Rocky Cape Christian Community

Dear Friends,

Grown men, learned men, simple enough to get up and follow a star—two thousand and four years later, we met this morning to think about their journey, and to ask ourselves how many of us will be that wise, that persistent, or that successful in our search for Israel’s Saviour today.

Olvetter Jake Wurtz selected hymn 583 in our Gesangbuch: “Gott der Juden, Gott der Heiden, aller Völker Heil und Licht, Seba sieht den Stern mit Freuden, der von dir am Himmel spricht. Sem und Japhet kommt von fern, dich zu seh’n, du Jakobsstern!

Wir gesellen uns zu denen, die aus Morgenlande sind; unser Fragen, unser Sehnen ist nach dir du heil’ges Kind! Bist du in Jerusalem? Oder nur in Bethlehem? Kein Herodes kann uns sagen, wo dein Thron ist aufgericht’t; wenn wir die Gelehrten fragen, wissen sie die Weisheit nicht. Suchen wir, o König, dich, weiset uns die Welt von sich. . . .”

God of the Jews, God of the heathen, light and salvation of all people. Sheba sees your heavenly light with joy. Come Shem, come Japheth, come from distant lands to Jacob’s star!

We join the pilgrims from the east, searching for you, holy child. Shall we find you in Jerusalem, or just in Bethlehem? No Herod tells us where to find your throne. If we ask the educated they know nothing about it. The world turns us away if we seek for you. . . .

A freezing wind hurried us from our houses around the Hof into the warm bright room above our communal kitchen where we gathered in the peace and goodwill of the one whom the wise men found and the world rejected.

Jesus, light of all men coming into the world. Morning Star!

Our meeting began with the question: What made the “wise men” wise? How did the Magi (magicians, astrologers) from the east, turn into followers of Christ?

When they saw the light (the light that still “shines in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God”), they got up and followed it, no matter how much it cost, or how far it took them.

When in doubt along the way, they asked, listened, and learned from others.

But they did not let Herod—sly fox who wanted to “work with them”—trick them into taking part in his schemes. They did not get hung up at Jerusalem with the priests and Pharisees.

Come what may, they followed the heavenly light until they found Jesus in Bethlehem. They gave him what they had, and worshipped him. They listened to God—paying no attention to the instructions of jealous men in authority—kept clear of Jerusalem, and kept on going.  

They were wise men.

How wise are we?

Before we find Jesus, most of us seekers come to Jerusalem (organised religion). In Jerusalem we hear what the Chief Priests and experts in the law (keepers of tradition) have to say. We meet sly men like Herod (men of the world professing the faith) wanting to “work with us.” We listen to both of them using the Scriptures. But will we keep going, following the heavenly light (the light within us), wherever it goes?

The wise men followed and found. God warned them of danger, through a dream, and they took a safe way. So did Joseph and Mary.

The other morning I also had a dream—a bad dream.

In Costa Rica we rode crowded buses, often in the rain, and found ourselves in noisy dirty stations where multitudes jostled to board or get their luggage among diesel motors running, horns blaring, and men shouting destinations under tin roofs roaring in tropical downpours. Surrounding the tumult stood open doors into dingy restaurants and hotels (most of them prostíbulos), poorly lit, and from which the scent of food, filth, and rotting produce wafted through the crowds.

In my dream I came to such a station with Stanley, my son, about three years old.

Needing to wait a while, we chose the best-looking of the restaurants, entered and sat down. Almost right away I noticed it was a prostíbulo (brothel) nevertheless. In disgust I almost walked out, but with Stanley sitting on my knees I knew my purpose could not be mistaken, and decided to witness for Jesus.

I began to speak with those around me, pointing them to Jesus, but no one had time to listen. Business was brisk. More and more men came in and I saw them welcomed into rooms that already held a couple or two. Doors stayed open. The rooms got fuller, but more came. A particularly eager youth, already with a girl, bustled about trying to find a place and when I saw him settling into my corner I finally grabbed my little boy and . . . woke up!

My first thought was a complaint: “Lord, why did you let me dream such a horrid thing! I hate to think about or even remember Central American bus stations. Why must I see everything and live through it this vividly after so long a time, so far away?”

The Lord, through his Spirit, answered me at once: “You are in this bus station right now.”            

Many coming and going. A never-ending racket. Confusion. Adultery.

Yes, I had to admit it.

It happens in front of us—all around us—right here.  

Ragged impoverished people of the “Third World” do their thing in the flesh. Well dressed, clean, intelligent North Americans do it in the spirit. In church.

God hates it—just as much, or more.

* * * * *   

I learned about geistlicher Ehebruch (spiritual adultery) when I was about the age my son Stanley is now.

As if it happened last week, I remember my Mom coming home from Kitchener—the city close to where we lived in Ontario, Canada—with a book about missionaries.

A missionary lady had walked up to her in a supermarket wondering where to find Rennet to make cheese. Spotting my mother in her plain clothes, she thought at once of asking her. Not only could my mother help her, they quickly became friends. The missionary lady told my mother about their work in the jungles of eastern Ecuador (where Nate Saint and Jim Elliot were killed), of their Bible translation project and their radio ministry from the mountains close to Quito.

My mother, always interested in others—even though she lived without electricity or the news in a Team Mennonite community—asked many questions, and soon learned much about the work in Ecuador. The missionary lady gave her a book in parting, Seeds in the Wind, that told about their work.

That night we all looked at Seeds in the Wind by the missionary pastor, Frank S. Cook. Its front and back covers showed a gospel radio station on a high plateau among the snow-capped Andes. Its chapters, “God chooses his Men,” “God chooses his Means,” “God chooses a place,” and “God gives a Blueprint” told how God began and established this great work—“Voice of the Andes” HCJB—to bring his message of salvation to the whole world.

Largely consisting of testimonies—glorious heart-warming testimonies of people getting saved in remote places in miraculous ways—the book also included pictures of the missionaries and radio teams. These were the 1960s. Younger men on the photos wore shaggy hair and side-burns. Girls standing on stage to sing wore skirts that ended about six inches above their knees. . . .

My Dad paged through the book, reading a bit here and there. Then he carefully tore off its cover, gave me the picture of Ecuador to keep, ripped up the rest and dropped it into the wood stove.

For many years following (during which I saved the cover of the unfortunate book—and still have it) I did not really understand my Dad. What could be that bad about a missionary story? Sure, we might not agree with everything they did or said, but couldn’t we rejoice in the Gospel getting sent to all corners of the world?

My Dad didn’t call it the Gospel.

He called it geistlicher Ehebruch (spiritual adultery).

I did not understand him completely until I understood “where he was coming from.”

My father spent his childhood—up to his early teens—with his grandfather, Peter Hoover from Selkirk, Ontario, for whom he named me. “Old Pete” as they called him, lived his final years in my father’s home, and my father was given the responsibility of driving him around, wherever he needed to go.

