernity” conference. Her personal interest and support for both the conference and this book demonstrates an ingenious administrative craft that is concerned with both programs and people, with both bottom lines and blossoming vines, and with both strategic plans and intellectual inquiries. We dedicate this book to her.
Gerald Biesecker-Mast
Susan Biesecker-Mast
Bluffton, Ohio


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11/27/00