Are New Levels Of Luxury Spoiling Us Rotten?

Roy Congrove's depiction of a typical house in my parents' era shows how modern technologies have added an incredible number of labor saving and entertainment devices we've come to take for granted.

In my lifetime there has been an unprecedented increase in the amenities we Americans enjoy, greatly adding to both our convenience and comfort and to the ease and speed of our transportation and communication. In fact, these many luxuries we and our children now feel entitled to are no doubt equal to, or even greater than, all of the accumulated advances made during the time span from Abraham and Sarah's time to the time of my birth.

Think about  it. In 1946, six years after I was born, my parents bought a farm and moved to Virginia and had to rely on kerosene lamps for light in our modest farm home in rural Augusta County. The former owners, frugal Methodists still recovering from the Great Depression, simply hadn't felt able to afford getting the place wired for electricity and having the power brought in from the nearest transmission line a half mile away. President Roosevelt's FDR's Rural Electrification Act had of course only been passed ten years before, legislation that made it possible for my parents to borrow enough money to get on the power grid for the first time in their lives. 

Even then at first we had only one bare light bulb in the ceiling of each room of the house, and my mother still used a wood burning kitchen range or our two burner kerosene cooking stove for a number of years before she got her first electric range. 

They next installed indoor plumbing, which meant not having to rely on water hand pumped from a cistern filled with rain water collected from the house roof, or on water carried several hundred yards up hill  from our spring. An electric water heater came next, and having our first bathroom--equipped with a single commode for a family of nine children--came still later, and was welcomed as an unbelievable luxury.

Today most of us enjoy a multiplicity of artificial lamp and light sources with instant light switches, along with state of the art ranges, microwaves, self-defrosting refrigerator/freezers, automatic dishwashers, clothes washers and dryers, mixers, toasters, blenders, can openers, vacuum cleaners, and other labor saving conveniences we no longer even regard as luxuries but as totally necessary house furnishings.

Then there is the unimaginable technological and information revolution we've witnessed in the past decades. In my childhood my family belonged to a faith community that avoided radio and television entertainment entirely, and when we got our first telephone we were on a party line we shared with three other neighbors. Some of these more worldly neighbors did have radios, and some bought TV's in the 50's, but which enabled them to access only one or two stations on a good day, with black and white programming that began at 6 am and ended at 11 at night. 

We did have access to a daily paper linking us to news of the outside world, and my parents subscribed to several periodicals as sources of news, information and/or inspiration, but we had only a few shelves of books at home and limited access to libraries at school or in town.

Contrast that with to the near unlimited sources of knowledge (not necessarily of wisdom) we have access to today. Even our school age grandchildren can access more information on their smartphones than could have been found in the entire Library of Congress when I was their age.

In these and so many other ways we are deluged with an abundance of luxuries that could not have even been imagined less than a hundred year ago by parents and grandparents whose lives and lifestyles were more like those of the Biblical Sarah and Abraham than of our own.

Meanwhile, we who are in the upper 3-5% of the world's wealthiest people are increasingly out of touch with the hard lot experienced by the vast majority of the rest of the members of our global family.

"The more things you own, the more things own you."

Joe Bauman, Farmington (MO) Mennonite Church

Guest Post: "One God, one King, one Family Head: Imperial Mennonitism and Privilege"

Russian Czar Nicholas II in his coronation robe.

Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, Associate Professor of Theology and VP and Dean of the Seminary at Tyndale University in Toronto, has done extensive research on Mennonites in Europe prior to, and in the aftermath of, World War II. I post the following reflection on Russian Mennonites and their relationship with the czars with his permission:

If in Holland Mennonites were persecuted, and in Polish-Prussia they were mostly tolerated, and America left to themselves—in Russia they were a privileged community.

J. Winfield Fretz looked to the Russian Mennonite experience and concluded that this was the course “Mennonitism will take where it is free to apply its principles, economic and social as well as political, to every-day life,” with “at least fifteen different types of mutual aid activities” (note 1). While exaggerated and idealized, unlike the Mennonite experience in contexts before or after, Mennonitism did flourish in Greater Russia because--as one of dozens of “foreign faiths”--it re-imagined itself within Greater Russia’s messianic mission to serve and rule nobly over many peoples (some parallels with America’s self-understanding).

