Peace, Progress, and the Professor: The Mennonite History of C. Henry Smith-Hardcover (Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History)

by: Professor Perry Bush (Author)

Publisher: Herald Press (VA)

Publication Date: 2015/9/15

Language: English

Print Length: 464 pages

ISBN-10: 0836199863

ISBN-13: 9780836199864

Book Description

What does it mean to be Mennonite in the mode world? And what is the witness of a peace church that is always at risk of splintering? C. Henry Smith–son of an Amish family, erudite historian, urbane bank president, and pioneer of Mennonite scholarship–sought answers to these questions in the middle of the 20th century, and his answers reverberate through the church to this day.In this engaging narrative biography, historian Perry Bush chronicles Smith’s childhood in an Illinois farming community, his youthful tu toward intellectual inquiry, and his confidence that Anabaptist faith and life offer gifts to the wider world. By recounting the story of one of the foremost Mennonite intellectuals, Bush surveys the storied terrain of 20th-century Mennonite identity in its selective borrowing from wider culture and its tentative embrace of progressive reforms and higher education, and growing conviction that Anabaptism served as a taproot of Weste civilization. Bush argues that Smith’s body of historical writing fuished a new generation of Mennonites with both an understanding of their shared past and the tools to navigate an ever-shifting present.Volume 49 in the Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History Series.

About the Author

What does it mean to be Mennonite in the mode world? And what is the witness of a peace church that is always at risk of splintering? C. Henry Smith–son of an Amish family, erudite historian, urbane bank president, and pioneer of Mennonite scholarship–sought answers to these questions in the middle of the 20th century, and his answers reverberate through the church to this day.In this engaging narrative biography, historian Perry Bush chronicles Smith’s childhood in an Illinois farming community, his youthful tu toward intellectual inquiry, and his confidence that Anabaptist faith and life offer gifts to the wider world. By recounting the story of one of the foremost Mennonite intellectuals, Bush surveys the storied terrain of 20th-century Mennonite identity in its selective borrowing from wider culture and its tentative embrace of progressive reforms and higher education, and growing conviction that Anabaptism served as a taproot of Weste civilization. Bush argues that Smith’s body of historical writing fuished a new generation of Mennonites with both an understanding of their shared past and the tools to navigate an ever-shifting present.Volume 49 in the Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History Series.