“Old Pete” (my great-grandfather) grew up in a time when the Mennonite church in Ontario was weak, bound to traditions and the German language, while revival fires burned around them. For years, Methodist circuit riders, including the well-known Egerton Ryerson, had stopped regularly at his parents’ home, thirty miles south of Hamilton, Ontario, on the north shore of Lake Erie. But it wasn’t until 1857—the year Peter turned fourteen—that a great revival broke out. Stephen Smith, recording the events of that era, writes:

In the years before the Third Great Awakening (also known as the Revival of 1857-1858 or the Prayer Revival) religious life in North America had declined. It was a time of prosperity, and people were seeking riches rather than God. The churches were losing people, and worldliness was creeping in.

A number of Christians who had become concerned over the materialism that pervaded the land, and the fact that the young were growing up without God, began to pray that God would break the love of money over people's lives and send another revival. "Concerts of Prayer" began to spring up throughout Canada and the United States.

Then materialism was broken in many lives by the Bank Panic of October 1857.

Due to the long, hard winter of 1856-1857, transportation and trade transactions were delayed. The spring brought some relief, but by the end of summer, businesses had begun to collapse. Before September, the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company of Cincinnati, with a branch in New York City, failed, causing "a shock to public confidence." Some banks refused to redeem their promissory notes, while others suspended operations altogether, including eighteen of New York City's leading banks. On the 14th of October, 1857, the extensive banking system of the United States collapsed, a far-reaching disaster bringing ruin to hundreds of thousands of people in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and the industrial centres of the nation.

The Panic caused rich men to go broke literally overnight. Suicide and murder increased, as well as "the number of unfortunate women who roamed the streets in the cities." Many believed the Bank Panic was Divine judgment against a nation that had made mammon their god. Samuel I. Prime, chief editor of the daily New York Observer, felt "as long as men transact business on unsound principles, they will be punished. The law of trade, as well as of God, necessitate the penalty."

J. Edwin Orr, however, states that the Revival was not caused by the Panic. By 1857, prayer movements were growing in Ontario. In August or September, Walter and Phoebe Palmer, a Methodist physician and his wife from New York, came to hold what turned out to be very successful meetings. Returning to the States, they were delayed in Hamilton. On October 8th, the next day, the Methodist ministers convened a prayer meeting at which sixty-five people attended. The greater number of these people pledged themselves to pray for an "outpouring of the Holy Spirit." That night, Phoebe Palmer felt that God was about to move.

On the evening of the 9th, a larger crowd met in the basement of the John Street Methodist Church. Twenty-one people were converted. The meetings that followed were made up mostly of exhortations and testimonies. Many testified of conversion, while those who were already Christians testified to an entire dedication of heart and life to Christ.

The New York Christian Advocate and Journal reported on November 5, 1857, about the "Revival Extraordinary" in Hamilton in Canada West, where twenty to forty-five professions were being made daily, and one hundred were made on the previous Sunday. They wrote: "The work is taking its range . . . persons of all classes. Men of low degree and men of high estate for wealth and position; old men and maidens, and even little children, can be seen humbly kneeling together, pleading for grace. The mayor of the city, with other persons of like position, are not ashamed to be seen bowed at the altar of prayer beside the humble servant."

The spontaneous revival in Hamilton soon swept the entire community and a large part of the nation. All denominations reported a rise in membership over the following years. The Canadian Awakening of 1857 sparked the Third Great Awakening in the United States.

"Longing for Revivals," an appeal to corporate prayer was published in May 1857 by the "New School" Presbyterian Church: "This longing for revivals we cannot but consider as a cheering indication of the noblest life . . . Next to a state of actual revival is the sense of its need and the struggle to attain it, at any sacrifice of treasure, toil, or time. We trust that the period is not distant, when this state of actual, general, glorious revival shall be ours."

The Presbyterians were not alone in their longing. The Baptists and Methodists were also calling their members to cry out to God to send another awakening to the land. By early 1857, many were praying "that the popular addiction to money-making might be broken." When the bank panic broke the love of money over many lives, the intercessors focused their prayers on revival.

Prayer meetings increased in numbers and frequency amongst almost all denominations. Theodore Cuyler, pastor of Nineteenth Street Church, New York, said in November 1857, that he was "struck with the earnestness of petitions for the descent of God's Spirit on out city churches."  Fulton Street in New York City is said by most people to be the beginning of the "Prayer Meeting Revival" in America. Charleston, South Carolina, was, however, already experiencing a revival in the middle of 1857--among its slaves!

Black slaves had their own churches with mostly white leaders. One of these many congregations was found in Charleston with Dr. John L. Girardeau as its minister. Anson Street Presbyterian Church had forty-eight black members and twelve white. In 1857, they began a prayer meeting, petitioning God to send "a spiritual awakening," and waiting for the outpouring of the Spirit."

One evening while leading in prayer, Girardeau felt as if a surge of electricity had struck his head and gone through his entire body. He then stated: "The Holy Spirit has come. We will begin preaching tomorrow evening." He dismissed the church, but no one left. "Immediately he began exhorting them to accept the Gospel." By the time he was able to re-dismiss the congregation, it was midnight.

Every night for the next eight weeks, he preached on "sin and repentance, faith and justification, and regeneration" to crowds of 1,500 to 2,000. Many whites as well as blacks were converted. They later joined the various congregations in the city.

The new revival scenes were not limited to the black churches. In the autumn of 1856, Charles G. Finney, one of America's most prominent evangelists, began preaching in Boston and remained there until the following April. He wrote in his Memoirs: "The work was quite extensive that winter in Boston, and many very striking cases of conversion occurred."

The Boston correspondent of New York's The Independent reported of these meetings: "Members of other churches in the city soon began to come in considerable numbers; then from the neighbouring towns; and finally from distant places in New Hampshire and Maine, came ministers by the scores, private Christians by the hundreds if not by the thousands, to hear the word, and catch some of the sacred influences that evidently attended it."

Churches in Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Iowa, California, Connecticut, Virginia, in New England as well as other states reported "spiritual outpourings." Nor were they contained to one denomination. Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans, and most of the other denominations all reported an increased interest throughout 1857.

When Finney returned to Boston the following winter, the nationwide interest for revival was pretty much underway, so that he could later write: "This was in the winter of 1857 and '58; and it will be remembered that it was at this time that a great revival prevailed throughout the land in such a tremendous manner, that for some weeks it was estimated that not less than fifty thousand conversions occurred per week."

By mid-November, two lecture rooms had to be used in New York City for what had begun as a daily prayer meeting for businessmen in a Presbyterian church on Fulton Street, and both were filled. According to Winkie Pratney, within six months time, these noon-time prayer-meetings were attracting over 10,000 men who were "confessing sin, getting saved, [and] praying for revival."