What did imperial Mennonitism look like? Johann Cornies became the first state-appointed Mennonite servitor tasked with guiding the Mennonite community—and indirectly the faith tradition—into an imperial albeit non-resistant tradition. The role of such community servitors was “to instill moral behaviour, social discipline, and submission to general laws” for their community to achieve the conditions of its charter privileges and meet their own religious goals—i.e., to flourish precisely as Mennonites under the Tsar as “patron and guardian of the faith” of his Orthodox and non-Orthodox subjects (note 2).

After the death of Alexander I in 1825 and subsequent coronation of Nicholas I, Mennonite leader Johann Cornies wrote to his friend in St. Petersburg: “Praise be to God that Russia’s throne is again filled by a father. As good and loyal subjects, our wishes and prayers should try to support him.” Cornies had hosted the emperor in his home for tea only a month before his death (note 3). Cornies’ letters—official and personal over two decades—consistently demonstrate filial piety towards the “blessed Monarch” and his “wise, generous and benevolent government” (note 4).

Three decades later: The exuberant festal greetings to Alexander II upon his coronation in 1856—signed by nine elders (bishops) and two district chairmen—“express reverently and in childlike manner” that, “next to God’s all-wise providence, we owe our thanks for this noble peace to the most gracious and fatherly sentiments of Your Imperial Majesty” (note 5).

Again, three decades later: When Alexander III was crowned in May 1883, Mennonites eagerly anticipated future stability. “The coronation of our beloved Royal couple is planned for May. May God sustain and bless them for our sake; may he also destroy all godless and wicked plans that are still being forged somewhere in darkness” (note 6).

Royal birthdays, coronations and anniversaries were public holidays, and all religions of the empire were required to celebrate accordingly. The Russian Mennonite poet and evangelist Bernhard Harder penned multiple hymn texts for these celebration for use in Mennonite worship—praising the Tsars as God’s chosen, blessed agents of justice in the battle against the revolutionary forces of hell unleashed on earth (note 7). It is not surprising that Peter M. Friesen’s great history of the Mennonite Brotherhood (1911) included a portrait of the Tsar in the preface (note 8).

The 1911 Mennonite Ministers’ Handbook offers a sample service for the celebration of the Tsar’s birth—prayers and a sermon (note 9). I have translated the sample materials to show how Mennonites in Russia--pretty much all of them for more than a century--thought about the Royal Family, consistent with their reading of the historic Mennonite confessions of faith (note 10).

Addresses for Crown Holidays.

Birth Feast of His Majesty the Emperor.

Prayer: You have, O Lord, blessed and preserved our dear Tsar in the past year of his life; for this, O Father, we do not withhold our thanks.

Take care of him also in the future by your divine power; protect him and his crown! Let there always be peace and tranquility on his chair and throne. Stretch forth thy mild hand of blessing over our Fatherland; let thy kingdom come in power through thy might; protect all who dwell therein!

Address. Loyal attendees! In 1 Peter 2:17 it says, "Fear God, honour the King!" I want to take this word of the Apostle as a basis for my short speech. Today is the feast of the birth of His Majesty our dear Emperor. This day is an important day for us [p. 92], a day when we can invoke new blessings upon His Majesty and His government, and on which our love for the Emperor and our loyalty as his subjects is strengthened and invigorated. The close connection in which God has placed us to our monarch makes this our duty. If we compare the entirety of the inhabitants of the country to a body, then His Majesty the Emperor is the head of this body. And if we compare the entirety of the inhabitants of the country to a family, then His Majesty the Emperor is the one who has the the father's seat in this large family. That is why the emperor is called the head of state and the father of the country.

As it is self-evident that the members of the body carry the head, serve and follow and protect it,--so it should also be self-evident for us as Christian citizens that we carry our head of state, the Emperor, with our prayers; follow his orders, commands and laws and in times of danger stand faithfully by him and protect him as much as we can. And just as well-raised, pious family members love and honour the head of the family, are obedient to him and allow themselves to be guided by him,--so too as members of the great national family, we should love and honour our national father, the Emperor, be obedient to him and submit to his leadership gladly and willingly. And today, on the feast of our emperor's birth, we are to unite and commit ourselves to this anew.

