Chapter Geleerde weerloosheid

Abstract

In the oldest Mennonite books on faith education, defenselessness and revenge are not initially topics that parents present to their children. The rejection of violence comes up only when the educators are teaching their children about the position of the government. In the seventies of the seventeenth century a new form of faith education emerged in various congregations: catechetical instruction, at the request of church members to their church councils, now became a task for their own teachers. It is since then that the rejection of government office, violent resistance, revenge, and the emphasis on defenselessness are given a prominent place in books on faith education. The eighteenth century shows the publication of a large number of booklets written by ministers for their own catechists. It is precisely at this time that the various ministers valued conveying defenselessness to their students. The description of their rejection of war and revenge usually includes the same arguments. The doctrine of defenselessness loses its apodictic character in the last decades of the eighteenth century. Characteristic of the period around 1900 is that nonviolence as a characteristic feature of Mennonites is no longer mentioned in the booklets for catechism.