A Boston journalist gives a picture of what the early meetings were like:

". . . The meeting is begun at twelve o'clock precisely, and it closes exactly on the hour [1 P.M.]. The room is full and crowded, and the interest appears to increase from day to day. It began with a modest meeting held once in the week. But attendance and benefit seemed to demand the more frequent observance of the privilege: now it has become a daily service. With the pressure came a larger attendance and a more spirited service. The probability is that the meeting will be adjourned to the church. Any one comes in or goes out as he pleases. It is the rule of the place to leave at any moment. All sects are here: the formal, stately Churchman and the impulsive Methodist who cannot suppress his groan and his "amen;" the sober, substantial Dutchman and the ardent Congregationalist, with all Yankee restlessness on his face; the Baptist and the Presbyterian, joining in the same chorus and bowing at the same altar. Not one woman is present in the meeting, and the singing from 200 male voices is really majestic."

By mid-February, Fulton Street was holding three simultaneous, standing room only prayer meetings on three floors. In a two column editorial on March 20, the New York Times had this to say about the revival:

"The great wave of religious excitement which is now sweeping over this nation, is one of the most remarkable movements since the Reformation . . . Travellers relate that on cars and steamboats, in banks and markets, everywhere through the interior, this matter is an absorbing topic. Churches are crowded; bank-directors' rooms become oratories; school-houses are turned into chapels; converts are numbered by the scores of thousands. In this City, we have beheld a sight which not the most enthusiastic fanatic for church-observances could ever have hoped to look upon;--we have seen in a business quarter of the City, in the busiest hours, assemblies of merchants, clerks and working-men, to the number of some 5,000, gathered day after day for a simple and solemn worship. Similar assemblies we find in other portions of the City; a theatre is turned into a chapel; churches of all sects are open and crowded by day and night."

The same editorial offers this insight into the thinking of the day:

"It is most impressive to think that over this great land tens and fifties of thousands of men and women are putting to themselves at this time in a simple, serious way, the greatest question that can ever come before the human mind--'What shall we do to be saved from sin?'"

As the noontime prayer meetings increased, attended predominately by the male workers of the city, the effect in the city was tremendous. Many ministers began having nightly services in which to lead men to Christ. A chain reaction of church after church began to hold morning, afternoon, and evening meetings for both prayer and the counselling of those concerned about their souls.

The same scenes were soon reported from all over the nation, from New York to California, Florida to Maine. It affected judges and college students, businessmen and housewives. At times, schools had to close in order to pray and seek God.

People across the nation prayed, and churches filled.

Though it peaked in 1858, it did not stop there. Throughout the Civil War, army camps held great revival meetings--over 150,000 were converted in the Confederate army alone. It also crossed the oceans. In Britain, close to a million people joined the churches due to the revival that swept that land.

This revival was a layman's revival. Though ministers helped to counsel people, it was the laypeople that carried it.

In order to show the power and effect of the Revival on the people of the various communities, the following incidents are given:

Edwin Orr relates the story of a visiting merchant to New York City who was selecting goods when noon came. "He requested the city wholesaler to work through the noon hour" so that he would be able to return to Albany by the evening riverboat. "He was resolutely told, 'No! I can't help that. I have something to attend that is of more importance that the selling of goods. I must attend the noon-day prayer meeting. It will close at one o'clock, and I will then fill out your order.'" They both attended the meeting and the visitor was converted.

When he returned to Albany, he immediately began a noonday prayer meeting in the state's capital. (55-56)

Charles Finney tells of a traveler in a Boston prayer meeting who got up and said: "I am from Omaha the capital of Nebraska. On my journey east I have found a continuous prayer meeting all the way. We call it about two thousand miles from Omaha to Boston; and here was a prayer meeting about two thousand miles in extent."

There is also the story of a European cargo ship, which was boarded by the harbour pilot while sailing into New York harbour during the Awakening. The Christian pilot began telling the captain and crew what was happening in the city. This so caught the attention of them all, that before they had docked, the majority of the crew had become Christians.

At a prayer meeting in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a request was read: "'A praying wife requests the prayers of this meeting for her unconverted husband.' A burly man stood up and blurted, 'I am that man. I have a praying wife and this request must be for me. I want you to pray for me.' No sooner had he sat down than another man arose with sobs and tears to claim, 'I am sure that I am that man, and I want you to pray for me.'" Within a few minutes, three other "unconverted husbands" had stood and asked for prayer. (Whitaker 71)

In the Christian Equippers International's Spirit-Led Evangelism textbook's section on revival, they gave this story from the 1858 Revival:

"A schoolboy in class became so troubled about his soul that the schoolmaster sent him home. An older boy, a Christian, went with him, and before they had gone far led him to Christ. Returning at once to school, this new convert testified to his teacher: 'Oh, I am so happy! I have the Lord Jesus in my heart.' These simple words had an astonishing effect; boy after boy rose silently and left the room. Going outside, the teacher found these boys all on their knees in a row along the wall of the playground. Very soon, their silent prayer became a bitter cry; it was heard by another class inside and pierced their hearts. They fell on their knees and their cry for mercy was heard in turn by a girls' class above. In a few moments, the whole school was on their knees! Neighbours and passers-by came flocking in, and, as they crossed the threshold, they all came under the same convicting power. Every room was filled with men, women, and children seeking God."

Churches benefited greatly from the Revival. At its peak, there was an estimate 50,000 converts per week. During a two year period, 10,000 were joining churches weekly, and Sunday schools flourished.

The Awakening of 1857-1858 brought over one million new converts into the American Church, and revived the over four million members present before the Revival. The new life within the churches was shown most dramatically by the resurgence of evangelism.

Under the First Great Awakening, George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards sparked a mass movement of evangelism. This was also seen during the Second Great Awakening under the ministries of Charles Finney, Peter Cartwright, and others. These two movements were mostly led by the ordained clergy. Under the Third Great Awakening of 1858, it was the laymen who moved out to evangelize. The famous D.L. Moody began his ministry during the Revival, yet he was never ordained. Even though he founded a Bible college and pastored churches, he always remained a layman.

This new wave of evangelism became a "specialized evangelism," where specific groups were targeted: lawyers, sailors, the poor, drunkards, or prostitutes.

It wasn't only the churches which benefited from the Awakening. Businessmen began to pay off honest debts, and "places of debauchery and taverns by the hundreds" closed down. There was also an increased concern in helping the needy and destitute, with great growth in volunteer work, and the financing of the work.

Though the Revival of 1857-1858 is barely remembered by secular historians today, it was probably the greatest of the three Great Awakenings experienced in the New World.

* * * * *

For as great as the Great Awakening was, and for as deeply as it stirred the Mennonites along the northern shore of Lake Erie, my great-grandfather never felt good about the spirit that came with it—the spirit of “anything goes” in doctrine and practice as long as you “get saved.”   

Within days of its beginning at Hamilton, Ontario, the Great Awakening hit the Vineland Mennonite congregation south of town. Finding ready acceptance among spiritually minded believers there, it travelled swiftly through the Niagara Peninsula to the Selkirk (Rainham) area where Peter Hoover lived.