And so it is the fear of God from which flows the willingness to behave in a godly and right manner toward the head of state and the father of the nation. And it is to the fear of God that the apostle Peter calls us when he says in our text: "Fear God! "Fear God," each one of us should be told. Parents should urge their children to fear God, teachers their students, preachers their congregational members. Such fear of God and godliness is useful for all things and has promise for this life and the life to come. In godliness there is a blessing, a great blessing for all that is called human. "Behold, blessed is the one who fears the Lord," says Psalm 125:4. "How great is thy lovingkindness, O God, which thou showest unto them who fear thee"--we read in the 22nd verse of the 31st Psalm. "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and helpeth them out," [p. 93] says Psalm 34:8. "And as a father hath mercy on children, so the Lord hath mercy on them that fear him, and helpeth them out," says the psalmist in another place. "But unto you that fear the Lord shall the sun of righteousness arise," says Malachi 4:2. "He that fears the Lord shall prosper in the latter end," says Sirach. And in his other passage Sirach says, "He that feareth God shall not be afflicted, neither shall he be afraid of anything." So the fear of God is of the greatest blessing in every respect. And, as I said, even in a civic sense the fear of God is not without significance and blessing. He who fears God is at the same time a faithful follower and subject of his monarch, and is gladly and willingly and conscientiously subject to the authorities who have power over him.

He who fears God realizes that the authorities, of which the sovereign monarch is the highest head, are ordained and appointed by God, and that they are God's servants who do not bear the sword in vain. He who fears God gladly gives to everyone what he owes him: tax to whom tax is due, duty to whom duty is due, and it will not be difficult for him to fulfill the other word of our text: "Honour the king. Honour the king! For us, who live in an empire, this word is: "Honour the emperor!" And how do we honour him? Well, by looking up to him reverently as to the anointed of God; then also by considering him the anointed of God; then also by submitting most obediently to the laws of the land according to which he rules, and by conscientiously fulfilling our civic duties.

And finally also by praying for our Emperor and commending him to the grace of God and the protection of the Almighty, and by remembering him lovingly everywhere. In this way we honour the Emperor and behave toward him as befits faithful Christian subjects. And also, when we are gathered here (in God's house) to celebrate the feast of the birth of our dear emperor and pray for his salvation and blessing from above, this is also part of what the Apostle means when he says in our text: "Honour the king. Honour, then, our emperor! God Almighty, bless him and keep him, and give him strength and courage and wisdom to fulfill his high task [94] and help him that, through his government, the best of our fatherland may be promoted. May he also bless the dear mother of the country, the heir to the throne and the other royal children, as well as all the authorities and the fatherland. Amen!

Prayer: We come before your continence, O Lord our God, King of Heaven and Earth, and pray for our dear Emperor, whose feast of birth is today. Praise be to thee that thou hast kept him alive, and hast brought him safe and well to this hour. We thank you that you have always been close to him in the year that has passed and have helped him in the fulfillment of his difficult governmental duties. We thank you for all the benefits and blessings you have bestowed upon him, and that we have been able to live safely and in our faith under his rule. At the same time, however, we also ask you to continue to preserve the breath and life of our dear monarch. Be his and his people's protection and shield and fortress and strong fortress. Give him the wisdom to administer his high office according to your will and to promote the best of our fatherland. Crown him everywhere with grace and mercy. Amen!

--

It is not surprising that in each generation until WW1, Mennonites had a lively conviction that the purposes of God were at work in and through the Russian Royal Family, through whom God’s kingdom is glorified on earth.

There is no Mennonite tradition “as such,” and many features and episodes in the Russian-Mennonite experience are largely inexplicable from a modern, western framework. But from “up north in Canada,” it does seem to rhyme with the various Mennonite self-understandings of American imperial Mennonitism.

---Notes---

Note 1: J. Winfield Fretz, “Mutual Aid Among Mennonites (I),” Mennonite Quarterly Review 13, no. 1 (1939) 28–58; 46; 44.

