I am finally getting a chance to sit down and write down my thoughts on this book from Herald Press, sent to me by the folks at Mennonite Publishing Network. It actually was one of my favorite reads on the Anabaptist Movement in quite some time. To all my fellow friends and family in an Anabaptist church, reading this book, weather you read or not, will be far from a waste of your time. Church history buffs will enjoy hearing a little more ‘from the other side’.
I truly believe this book is going to become an essential book to the church, within regards to the telling of our story. Growing up in Lancaster Pennsylvania, I was well aware of the many little ‘informational‘ books that where sold at shops on the Amish side of town, explaining who the Mennonites are, who the Amish are and telling a brief overview of our history. Honestly, I believe ‘Through Fire and Water: An Overview of Mennonite History‘ has the potential of replacing all of those and becoming the standard of a much more elaborate, well rounded and insightful history of where we came from and how it is defining just where we are going.
One of the best selling books to hit MPN history, is the Naked Anabaptist. Honestly, as much as I enjoyed the read, I believe this book, Through Fire and Water, should be a mandatory read before and after one reads the Naked Anabaptist. The Naked Anabaptist explains us as a broader and more modern context, this gives us the essential look at just where our roots are.
Through Fire and Water deeply explores all branches of the Anabaptist movement, within the dark theater that is ‘Church History‘. Starting in the beginning, carefully showing our dance outside of the Protestant Reformation, this book artfully displays our history through both facts and the telling of stories, both past and modern Anabaptists. It takes the time to explain our history, our branches and our migrations (Amish, BIC, Russian Mennonites, MB, etc) as well as tell their stories of who they where, where they came from and what circumstances shaped their existence. I especially enjoyed new insights on people like George Bluarock, where we truly get a opening glimpse at how radical he was as he marched into Catholic services, to cry hypocrisy.
It sheds new light on areas that I wasn’t aware of, including Menno Simon’s humor, who often signed his letters ‘The Cripple who Loves You‘. It also gave me a more in-depth glimpse at the Russian Mennonites, which our different then my own Swiss heritage.
The book is written in almost a play format. It opens with the scene of our Christian Heritage, laying out stories and reformations of our history. It then enters and carefully explains the bad and the good of our emergence in the 16th Century of Europe, setting the stage for us as bandits on the run. From there we learn our Story of how we became Mennonite, Brethren in Christ, Amish, etc – how our migrations to Russia and America erupted. Before closing with the most rounded look at our history I have ever experienced in one book – it dives into how our history as shaped us into the missional community we are today, including our pitfalls, but celebrating our spread across the globe, to be the several million church members we are today.
As a Pastor, this is one of the books I will be most recommended when people ask me and our church plant, Who are the Mennonites?
As a Mennonite, this book gave me a much more rounded look into our history and the affects it has had on us – but also on what pieces of the Kingdom we have come to understand through our heritage.
Finally as a Christian, it is a book that tells the other side of the Church History. The side often forgotten and not told, it is part Martyr’s Mirror, part Naked Anabaptist and part Confession of the Mennonite Perspective.
One of my favorite sections was titled, From Anabaptist to Mennonite, exploring how we became compromised as the quiet of the land and how we migrated onward from there. This place of being quiet is where some of us in the church, are still defaulting our lives, loosing the passion our heritage presents in living out the Lord’s Prayer, on earth as it is in heaven. It was also exciting to see my 10th Great-Grandfather mentioned, Jacob Engle, the founding Pastor of the Brethren in Christ. The book is roughly 350 pages of history, that is written with the same passion, those before us, lived out in their lives. It was engaging, energetic and motivational. Many times I not only had to laugh or shake my head, but even was ushered to tears over the story of where we come from. This book made me wish time travel was possible to meet with these ‘common joes‘, so many years before that lived extraordinary lives.
Through Fire and Water presents the Mennonite faith story within the sweep of church history. This engaging text uses stories of men and women, peasants and pastors, heroes and rascals, to trace the radical Reformation from sixteenth-century Europe to today’s global Anabaptist family. Written in an accessible and nonacademic style, this revised edition updates the story and incorporates new historical research and discoveries.
- ISBN: 9780836195064
Read more about this book and/or buy it: http://bit.ly/hagncf
Adventurous coffeeholic from Lancaster, PA. 
