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Author's Preface
Anabaptist
Theology in Face of Postmodernity
An ongoing agenda item and two
conversations converged to bring this book into focus.
The agenda item was my enduring pursuit of the following
questions: whether the peace churches (or Anabaptists and
Mennonites as a peace church) have or ought to have a
specific perspective on theology, and whether a stance
shaped by peace church assumptions might produce a
different view of classic questions from that of the
majority Christian tradition. My work assumes that the
answer to both questions is yes.
In one way or another these questions
have been integral to my theologizing since the first
theology course I taught as a newly minted Ph.D. some
twenty-five years ago. In light of these continuing
questions, in my mind this book is really about peace
theology.
The first conversation that helped to
shape this volume occurs on a continuing and sometimes
daily basis with Gerald and Susan Biesecker-Mast. From
them I learned that my theologizing reflected
postmodernity but without my acknowledgment of it. Even
before they became my colleagues at Bluffton College, Sue
and Gerald introduced me to the idea of postmodernity,
and to both the promise and the dangers that it holds for
an Anabaptist, Mennonite peace church approach to
theology. Their influence on this book is great.
A second important conversation
occurred about two years ago with John Howard Yoder. John
helped to focus my understanding of the real but
unacknowledged assumption operating behind all
twentieth-century Mennonite theologizing. All this
theologizing, he said, assumed the existence of a
theology-in-general without acknowledging either this
assumption or that significant differences existed
concerning the shape and composition of the supposed
general theology. This assumption drove twentieth-century
Mennonite efforts to engender theology that
simultaneously built on and was distinct from the
supposed general theology of mainstream Protestant
orthodoxy.
The intersection of these two
conversations with my ongoing theological quest produced
an energized mixture. Out of this the chapters of the
book emerged as a multifaceted depiction of Anabaptist
theology in face of postmodernity. The term Anabaptist in
the title acknowledges that the book brings sixteenth-
and nineteenth-century theologizing into the conversation
alongside more recent perspectives.
A number of people read and responded
to portions of this manuscript at some stage of
preparation. Those whose names I recall include Rachel
Reesor, Gerald Schlabach, William Trollinger, John
Kampen, Venice Haynes, Loren Johns, Dwight Hopkins, James
Cone, Karen Baker-Fletcher, Garth Kasimu Baker-Fletcher,
Will Coleman, Howard Wiley, Alain Epp Weaver, Sonia
Weaver, Thomas Heilke, Abraham Friesen, and L. L.
Hartzler. Jeff Gundy’s reading of the entire
manuscript proved very helpful. Susan Biesecker-Mast and
Gerald Biesecker-Mast diligently responded to the
complete manuscript with important suggestions for
nuancing the discussion of postmodernity. I am grateful
to Anna Diller who did most of the work of compiling the
index.
I am very thankful for all these
contributions of time, good faith, and counsel, even on
those occasions when I ran the risk of not accepting a
suggestion. I apologize for those whose names I may have
overlooked.
It was a pleasure to work with Michael
King of Pandora Press U.S., who played two different
roles in the production of this book. At the request of
the C. Henry Smith Series editor, Michael played the role
of series editor for the evaluation stage. He solicited
independent evaluation and orchestrated the process of
blind review to determine whether the manuscript met the
prescribed criteria for inclusion in the series. When the
review process returned a strong recommendation for
publication in the series, Michael then began functioning
as publisher. In that role his contributions included
suggestions for both form and content, as well as warm
support for the series in which this book appears. I am
very grateful to Lee Snyder and John Kampen, the
president and dean of Bluffton College, whose development
of the C. Henry Smith Series makes this book possible.
But books do not live on academic and
institutional contributions alone. This one would not
exist without the inspiration and support of my wife,
Mary, who remains peaceful both despite and because of
this writing.
Finally, I want to acknowledge a
special contribution to this book that has peace at its
heart. Thoughts of my niece Elizabeth Hope Weaver; her
parents, Gary Alvin and Susan Lee Weaver; and her brother
Christopher John Weaver frequently inspired my thoughts
during the writing of this manuscript. Elizabeth Hope was
truly a peaceful person. She died in a traffic accident
early in March 1996 at age twenty-two. The response of
her parents and brother to the tragic and overwhelming
circumstances of that accident modeled peace and revealed
where Elizabeth learned to be peaceful. May the intent of
this manuscript be worthy of her memory and of the lived
expressions of peace embodied by Elizabeth Hope
Weaver’s family.
J. Denny Weaver
Bluffton College
Bluffton, Ohio
Anabaptist Theology in Face
of Postmodernity orders:
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