Note 2: Robert D. Crews, “Empire and the Confessional State: Islam and Religious Politics in Nineteenth-Century Russia,” American Historical Review 108, no. 1 (2003): 50–83; 52; 55f.

Note 3: Johann Cornies, “No. 49, To Traugott Blueher, 15 February 1826,” Transformation on the Southern Ukrainian Steppe: Letters and Papers of Johann Cornies, vol. 1: 1812–1835, translated by Ingrid I. Epp; edited by Harvey L. Dyck, Ingrid I. Epp, and John R. Staples (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015), 56.

Note 4: Cornies, “No. 66, To Klaas Dyck, 14 August 1826,” Transformation I, 81.

Note 5: “Abschrift der eingereichten Dankschrift der Mennoniten im südlichen Rußland an Sr. Majestät den Kaiser Alexander II. vor der Krönung im August 1856,” Mennonitische Blätter 4, no. 1 (1857): 5. https://mla.bethelks.edu/.../1854-1900/1857/DSCF0069.JPG.

Note 6: Mennonitische Rundschau 4, no. 16 (April 18, 1883): 1. https://archive.org/.../sim_die-mennonitische-rundschau....

Note 7: Cf. Bernhard Harder, Geistliche Lieder und Gelegenheitsgedichte von Bernhard Harder, edited by Heinrich Franz (Hamburg: A-G, 1888), vol. 1, no. 515–538, 562–588, http://chort.square7.ch/Pis/Hard1.pdf. Each text is to be used with a beloved hymn melody.

Note 8: Peter M. Friesen, The Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia 1789–1910 (Winnipeg, MB: Christian, 1978), https://archive.org/.../TheMennoniteBrotherhoodInRussia1.../.

Note 9: Handbuch zum Gebrauch bei gottesdienstlichen Handlungen zunächst für die Aeltesten und Prediger der Mennoniten-Gemeinden in Rußland, edited by the Allgemeiner Konferenz der Mennoniten in Rußland (Berdjansk: Ediger, 1911), 92-94. https://mla.bethelks.edu/books/264.097%20Al34h/.

Note 10: E.g., see the article, “On Secular Authority,” in “Confession, or Short and Simple Statement of Faith of Those Who are Called the United Flemish, Frisian, and High German Anabaptist-Mennonite Church,” published by the Church in Rudnerweide in South Russia, 1853, translated by Peter J. Klassen, in One Lord, One Church, One Hope, and One God: Mennonite Confessions of Faith, edited by Howard John Loewen, 115–128 (Elkhart, IN: Institute for Mennonite Studies, 1985), 123f. https://archive.org/details/onelordonechurch02loew/.

A Sure Way To Radically Reduce Abortion

Laws restricting or prohibiting abortions have been  focused almost totally on women with unwanted pregnancies. But what if we enacted new legislation placing primary responsibility on the men who impregnate them?

Pregnancies are, after all, generally the result of men aggressively pursuing women as a way of satisfying their sexual urges, and less often a case of women actively seducing men for their personal sexual pleasure. 

And think about it, one man can potentially impregnate scores of women in a year's time with a nearly unlimited amount of sperm, whereas a woman can only become pregnant and give birth once during that same time period. In my opinion, that alone should be reason enough to shift the focus of legislation to regulating male behaviors and choices.

At the very least, a law requiring men seeking a sexual partner to provide proof of having had a vasectomy and/or providing protection against a woman becoming pregnant against her will would seem like a decent place to start. 

It would also be fair to require men to provide financial support for every woman they impregnate from the moment fetal cardiac activity can be detected in an embryo, say at six weeks into a pregnancy. In other words, child support could be mandated from the time an embryo exhibits signs of having a human heartbeat, thus providing full support for adequate prenatal and postnatal care for the mother that would be required by law and universally enforced. 

Meanwhile, twelve-year-old girls who have the legal right to choose whether to wear masks and/or to get vaccinated for Covid should also have the right to choose whether to carry a child conceived against their will through coercion or manipulation by some aggressive predator.

I join with pro-life-minded women and men everywhere who honor and protect life from conception, with abortions performed only in cases of incest, rape, or for significant medical or health reasons, and not as a primary means of birth control. But I think it's high time for those of us without the God-given means to conceive and give birth to make sure all men are made fully accountable for their actions and choices.