During the summers of the late 1850s crowds of seekers gathered in “field” or “bush meetings” and during the winter in schools or rented halls to hear zealous converts give their testimonies, call more sinners to repentance, and awaken souls to work in fields white to harvest. By the time Peter turned twenty, hundreds of Mennonites—along with many thousands of Presbyterians, Methodists, and others—had “gotten saved” in southern Ontario and were meeting to encourage one another and pray. The Mennonite church at Selkirk was particularly affected, and for a time did not appear in the conference listing as “Mennonite” any longer. Lewis J. Burkholder, describing evangelistic meetings of that time, writes that “a major emphasis was given to experimental rather than doctrinal religion. There was a free mingling in worship and work with the Holiness and Free Methodist people. Some of the members came to experience sanctification as a deeper work of grace. . . .”

Then, in 1865, a new man appeared in Hamilton, Ontario.

Albert Benjamin Simpson, just one month older than Peter Hoover at Selkirk, came from a Scottish Covenanter (Presbyterian) family that had settled in southern Ontario. John Geddie, on his way to the South Sea Islands as Canada’s first missionary, had baptised him as a baby and committed him in prayer to future missionary service. Now, fresh out of seminary in 1865, he accepted the call to pastor Knox Church in Hamilton, the congregation with the second-largest Presbyterian church building in Canada.

Under Albert’s preaching, 750 new people joined the congregation in eight years, and a fresh spiritual wave hit southern Ontario—this time a revival of the cause of missions, moving hundreds of young people (a number of them from Mennonite churches along Lake Erie and on the Niagara Peninsula) to dedicate their lives to service in lands overseas. Throughout Canada and the United States A. B. Simpson (as Albert came to be called) led tens of thousands into fervent prayer meetings for the cause of missions, some series of meetings continuing for a year or longer. His activity, although he stayed Presbyterian, led to the formation of the “Christian and Missionary Alliance.”

While all this took place, young people from the Mennonite settlements along the lake were looking for opportunities to get married and find church fellowships in which to raise their families. Peter Hoover’s oldest brother Daniel married a girl from the Vineland congregation and stayed Mennonite. Two of his sisters also married Mennonites and stayed “plain.” The rest—Susanna who married Richard Rushton, Barbara who married Hiram Gee, Elizabeth who married Albert Seebach, Mary who married Arthur Yocum, and Catherine who married James Campbell were swept by the Great Awakening into church fellowships with “more to offer.”

Peter, who owned a boat and loved sailing on Lake Erie, did not get married until he was almost thirty. Then he chose a Mennonite girl, Maria Wideman, from the Markham settlement north of Toronto.

Four years after their wedding the Great Awakening took a new turn—this time under influence from England, where an Anglican priest, T. D. Hartford-Battersby of the little town of Keswick in the English Lake District, called a “union meeting for the promotion of practical holiness.”

For some time Hartford-Battersby with his friends, including born-again Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and Quakers, had been meeting to pray. They had studied the writings of Hannah Whitall Smith, an American Quaker that had come to see the emptiness of the “plain” life and discovered a great infilling of grace on stepping into a prayer meeting at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during 1858.

With her husband, Robert Pearsall Smith, the English seekers invited Hannah to come to their meeting at Keswick—Robert to do most of the speaking.

Plans for the meeting almost crashed when it became known that Robert was living in sin and his invitation had to be cancelled just days before the event. Other speakers also declined to come. But more than eight hundred met at Keswick on 29 June 1875 for several days of intense and uplifting prayer for revival. “We were taken out of ourselves. We were led, step by step, after deep and close searching of heart, to such a consecration of ourselves to God, as in the ordinary times of a religious life hardly seemed possible,” wrote the priest, Hartford-Battersby. “We were led to the enjoyment of a peace in trusting Christ for present and future sanctification which exceeded our utmost hopes.”

These prayer meetings for revival and missions continued at Keswick, every summer after 1875, drawing Hudson Taylor, Evan H. Hopkins, Andrew Murray, Charles H. Spurgeon, Duncan Campbell, C. T. Studd, P.T. Forsyth, Charles Spurgeon, Oswald Chambers, Mary Slessor, Arthur T. Pierson, D. L. Moody, T. Austin Sparks, Gladys Aylward, Jonathan Goforth, A. B. Simpson, and many other leaders and missionaries onto higher spiritual ground. Out of the “Keswick Movement” came the Columbia Bible College at Abbotsford, British Columbia, and the Prairie Bible Institute at Three Hills, Alberta, Canada. In the United States, the Moody Bible Institute at Chicago was influenced by it, and the movement was carried at once to South Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand, and all other countries under British influence.

In Ontario, as the Keswick Movement took its course and young church leaders returned from Bible Schools influenced by it, the Mennonite church went through its last and most significant stages of the Great Awakening of the nineteenth century. Beginning once more at the Vineland church, just outside Hamilton, this transformation swept through all congregations in the province. Once more large numbers got converted (many church leaders and parents included), gave testimonies, and volunteered for mission service. But this time there was a difference.

Born again Mennonites no longer needed to join other churches for spiritual excitement. Beginning in the 1870s the Mennonite church developed missions, temperance societies, Sunday Schools, and Ladies’ Aid meetings of its own. Mennonite evangelists held camp meetings and great revivals in the style and spirit of Keswick (and in close fellowship with it) while new congregations formed and old ones rapidly grew.

Peter Hoover saw with mounting alarm how his home congregation, in spite of its new and highly praised “holiness,” become more and more conformed to the world. Finally, in 1889, the year his only surviving son, Menno (my grandfather), was born, he withdrew his membership from the “revived” Mennonite church of Ontario and began to meet with a few families that wanted to keep to the old way. Of eleven brothers and sisters, he was the only one to make that decision.

Sixteen years later, on 12 August 1905 all eleven of them gathered with their families at Peter’s farm near the lake for the last time. . . .

Ninety-eight years later (two weeks ago as I cleaned up my desk before the end of the year) I came across a photograph taken that day—fifty one people assembled in front of the old farmhouse.

Studying the photograph carefully, something I had never done before, I began to understand what my great-grandfather must have gone through. Of all the brothers and sisters he was the only one not on the picture (they say he was in an uncooperative mood that day and wouldn’t pose). But I picked out my grandfather—young man in Victorian fashion, starched collar and long neck tie, along with his sisters and cousins, a showpiece of turn-of-the-century ruffles and lace and flowing skirts.

Four women on the photograph dressed “plain” and wore coverings on their heads.

The rest, in keeping with The Law of Liberty in the Spiritual Life (the “masterpiece of Holiness thought” written by Evan H. Hopkins of the Keswick Movement) had gotten saved from such “dead works” and taken another way.

Already in the Boer War (1899-1902) some of my born again relatives had answered the call to military service. By World War I (1914-1918) many more did the same.

And why shouldn’t they?

Their heroes and role models—the “mighty men and women of God” of the Great Awakening and the Keswick meetings—served the British Empire without hesitation. Oswald Chambers died in service in Egypt with full military honours. Missionaries to the Far East worked hand and glove with colonising authorities. Many students from the Moody Bible Institute marched with American troops.

