Fernando Enns, Friedenskirche in der Okumene: Mennonitische Wurzeln einer Ethik der Gewaltfreiheit [A Peace Church in the Ecumenical Movement: The Mennonite Roots of an Ethic of Non-Violence] - Book Review

Ecumenical Review, The, April, 2003 by Konrad Raiser

(Kirche--Konfession--Religion, Band 46), Gottingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003, 364pp, 59.00 [euro].

During one of its final plenary sessions, the Harare assembly of the World Council of Churches accepted a recommendation to proclaim the period 2001-10 as an Ecumenical Decade to Overcome Violence. The recommendation was proposed by Fernando Enns, a delegate to the assembly from the German Mennonite communities. He has now published this comprehensive study on the place and contribution of the historic peace churches within the ecumenical movement, in particular on the profile of an ethic of peace and nonviolence in the Mennonite tradition.

This study, which was originally presented as a doctoral thesis at the theological faculty of the university of Heidelberg, is the most comprehensive interpretation to date of the theological and ethical tradition of the historic peace churches in the context of the wider ecumenical movement. The central thesis is that the Mennonite witness for peace and active non-violence is rooted in basic ecclesiological orientations, and in a particular understanding of the relationship between ecclesiology and ethics. It is the objective of the author to show that the historic peace churches (HPC) have a significant contribution to make to the current ecumenical dialogue about ecclesiology, while they would also benefit from participation in this dialogue by gaining a deeper understanding of their own tradition.

The study is structured in six very compact and amply documented chapters, each of which has the character of a small monograph in itself. The author begins with a summary exposition and analysis of ecumenical reflections about ecclesiology. He considers systematically three study documents of the commission on Faith and Order since 1982, i.e. Church and World, Confessing the One Faith, and The Nature and Purpose of the Church, and concludes that the concept of koinonia is becoming the crystallizing focus for an ecumenical understanding of the church.

The relevance of this ecclesiological approach was put to the test in the context of efforts to clarify the relationship of ecclesiology and ethics. Using in particular the report of the fifth world conference on Faith and Order in Santiago de Compostela (1993), Enns presents a full exposition of koinonia as the central ecclesiological metaphor, one which implies a relational understanding of the church in trinitarian perspective, thus going beyond the Christocentrism of earlier phases of the ecumenical discussion.

The whole first chapter offers a succinct presentation of an emerging ecumenical koinonia ecclesiology which remains dialogically open, but is able to take the churches in the fellowship of the WCC beyond the earlier positions of ecclesiological neutrality (cf. the Toronto Declaration 1950). While the author, with his predominant systematic interest, cannot do full justice to the polyphonic voices in the flow of ecumenical dialogue, he succeeds in presenting a clear frame of reference for the subsequent interpretation of the specific ecclesiology of the HPC and for the analysis of its ecumenical impact.

The second chapter draws a profile of the HPC as part of the group of denominations which are generally referred to as "free churches". The author reviews the different attempts at identifying the common denominator distinguishing these churches from the "mainline" churches of the Reformation. He concludes that neither historical nor sociological criteria are fully satisfactory. For the historic peace churches, however, the decisive fact is that they represent a distinct ecclesiology which implies a particular understanding of the relationship of church and world, a non-credal way of doing theology and the attitude of non-violence as a mark of ecclesial identity.

This general profile of the HPC is then given sharper contours by focusing specifically on a number of systematic attempts to clarify Mennonite identity and ecclesiology. A review of positions under discussion among Mennonite theologians leads to the conclusion that the internal plurality of Mennonite theology is being held together by a common "story" which operates through a number of "regulative principles" or "implicit axioms" (pp. 141ff.). Thus theology in the Mennonite tradition emphasizes the life and teaching of Jesus, an ethic of discipleship and an ecclesiology of the local community of believers which seeks to live according to the new order of God's kingdom.

The third chapter presents and analyzes the ecclesiological position developed by John Howard Yoder, the most influential contemporary Mennonite theologian. Yoder is a strong advocate of the believers' church concept, which he presents as a distinct alternative to both the mainline Protestant position of a "people's church" and the "free church" concepts of Evangelical fundamentalism.

Enns concentrates his interpretation of Yoder on four aspects: (1) his clear distinction between church and world, challenging the "Constantinian corruption" of the church in its adaptation to secular order; the church is called to exist as the new human community in eschatological perspective; (2) his attention to the local community in its life of discipleship in witness and service: being truly church thus becomes itself the decisive missionary message; (3) his development of an ecclesiology, not in terms of the "nature" of the church, but in terms of its ethical praxis; thus ecclesiology is explicated as the social ethic of a community on the way, whose form is "narrative" and which remains a provisional sign of God's kingdom; (4) his ecumenical commitment to Christian unity through common discipleship: the catholicity of the church, according to Yoder, is rooted not so much in a shared ministry or a common institutional or doctrinal structure, but in the continuing dialogue which shapes the ongoing process of being and becoming church.