Official Mennonites stand on abortion: https://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2016/10/until-recently-evangelicals-condoned.html

A 16th Century Reformer Advocates For Workers

 

Menno Simons 1496-1561

In sixteenth century Europe, when there were few labor laws protecting working people, Dutch Anabaptist reformer Menno Simons wrote these words in a treatise called "True Christian Faith." He begins the piece by commending the Roman centurion who was concerned about a servant of his who was ill, and who implores Jesus to heal him, then writes:

It is to the shame and disgrace of all false Christians and especially to many rich, some of whom are more merciless and cruel toward poor servants and hirelings than they are to their dogs and animals (pardon the expression), for as soon as they get so ill that they cannot perform mule's labor, they are unmercifully turned out of doors and sent to this or that institution, or to their parents and friends who sometimes have scarcely a bite of bead or an old cot in their houses. 

Again others, with great damage to their little earnings, have to get a substitute while they are sick. And even if they do serve their time in health with hard and severe labor, some of these unmerciful, cruel, bloody folk put forth efforts to deprive these poor lambs, who have to watch while they (their employers) sleep, labor while they rest, run when they command and stand while they sit, of a goodly portion of their grievous toil. 

Now they complain of  a spoon is lost; then a dish that is broken; always they have ruined this or that. Yes, some of them would feed them with water and straw, and pay them with the whip and chaff, as they do their laboring oxen and horses, if they were not ashamed before men. They would not be ashamed of such things before God of whom they know not. Oh, woe upon such heathenish tyranny and unmerciful cruelty! 

But let it not be so with you, dearly beloved... Be as solicitous for your servants as he (the centurion) was of his servant. Teach them, admonish them and reprove them with a fatherly spirit as often as they do wrong. Set them an unblamable example in all righteousness and piety. Sympathize with them in their severe and heavy labor. Comfort them in their poverty, comfort them, I say, and grieve them not. Give them decent support and their earned pay and do not dock them in their wages. Protect them in all honorable things; do not chide them without cause lest they become discouraged; do not discharge them before the agreed time but let them serve out without loss their time as agreed, lest the name of the Lord be blasphemed. Be friendly toward them at all times. And if any are weak and sick, assist and serve them. Get someone else to serve in their place without loss to them until the Lord takes them or restores them to health.

But if they are willful and obstinate and refuse to hear your word and command, if they do not follow your admonition and counsel, if they want to rule rather than serve, if they waste their time and labor in laziness, if they are unfaithful, rebellious and troublesome, wickedly corrupting your family and children, etc., then come to an agreement with them as to wages earned, before two or three witnesses, so that the fault may not be on your side, and the Word of the Lord be not disgraced. In this way let them move on, that your conscience be not troubled on their account and your house and children be not ruined. Yes, do to your poor servants even as you desire that it should be done to you, if you were called as they are.

--from The Complete Works of Menno Simons, pp. 364-366

Cruel And Unusual Temperatures In Our Prisons

Buckingham Correctional Center in Dilwyn was built to house
640 prisoners, but now has twice that number, and the oven-like
heat becomes almost unbearable in ever warmer summers.

Most folks my age grew up without air conditioning and with few fans to relieve discomfort brought on by warm summer weather.

Today we insist on year-round climate controlled comfort, and when our air conditioning unit on Hamlet Drive malfunctioned recently we soon contacted someone (referred to as a "comfort specialist") to fix the problem.

Millions of our fellow human beings around the world who live in ever warmer climates have no access to such luxury.

This is also true of an estimated 25% of prisoners in Virginia confined in older, crowded warehouse-like facilities with no air conditioning, along with many of the 2.2 million people living in over 6,000 jail and prison facilities elsewhere in the United States. Lack of available funding is always cited as the reason, but increased medical costs and greater unrest resulting from severe heat are causing concern among many lawmakers and prison officials.

Some prisons have been reported to offer extra ice packs and cold water to help alleviate the stress, but elevated temperatures can make living conditions almost unbearable, and getting a normal night's sleep can be a serious problem. And once room temperatures become greater than normal body temperature, more fans can actually make the stress on the heart worse, resulting in heat strokes and heart attacks that can prove to be fatal. 