My grandfather, Menno Hoover (by now of military age), had much to sort through. In his diary he wrote:

In 1908 I became the proud possessor of a new buggy. No doubt the thrill was about the same in those days as now, when a young man acquires a new buggy and holding fond hopes in his youthful heart that with a fancy driver—a high stepper for sure—he will be permitted to drive up to a farmer’s gate on a Sunday afternoon to be welcomed by his charming daughter for a fast drive along the lake, or maybe at a slow pace down Lover’s Lane along the Stony Creek. [Lover’s Lane Road follows Lake Erie west of the mouth of Stony Creek, south of Selkirk, Ontario.]

In my own case, as the young people were rather scarce in our neighbourhood, especially among our church people, it was necessary for me, if I wanted companionship, to look elsewhere for it, much to the alarm of my parents, who were desirous that I should walk in the way I was taught. They were very strict and abhorred any fellowship with those who drank beer or whiskey, or smoked or swore, or used filthy language of any sort.

It was at this time when there was so much drilling [for natural gas] going on in the district. Most of the drillers were young men with a taste for smoking and drinking, and other objectionable habits. This made an environment for me that was hard to resist, as I was with them a lot, and for two years or more, some of them boarded at our home. There was one commandment in Scripture that held me like an anchor holds a ship, and that was “Honour thy father and mother.” So it didn’t matter where I was, if it was at a picnic or garden party, or at a show in town, I tried to live so that I demanded their respect for me.

During the summer holidays we generally had one of the Duff boys from Hamilton with us. Their home was in China. Their father, being a missionary, sent his children home for their high school education. Arthur, one of the youngest, was of a delicate constitution. He was with us for five summers, and although he wasn’t able to take a man’s place in the haymow, he was good with the horses, so we got along fine. I was strong and husky, so I did the heavy work like pitching hay and keeping the mow level.         

During the spring when the maple syrup season was in full swing, my cousin Will Hoover helped us boil and gather sap. The shanty was close to the school and the road, and the woods would ring with the laughter of children and grown ups as well. We always looked forward to the sap season with pleasure. It was like spring medicine, after a rather dull and lonely winter, except for when the young people had their weekly party or oyster supper. Dances of course were never allowed.

Nearly every other winter there would be revival meetings held in the local church, with hardly any of the young people seeing the need of spiritual assistance. About 1915, a young preacher by the name of Nathaniel Bergey from one of the western counties along the lake came along and tried his luck. He was a little older than me, but we soon became good friends. I used to go with him to South Cayuga to preach there every other Sunday. But he could preach! He seemed to put his whole heart into it, and he roused the young people to a feeling of their lost condition if they wouldn’t repent and turn to God. There were several converts, more than any before him, but sorry to say, before they were baptised he developed a mental condition, and so faded out of the picture.    

In my own case, I was old enough to realize the necessity of accepting Christ and living a Christian life, but I had been schooled by my parents from the time I can remember that the people Nathaniel Bergey represented were in error. So I had no desire to give myself up to something my parents were opposed to.  

Menno, after his baptism among the little group of people that met once a month with his parents, began a courtship with Leah Martin, a girl from a much more conservative Mennonite settlement a long ways north of the lake. In 1916 they got married and took over the home farm. Soon after that the question came up of choosing a minister from the remaining Mennonites in the Selkirk area. Menno seemed the most likely candidate. Of this experience he writes:

The day before the nomination meeting, my father and I were working in the stable and we needed something that was up on the barn floor. He asked me to go up and get it. As I was coming down the stairs a Voice came to me saying I should take no part in the nomination, and that I was to tell the bishops I had lost confidence. It was the first time I ever had such an unusual experience. As soon as it came to me, I thought, “Yes, but if I do that, I must give up my dear home which my parents had strived so hard to prepare for me, their only son and heir.”

When I came down into the stable, I related to my father what I had experienced. So he said, “Well, if you feel it came from the Holy Spirit, then it is your duty to do just as it was shown you.” Accordingly, the next day I did exactly as I was prompted to do.

Because Menno would not take part in the choosing of a minister (for which he was the most likely candidate) he, and his parents, stopped meeting with the Mennonites of the Selkirk area altogether—even with the little group of more conservative members. This made it necessary for them to move to where they could find fellowship.

Menno writes:

On August 15, 1918 another child, Edna, was born to us before we left the Lake District. Nobody knows but me how hard it was to leave my beautiful home, including a good sugar bush, natural gas, the lake, a never failing spring, good neighbours—also being close to the school and Church. But the trend toward modernism and worldliness was so strong I feared our children would drift into the ways of the world if we stayed, so I thought it wiser to sacrifice some conveniences than to cling to selfish motives and desires, thereby being a stumbling block and a hindrance to our children’s spiritual welfare. What made it possible was my father’s strong encouragement to do so.

On March 6 we had an auction sale. There was a big crowd there, and no doubt many people thought I was foolish to leave such a chance for a farm so much father north, where the weather is so much colder, not so much on account of distance as the higher altitude and the height of land between the lakes.

In my plans to move our household effects I started away with the heavy team Doll and Floss hitched to the hay wagon, but on account of road conditions I loaded part of my freight onto the train at Nelles Corners, and put up my team at Uncle James Campbell’s place at the corner.

Next morning, the first Wednesday in April, I started out for Waterloo, up the Indian Line that runs through Nelles Corners, parallel to the Grand River, and up to the Cockshutt Road near Brantford. On the left side going west there were ordinary farms, while on the right side there was the Indian Reserve, small unpainted houses with a few hens running around, and the customary dog or two. A one-horse democrat could often be seen in front of the house, close to the well, where the harness hung on the dash, ready for use when they needed groceries.

After leaving the gravelled part of the Indian Line, little as there was, I soon saw I wasn’t doing justice to my team if I didn’t do something else, so I stopped at the end of a farmer’s lane and asked him for his team to help me until the road became better. So we got his team and put them in front and that was a lot easier on my team as they still had nearly two days to go. When we came to gravel again I told him I believed I could get along, so he unhitched. I gave him six dollars and he seemed to be satisfied, and so was I, so we parted good friends.

By that time it was about four o’clock in the afternoon and I figured on reaching Paris that night. But when I went through Brantford, and over the toll bridge on the Grand River, I turned off too soon. I soon discovered that I was not on the road I had hoped to find, and as the road was hilly and as the team was getting slack, I determined to ask at the first farm house I saw. When I reached the top of a hill there was a nice big house and barn, so I drove in and asked the owner if I could feed my team and find shelter for myself. He began making excuses about not having room for a team, but he said I could come into the barn and see for myself. I soon saw that he had plenty of room. It was simply because he didn’t want to be bothered. Among other things he said on the next farm around the bend there was an auction sale the day before and there would be plenty of room for my team, but I reminded him I would not care to put my team in an empty barn so he finally consented.

The next morning was bright and sunny, and after paying him well I was soon on my way again. I had the parlour rocking chair for my seat.

