Embodying the Way of Jesus

Book

Ted Grimsrud. Embodying the Way of Jesus: Anabaptist Convictions for the Twenty-First Century. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2007.

Reviewer

Loren L. Johns, Associate Professor of New Testament, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, IN 

How can one articulate a vision for contemporary Christian life that stands in an authentic historical and theological relationship with 16th-century Anabaptists and can therefore legitimately be called “Anabaptist”? Examples of the attempt to do so include Tom Finger’s A Contemporary Anabaptist Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004) and J. Denny Weaver’s Becoming Anabaptist: The Origins and Significance of Sixteenth-Century Anabaptism, 2nd ed. (Scottdale: Herald Press, 2005, orig. ed. 1987).

The appropriation of an “Anabaptist vision” for contemporary life is itself a controversial enterprise among Anabaptist historians. (Ted Grimsrud feels comfortable applying Anabaptist both to its sixteenth-century expression and to the “on-going ideals rooted in that movement” [109].)

One problem is that Anabaptist history has been overly generalized and even romanticized in service to a contemporary vision, as in Harold S. Bender’s The Anabaptist Vision (Scottdale: Herald Press, 1944) and Franklin Littell’s The Anabaptist View of the Church: A Study in the Origins of Sectarian Protestantism (Boston: Starr King Press, 1958).

A second problem has to do with the validity of applying a theological emphasis from one historical context to a contemporary one that is inevitably quite different. A third problem is whether “Anabaptism” properly consists of distinctives or a larger theological construct, some of which could historically be assumed. However challenging the enterprise, I applaud Grimsrud and others for the attempt.

Chapter one, which was “pre-printed” in MQR (July 2006), and chapter two (“Whither Contemporary Anabaptist Theology?”) were “written specifically” for Embodying the Way of Jesus (3). The rest were drawn from Grimsrud’s academic and pastoral work. The book consists of six parts, each of which contains two to four chapters. Part One is Getting Oriented; Two, Bible; Three, Tradition; Four, Experience; Five, Vision; and Six, Church.

In Part One Grimsrud lays out what he sees as the Anabaptist vision. It has four “central characteristics.” It is (1) a free church, (2) (largely) pacifist, (3) anti-clerical (i.e., rejects hierarchies and top-down leadership), and (4) a sharing church. Grims­rud challenges Finger (and A. James Reimer) for adopting mainstream Christianity’s tendency to articulate its theology primarily in doctrinal terms, rather than practice-oriented terms.

Grims­rud includes here his essay “Is God Nonviolent?” that appeared in CGR in 2003. He argues that God is nonviolent despite the abundant biblical evidence that God is nonviolent like most Christians are nonviolent (i.e., most of the time, with peace as the goal but not necessarily the means). Furthermore, since we “need” a God who is nonviolent, the author suggests that we understand God in that way, though this comes perilously close to the definition of idolatry, in my opinion.

Grimsrud emphasizes three Anabaptist principles with regard to biblical interpretation: the hermeneutics of obedience; hermeneutical privileging of the poor; and the congregational context. The author recognizes the hermeneutical challenges and articulates an approach informed by Hans-Georg Gadamer that is largely liberationist in character. The theological unity of the Bible is provided by “God’s healing strategy.”

As others have done, Grimsrud skips over centuries two to fifteen as irrelevant to Anabaptist tradition theology. Tradition begins with the sixteenth century. His tracing of the story from Anabaptism’s radical origins through its mutation to the “quiet in the land” is cursory, as he covers 500 years in 16 pages. This reviewer wonders how one might more perceptively critique natural sociological shifts in theological terms.

Part Four (Experience) is a bit of a catch-all category in which the author explores the significance of Civilian Public Service for understanding Anabaptist pacifism, considers the nature of Anabaptist participation in politics, and develops what has become known as the “Neo-Mennonite” perspective in which he aligns with J. Denny Weaver and C. Norman Kraus against  Reimer and Finger.

Part Five (Vision) contains an excellent articulation of what Grimsrud calls “ethical eschatology.” In chapter 13 (“Theological Basics: A Contemporary Anabaptist Proposal”), he offers an outline of theology in which he uses standard categories: Jesus Christ, revelation, God, Holy Spirit, human beings, the church, and our final end (i.e., eschatology). Finally, Part Six explores the nature of the church.

Embodying the Way of Jesus is full of valuable insights and articulations of various themes (among many that could be cited here, see his comments on nonconformity and ethical eschatology). Despite its disjointed construction as a compilation of sermons, lectures, and essays written for various contexts, it represents a valuable contribution to contemporary discussions about what Anabaptism looks like in the twenty-first century.