The Vera Institute of Justice recently reported the following:

Temperatures inside jails and prisons can often exceed 100 degrees. The heat index—a measure of how hot it really feels when humidity is factored in with the temperature—can reach as high as 150 degrees. The consequences of these heat waves can be severe. A Columbia Law School climate study estimated that most of those incarcerated did not have air conditioning in their units. Exposure to high heat alone can lead to increases in aggression, suicide, poor cognitive functioning, and overall poor mental health. What’s more, over 20 percent of people incarcerated in U.S. prisons have a mental illness, and an aging prison population means that many individuals are suffering from medical conditions like high blood pressure. Psychotropic drugs and high blood pressure medications can both disrupt the body's ability to regulate heat and cool itself down—meaning that many people in prison face higher risk of overheating.

Remembering For Years, Remembering With Tears--Alicia Showalter Reynolds

Alicia Faye Showalter Reynolds 8/5/70-3/2/96

Just over 25 years ago, Alicia Showalter Reynolds, a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins and recently married to her beloved Mark, was abducted and killed by an assailant who flagged her down along Rt. 29 near Culpepper, convincing her that something was wrong with her vehicle. Her body was found over nine weeks later in a secluded wooded area. 

Alicia, who was on her way to join her mother for some shopping in Charlottesville in preparation for her brother's wedding, was never seen alive again, and the case has yet to be definitively resolved.

As a long time acquaintance of her grieving parents, Harley and Sadie Showalter (who now are our neighbors at Park Village), I wrote the following lament at the time of Alicia's memorial service. Her mother Sadie read it as a part of a moving account she gave recently of their grief at our weekly neighborhood coffee hour at Village Hall:

Guest post: Our Pursuit Of Class, Comfort And Convenience Limits Our Compassion

Fleeing Myanmar for an uncertain future in Bangladesh. 

Peter Reimer, a retired teacher from Manitoba, Canada, recently wrote the following response to something I wrote, which I post here with his permission:

As Christian Anabaptist Mennonites we like to perceive ourselves as being a compassionate people, however we have a complicated relationship with compassion. 

Joan Swart (South African psychologist) indicates that compassion includes the ability to see clearly the nature of suffering, and that we aspire to transform that suffering by engaging in activities to alleviate the pain of others. It seems like when we suffer personally, then we are able to see and respond to the suffering of others with compassion. When we live in relative ease and comfort, then we have more difficulty empathizing and responding to others' dilemma. 

This seems to be evident in a new book forthcoming by Mary S. Sprunger (EMU) titled, "From Communalism to Capitalism: Mennonites and Money in the Early Dutch Republic." The Anabaptist communalism of the Schleitheim Confession era (1527) was relatively short-lived as Mennonites in the Netherlands became enamored with the rise of the Dutch mercantilism which ultimately resulted in the full-fledged capitalism we know today. By 1661 Thieleman von Bracht was rewriting the Martyrs Mirror as an indictment of the evils of the Mennonite pursuit of wealth and empire. The compassion of communalism dissipated with the lure of capitalism. 

Aside from the lure of wealth and material comfort, our ability to be compassionate may be hindered by religion itself. In "My Brother's Keeper," Saslow, Willers, & Fernberg of the University of California at Berkeley cite findings which indicate that "religiosity moderated (weakened) the relationship between compassion and prosocial behavior" (generosity), and that less religious persons were more likely to be and act compassionately towards others than more religious persons. 

This seems counterintuitive at first, however perhaps our religiosity produces a certain contented lethargy of inaction which inhibits us from acting on initial feelings of compassion. Perhaps religion does inhibit compassionate action, however perhaps too, religion could address both the capitalistic inclinations of Anabaptist Mennonites as well as the zealousness of our religiosity by our following the injunction of someone we claim to know well who said "sell all you have and give it

Note: Here are links to two contradictory studies regarding the claim that religious people are less compassionate:

https://www.alternet.org/2013/02/busting-myth-christians-are-more-generous-non-believers/

https://patriotpost.us/articles/66595-conservatives-are-happier-more-generous-than-liberals-2019-11-06