I reached Waterloo that evening about six o’clock. It was quite an experience driving up King Street with all the street lights blazing, and not having any rear lights, but in those days it was not law yet. I stayed in the “City Hotel” that night. As I was now nearer my destination I was soon on my way again. From St. Jacobs to Hawkesville I followed the river road, and when I came down the Hemlock Hill, who should I meet but Leah’s father, Solomon Martin. He came to meet me as they were expecting me that morning.

After their move from Selkirk by the lake, my grandparents settled at Hawkesville, Ontario, where my father, Anson Hoover, was born two years later. Menno, whom I spent much time with as a child, and with whom I worked in a pallet shop as a teenager, died when he was 94 years old, several years after Susan and I got married.

Throughout my father’s growing up years, until today, we have kept contact with our relatives at Selkirk. We still attend an occasional reunion, and stop by when we pass the area. But much has changed.

Of the “way of holiness,” of separation for Christ, there is nothing left—at least nothing visible. In 1989 the Mennonites of the Selkirk area experienced their last awakening, thirty people and their pastor leaving to form the “Living Word Christian Fellowship” (a charismatic church). In the meetinghouse on the back end of what was my grandfather’s farm a handful of old people still meet on Sunday mornings with their pastor, Catherine Hunsberger.

Only as I grew older could I appreciate how my father grew up in the shadow of these events at Selkirk and how it moulded his life.  

Like my grandfather and great-grandfather before him, he lived by the firm conviction that we reap what we sow. If we set a worldly example before our children, if we exalt and honour those that believe in Christ but continue with “business as usual” (going to war, baptising babies, following the fashions and interests of the world) that is what our children will become.

If our children grow up thinking there must be two kinds of Christians—a “worldly” kind and an obedient kind, but that both are “saved” and pleasing to God—they will lose the narrow way. They will break the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and establish another, much wider circle of unity and fellowship.

The will mix (and eventually marry) with the people they admire, and follow their ways. They will find spiritual fellowship with them—but all such fellowship, outside the range of the Spirit of Jesus, is geistlicher Ehebruch (spiritual adultery), and results in their spiritual ruin.   

With this firmly in his mind, my father glanced through the book Seeds in the Wind and tore it up, letting me keep nothing but the cover.

Today I tore up another copy of Seeds in the Wind (a copy I found at the Mennonite thrift store in Mountain Lake), and let my little boys have the cover.    

* * * * *

Now it is our turn.

After I found the picture of the family reunion in 1905, I began to ponder how my Dad, my Grandpa, and my Great-grandpa’s decisions have affected me. I began to think of what I set before my children and how my decisions will affect them.

Then I turned to the magazine rack in our living room. . . .

I pulled out 57 papers. Of those papers, 35 were from Pathway Publishers (the Amish), 14 were Remnant papers (magazines and newsletters from Charity Ministries in Pennsylvania), four came from conservative Mennonite publishers, three were Hutterite, and there was one secular farm magazine. I decided to analyse them, as carefully and impartially as possible, to see what I would find.

In the Amish, Mennonite, and Hutterite papers I found articles on nonconformity to the world, on the law of sowing and reaping, on the danger of gossip, the danger of sleeping too much, on preserving the moral purity of children, on taking up one’s cross, on Christ and his true bride, on baptism and what it means, on the need for church standards and positions, on teaching scriptural truth, on fulfilling parental responsibilities, on parents relating to teachers and school administration, on teachers relating to parents, children, and church leaders, on cheering the less fortunate, on simple farming, simple clothing, forgiveness, submission to church leaders, the danger of pride, on why we live simply, and a number of articles on the qualifications of leaders, how leaders should relate one to another, to their congregations, and of the responsibility they have to keep their people on the straight and narrow way.

Historical articles in these papers told how believers came from Europe to America and how they built many church communities in this part of the world and elsewhere. Stories for children and young people taught practical values through real-life situations and examples. The papers included articles on plant and animal raising and health issues.

Some articles in these papers warned against fellowship with unsound or misleading characters, such as the famous evangelist Billy Sunday, featured in an Amish paper, who preached to 100 million people about getting born again, but who supported the first World War with reckless enthusiasm, inciting troops to fight with bravery, and praying for God to “guide the next gunner who sights a German U-boat so his aim will be true.”

Almost all letters and articles in these papers were signed anonymously “by a concerned church member,” “by an Amish minister,” or the like. In the 42 papers only five individuals were lifted up as examples, or quoted as authorities on any subject. They were Peter Riedemann (Anabaptist leader in Moravia), Robert Hess (a medical doctor of a very conservative Brethren group), Menno Simons, Claudine (Anabaptist martyr) and Dirk Willems (Anabaptist who gave his life to save his captor from drowning).

After this I went through the Remnant papers.

Instead of Biblical instruction and teaching geared to the building of church communities, these papers consisted almost entirely of testimonies, stories of revival, and featured sections on “great men and women of God.”

The life of Jesus’ followers in godly unity was not mentioned. Quite to the contrary, individual testimonies were glorified to the highest degree. Not only were their authors presented and introduced, most of what they wrote was the first-person story of their own experiences.  

In the Remnant papers I found six instructional themes: the dangers of drama and gambling, the need for spiritual warfare, loving children, the value of prayer, feetwashing, marriage and the home. But in these fourteen issues alone, I found no less than 63 people mentioned in glowing terms, many of them “praised to the heavens” for their godliness and holy example—many of them featured with what they wrote and taught (all this in addition to the testimonies of converts and members of Remnant churches writing today).     

Who gets featured in the Remnant papers?

In these fourteen issues it was:
 

• Nikolaus Ludwig Graf von Zinzendorf (Lutheran benefactor of the Moravian Brethren, promoter of missions and church communities in many countries)
• John Eliot (Presbyterian missionary to the American Indians)
• David Brainerd (Presbyterian missionary to the Indians)
• Marcus Whitman (Presbyterian missionary in the American West)
• William Carey (Baptist missionary to India)
• Adoniram Judson (Baptist missionary to Burma)
• Hudson Taylor (Methodist missionary to China—Keswick)*
• David Livingstone (Presbyterian missionary and explorer in Africa)
• Mary Slessor (Presbyterian missionary to the Calabar Coast—Keswick)
• Amy Carmichael (Presbyterian missionary to India under the Anglican church—Keswick)
• Gladys Aylward (Anglican Missionary to China—Keswick)
• C.T. Studd (Methodist Missionary to China, India, Africa—Keswick)
• John R. Mott (Methodist, general secretary of YMCA—Keswick)
• Robert Speer (Presbyterian, champion of ecumenism, anti-Fundamentalist, chairman of Board of Foreign Missions—Keswick)
• Samuel Zwemer (Reformed missionary to Muslims—Keswick)
• E. Stanley Jones (Methodist to India, began Christian communities—Keswick)
• A. B. Simpson* (Presbyterian minister, founder of Christian and Missionary Alliance—Keswick)
• Rochunga Pudaite (evangelical church leader in northeastern India
• Festo Kivengere (Anglican Bishop of Uganda)
• Luis Palau (“Billy Graham of Latin America”)
• Philip Teng (Chinese evangelist)
• Paul Yonggi Cho (Korean Pentecostal televangelist)
• Brother Andrew (Reformed missionary to communist countries)
• Don Richardson (evangelical missionary to New Guinea)
• Paul W. Fleming (New Tribes Mission)*
• William W. Borden (China Inland Mission—Keswick)
• Duncan Campbell (Presbyterian evangelist of the Lewis Revival—Keswick)*
• P.T. Forsyth* (Scottish Congregational Theologian—Keswick)
• Oswald Chambers (Presbyterian, Army Chaplain in World War I—Keswick)
• John Wesley* (Anglican priest)
• Jonathan Edwards* (Reformed Presbyterian evangelist)
• Charles H. Spurgeon (Baptist evangelist in England—Keswick)
• Andrew Murray* (Reformed Presbyterian minister in South Africa—Keswick)
• Leonard Ravenhill* (evangelical counsellor)
• Paul Emerson* (Mennonite minister praying for revival)
• Watchman Nee* (Brethren leader in China)
• Keith Daniel* (Presbyterian pastor in South Africa)
• William Law (Anglican writer)
• Charles Wesley (Anglican)
• Darrel and Louise Champlin (Baptist missionaries in Suriname)
• Herbert and Ruth Grings (Presbyterian, Baptist, missionaries to Africa, South America)
• Brother Yun (Chinese House churches)
• L.E. Maxwell* (Presbyterian, founding principle of Prairie Bible Institute—Keswick)
• Edward Payson* (Congregational Preacher, New England)
• Arthur T. Pierson (Presbyerian, Baptist—Keswick)
• Stephen and Sally Pierson (Presbyterians)
• Charles Finney* (Congregational Evangelist—Keswick)
• Arthur Wallis* (American evangelical wrote on fasting—Keswick)
• D. L. Moody* (American evangelist, premillenialist—Keswick)
• Edwin and Betsy Moody (American evangelicals)
• E.F. and Lillian Harvey* (British evangelical publishers—Keswick)
• J.H. Hunter* (evangelical writer)
• G. H. Lang* (Plymouth Brethren)
• Hannah Whitall Smith* (Plymouth Brethren—Keswick)
• Zac Poonen* (Indian evangelical)
• Samuel Chadwick (Methodist leader—Keswick)  *
• Roy Hession (British evangelical—Keswick)
• William and Catherine Booth (Salvation Army)
• T. Austin Sparks (English evangelical, friend of Watchman Nee—Keswick)
• Paris Reidhead (American Fundamentalist)
• Corrie and Betsy ten Boom (Reformed)
• Rodney Roberson (American evangelical)
• Edward M. Bounds* (Presbyterian chaplain for the Confederate Army in the Civil War, prayed for three hours every morning, led in a great revival amongst the soldiers, but had nothing particular to say about war, or slavery, itself)

*Names with an asterisk indicate that teaching from these men was included in the Remnant papers. Active participants in the Keswick Movement are noted.

* * * * *

Reading through these Remnant papers brought serious things to mind.

On one hand I admire the zeal, and love the holy enthusiasm (the all-night prayers, the passion for souls) of those awakened in the nineteenth century. Without a moment’s hesitation I find it easier to relate to that, than to the “dead traditionalism” of plain people seeking their salvation through good works.

I ask myself where I would be, spiritually, had it not been for the great revivals of the past century. Would I have a heart for missions, for youth work and Christian education? What songs would I sing? How would I preach? Would I know about the baptism of the Holy Spirit or speak in tongues?  

Quite likely I wouldn’t.

On the other hand, where would I be had my father, my grandfather, or my great-grandfather gotten swept up in the Great Awakening or absorbed by the Keswick “holiness” movement?

Quite certainly I would live at Selkirk, Ontario—or in the nearby cities of Hamilton, Port Colbourne, Welland, or Niagara Falls, where my cousins live. Or else I wouldn’t live at all—the youngest in a family of six—because my parents would have used birth control.

Many “if” questions must remain unanswered and we do not gain much for asking them. But will you hold it against me if I point out what may be clearly seen and known?

The “scales fell from my eyes” as I read the Remnant papers I pulled out of our magazine rack in the living room. Who are these people? What’s going on? All these plain ladies, these converted Amishmen, Hutterites, and Mennonites sharing their conversion stories amid pictures, book reports and glowing testimonies of great missionaries and evangelists (coupled with slanted inferences and derogatory remarks against conservative Anabaptist groups). Haven’t we seen these guys before?

YES!

This is a re-run. Keswick II.

My great-grandpa already watched this piece a hundred years ago.

Same set, same plot, same effects, SAME ACTORS! A. B. Simpson, Andrew Murray, D. L. Moody, Hannah Smith, L. E. Maxwell, Edward Bounds . . . here we go again. Almost uncannily comes an echo from the past: “A major emphasis was given to experimental rather than doctrinal religion. There was a free mingling in worship and work with the Holiness and Free Methodist people. Some of the members came to experience sanctification as a deeper work of grace. . . .”

Almost uncannily (but then again, what should we expect?) we see all the same tendencies, the same direction, and sooner or later we will see the same results. Sow the same seeds—reap the same crop. It is a law.   

Squarely focused on individuals, on “great men and women of God” accomplishing great things around the world, the Remnant papers explain the place of “heroes and role models” in their presentation. In one of them, Denny Kenaston describes Samuel Chadwick as “a very influential Methodist preacher/teacher whom God used mightily in his day. He was used by God to keep the spirit of early Methodism alive during his generation. As I meditated on his life, it was easy to see that John Wesley was his hero and role model. . . . He was constantly used in administrative positions, and later found himself sitting in the President’s chair of the Methodist denomination. . . . Hundreds of students came under his influence. He was a motivator of many varied evangelistic campaigns. . . . As I was reading his biography I was continually impressed by the virtue of this servant of God.”

About A. B. Simpson, the Remnant papers say he “stirred the soul of the American church with his passionate plea to go to a Christless world,” and his teaching appeared in a number of the fourteen issues I read.  

About John R. Mott, Robert Speer, and Samuel Zwemer, one paper says they “forsook wealth and prestige and moved to far away lands to sacrifice all for the cause of Christ.”

About Luís Palau, Philip Teng, and Paul Yonggi Cho, the paper says their “faith has yielded much fruit,” and their “intriguing stories . . . bring a richness to the tapestry God is weaving in the body of Christ worldwide.” (Paul Yonggi Cho, Korean televangelist whose ministry draws a yearly income of over 100 million dollars, believes Christians have a right to wealth. He preaches that poverty is a curse from Satan and that Korea’s spiritual revival is the driving force behind that country’s economic prosperity.)

The more incredible the “stirring testimonies” get, the higher their profile in the Remnant papers. One man prays until the hardwood floor of his closet has grooves worn into it from where he kneels every day. Another group of elders (from the Chinese house churches) prays up to 22 hours a day, and until the floor gets slippery with their tears.

Brothers and sisters, would you stop for a minute and ponder this information?

How does Jesus say we should pray?

A bit of biology: Of a room packed with people, how much liquid might be produced from nothing other than their tear ducts? Has anyone ever shed even a tablespoon full of tears at a time? Of course a miracle could be involved, but do you see what is happening?

Hero worship feeds on hero stories—that like fish stories, get bigger and better every time round.

The hero information in the Remnant papers tells little about the heroes themselves. But it tells much about the people that publish it, that read it, and that pass it on as something worthwhile.

Hero worship (closely tied to the personal ambition of becoming a hero as well) automatically puts people on the defensive. Heroes can do nothing wrong. Someone questions them and bzzzZZZZZZZZ the whole hive bestirs itself.

Take, for example, the much persecuted and much praised Chinese house churches (highly exalted in the Remnant papers). Without a doubt God is doing a great work in China. Perhaps greater than anywhere else in the world today. But what exactly is coming to us from China? Is it Jesus? The same Jesus we know?

How come the difference?

The Western religious world stands in awe of Brother Yun, a Chinese Christian that set the world record in fasting (fasting almost twice as long as Jesus himself), and who has emerged as the first “miracle man” of the 21’st century.

Wherever he goes, from city to city, churches and stadiums fill with admiring crowds. His biography wins a gold medal and stays on the best-seller list for a whole year.

Let me ask a few (offensive) questions:

What does Brother Yun teach, besides the need of a crisis conversion, miracles, and revival (exactly what the “fallen” Western church has been teaching for the last hundred years)?

What would happen if Brother Yun began to teach everything Jesus and Paul taught? Would he still win gold medals and draw great crowds? Would he still be the Evangelicals’ “heavenly man.”

How come Brother Yun and his team appear as contemporary, well-dressed, Westerners, very much “business as usual” as far as fashion goes? His wife and all women on the team wearing slacks, make-up, and jewellery while his mother, in China, did things otherwise?

What does Brother Yun’s story contribute to the cause of Christ-likeness in Christian community today?

* * * * *

Not long ago, sitting at a table in the dining room of another community, I was confronted with the classic hypothesis of who is a Christian and who is not. “So a lady comes along in jeans and make-up, and with her hair cut, but she is born again. Would you say she is not a Christian? Would you say she is lost just because she doesn’t live in community and dress and live like we do?”

The question in my opinion is perverse, and loaded with mischief—like the questions the Pharisees asked Jesus.

The Gospel of the Kingdom is never a matter of figuring out what we can get by with and be saved. It is always a matter of discovering what Jesus wants of us, and doing it right away. We are Jesus’ friends if we know him do what he commands us. We are saved if we step out from under the rule of the god of this world and into the Kingdom of Heaven. No one will even see that Kingdom unless he is “born again.”

And that is ALL Jesus, or the apostles, or the whole Bible, says about being born again.

If we’d get thirty dollars for every pig that gets born in our farrowing barn, we might be a wealthy colony. But the fact is, we only get paid for those that keep on living.

* * * * *

A few more questions:

How shall we “overcome our petty doctrinal differences” and allow our fellowship in Jesus to “cross all denominational lines” (the goals of the Keswick Movement)? Will it happen through promoting experience, missions, and miracles? Or will it happen through taking a firm stand for apostolic example and the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount? Or is the right way somewhere between the two?  
If all of us should take the Keswick/Charity Ministries approach, would there be any nonconformed Christians left in a hundred years from now?
If the great men and women at Keswick were truly great, why do we know so little of their descendants today? Where are the churches they established? Where are the godly young people they produced? What happened to their glorious missions overseas?  
If those people did so much that was right and the “poor, lost, legalistic plain people” did so much that was wrong (possibly even building their communities under demonic influence) how come hundreds and thousands of godly, decent, seeking young people continue to pour from Amish, Mennonite, and Hutterite homes today? Why don’t they come pouring out of John Wesley or A. B. Simpson’s churches? The proof is in the pudding.   
Several years ago, when the Remnant (Charity) churches began, their leaders declared they would stand for higher ideals than the plain churches from which they came. How come the second generation now struggles with issues like uniformity among believers, separation from the world, the doctrine of non-resistance, and whether or not to hold open communions?
When the son of one of the founders of the Remnant Movement left his Anabaptist convictions to join a Reformed church, he asked his father (Mose Stoltzfus), how he expected to continually uplift and recommend Reformed clergymen (David Livingstone, Andrew Murray, A. B. Simpson, etc.) and not have his children and young people follow those men. Was that a logical question? How should Mose have answered?
A brother came to me last week and wondered about Kenneth and Gloria Copeland with their “Word of Faith” (“name it and claim it”) ministry. Apparently some of our people, born-again Hutterites both in the US and in Manitoba, are excited about him and eagerly study their writings.    

A fourteen-year-old girl from our community also approached me last week, with a note:

A while ago I was visiting with a close friend of mine (from another colony) when the subject of books came up. She told me she was reading a series of books by Rebecca Brown about the occult (books that go into explicit detail about rituals and ceremonies, etc.). She brought them to me to look at. Immediately I sensed something was wrong. I quoted what Paul said, “Brethren, I would have you ignorant concerning what is evil, and wise concerning what is good.” She said they were reading the books so that if anything of the sort ever came up they would know how to respond.

That sounded like a good answer, but I still knew something was wrong. What could I say? How could I inform this sister of the danger of digging too deeply into Satan’s kingdom? (I later called her back and she told me she had stopped reading the books.)

How should we, as children of God, respond to things like that? Nowadays thousands upon thousands of Christians are flocking to seminars to hear the gory accounts of people that have come out of the occult. Here our own young people are reading novels by authors like Frank Perreti on the subject of the occult. Is this right? Should we take such pains to study a kingdom so much in opposition to our own?   

* * * * *

Not only do I praise God for the insight he gave this young believer, I praise him for his Spirit that still speaks to us, clearly revealing the plots of masters in deceit like Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, and all-out frauds, hoaxes, and liars like Ruth Bailey (a.k.a. “Rebecca Brown”).

In one of the Remnant papers I read the story of a sister taking her children into a hospital play room. Before allowing them to enter, she had them stand at the door while she inspected the room, the toys, books, and entertainment provided.

Even though I might not take offence at everything the story mentioned I appreciate the caution behind it, and respect it highly. May we use that same caution in deciding who to set behind our pulpits and who to feature in our schools, in our church papers, and in our homes.

Our “heroes and role models” of today will be our descendants of tomorrow.   

Crafty King Herod still wants to “work with us.” His interest in our project sounds genuine enough. On the other hand, the chief priests and Pharisees of today’s Jerusalem would love nothing better than to take us under their wing and tell us what to do.

But let us follow nothing but our guiding light—the light of the eternal Word—through Jerusalem, through field and fountain, moor and mountain, following yonder star, to the house where Jesus lives.

Let us be wise men.

Peter Hoover

Mountain Lake, Minnesota
6 January 2004