Grandma's Haban home, Sobotiste

Thursday, August 9, 2018



Believin'


We are what we believe” is the headline of an April 17, 2017, article by CNN in which over 600 readers shared their faith experiences. CNN came up with six similarities shared by those who told their faith stories:

- You are passionate from a young age
- You know everything can change in an instant
- You think actions speak louder than words
- You find strength in believing...or not (Yes, atheism is a spiritual belief system...)
- You seek beyond major religions
- You believe the search for meaning never ends

In the next several blog posts, I want to examine what the Hutterites believed and what parts of their belief system has filtered down to their Haban descendants. To some extent, the six similarities listed above are also true of the Hutterites and the Haban. They were what they believed. Today, I want to look at the specific beliefs that made the Hutterites who they were and made them different from other Protestants of the time as well as the one thing that made them distinct from other Anabaptists.*

Word!

Hutterites took the Bible seriously. Their spiritual leaders were not called priests or pastors but “Servants..." or "Ministers of the Word". This love of God's Word was not a uniquely Hutterite trait, but one shared by many after the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther believed that the Bible was the Word of God, the sole source of spiritual truth, and it was to be studied and embraced by everyone for their spiritual growth. The Catholic Church of his day believed the Latin Bible should remain in the hands of educated priests, that the average believer would not be smart enough to interpret the Word of God accurately. Bibles in the common language were forbidden. Luther, however, said, “...a simple layman armed with Scripture is greater than the mightiest pope without it". The Hutterites ran with that, looking to the Bible for all wisdom and knowledge. The Haban continued to cling to the Word of God even after their conversion to Catholicism. (Spoiler alert: This love of the Word led Grandma to a brief life of crime...)

Baptism – Adults only, please...

Anabaptists, including the Hutterites, after reading their Bibles, found no biblical basis for baptizing babies. Baptism was for grownups...well, at least for those old enough to understand what they were getting themselves into. Salvation wasn't something that was poured over a baby, like water. When one was old enough to understand what Christ's death and resurrection meant for the individual, when one could freely choose to surrender one's life to Jesus, then one could be baptized as a sign of entering into that new life of faith. The Hutterites desperately held onto this belief, to the death in many instances. It was the issue of infant baptism that eventually led to some Hutterites giving up their identity as “true” believers and resigned themselves to the Catholic/Hutterite hybrid we know as Haban.

Separation of Church and State...a radical idea

As modern Americans, we take the idea of separation of church and state for granted. It seems like a good idea. But before, during and for hundreds of years after the Protestant Reformation, the church, whatever the denomination, and the government, whatever that may locally have looked like, were seriously intertwined. Hutterites, as well as most Anabaptists, tried to keep themselves separated from the civil authorities. Government was “of the world”. Hutterites were “of God.” This strict separation rarely went well for the Hutterites. Local government saw the Hutterites as uncooperative at best, and downright rebellious at worst.

...No swearing (of oaths, that is...)

Simply put, an oath is calling upon God to witness the fact that what one is saying is true - “I swear to God that.....” When the Hutterites read their Bibles, they saw Jesus' take on the swearing of oaths:

Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil. - Matthew 5:33-37 (ESV)

Most Anabaptists had some prohibition against oaths, but Hutterites took the prohibition very seriously. In a time when loyalty oaths of all kinds were required, this provided one more cause for persecution. Even when asked to swear an oath that they would never return to a certain town or region again, the Hutterites would refuse. How could they swear such a thing when they didn't know where the Holy Spirit might lead them in the future? Asking God to witness a statement that might not be true in the future would make God a party to one's sin. No, no swearing of oaths...

Put down that sword...

Hutterites, as well as most Anabaptists, were pacifists. They were adamantly opposed to war and any violence. They would not defend themselves when attacked by their enemies, making them easy targets to plunder. They were also very careful not to provide nonviolent support for war efforts. Before agreeing to do certain projects for their neighbors or protective lord, they would seriously examine the use of the object they had been contracted to construct. The lord of the region wished to purchase wagons for his estate. For what purpose were they to be used? To carry war implements to go out into battle against the Turks? Or to cart food for the animals of the estate and be used for the crops during harvest time? The answer to questions such as these would determine whether or not the Hutterites would agree to build what was asked of them.

When the Hutterites came to the United States, their pacifist beliefs got them into trouble during the first world war. As conscientious objectors, the young Hutterite men were required to do alternate service. Since almost all alternate service at that time in some way supported the war effort, they would politely refuse. Several were beaten, starved and eventually died in military prison for refusal to support the war effort. The Hutterites, living in the Great Plains at the time, struggled with whether the United States was a country which would tolerate their strict pacifism. Many left their farms in the Dakotas and migrated to Canada, a country with a more lenient view of those who would not support war efforts of any kind.

Let's keep communion...

The Lord's supper was seen as a remembrance of the suffering and death of Jesus. Unlike the Catholic Church which viewed its Holy Communion as the literal body and blood of Christ, the Lord's supper of the Hutterites was a symbolic remembrance. The Hutterites took the celebration of the Lord's Supper very seriously and with great reverence, so much so that they only celebrated it once a year, the day after Easter. It was the high point of their church year.

Ban 'em...

Following God day in and day out and striving to live holy, godly lives is not easy. What do you do with those among you who just can't cut it and fall into sin? You speak to them, encourage them to get back on the straight and narrow, and then, if they refuse, you ban them from the community. This ban was reserved for baptized members of the fellowship. If you were old enough (Adult baptism, remember?) to commit to following God, you knew what you were getting into. If you abandoned the committed, holy life, then you needed to leave before you dragged others down with you.

Leading the way...

Leaders of some sort were required. Different Anabaptist groups had different titles for their spiritual leaders. Each Hutterite community had a teacher/preacher called a “minister of the Word”. His duties were spelled out in the Schleitheim Confession* as follows: “His office shall be to read, to admonish and to teach, to warn, to discipline, to ban in the church, to lead out in prayer for the advancement of all the brethren and sisters, to lift up the bread when it is broken, and in all things to see to the care of the body of Christ that it may be built up and developed.” They also had a head leader over all the Hutterite communities known as a Vorsteher, a sort of moderator. He oversaw missionaries, comforted those in prison (and there were many) and generally dealt with any problems that came up and clarified any issues that needed clarifying.

We are all in this together...

...Literally. The thing that distinguished the Hutterites from most other Anabaptist groups was their commitment to the community of goods a.k.a. holding all things in common. In the book of Acts it says:

Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. (4:32)

The Hutterites took hold of this scripture and throughout their history strived to adhere to a communal lifestyle. Sometimes they succeeded and sometimes they didn't. Hutterites have looked back on their history and point to the times they succeeded as the times they were walking most closely with God. Many Hutterite colonies today still practice a community of goods, living a communal lifestyle and having almost no personal possessions.

Hutterite communities were called Bruderhofs and consisted of large, rambling houses, grouped together to shelter multiple families in close proximity to one another. Both Grandma and Grandpa's villages had Hutterite Bruderhofs, and both Grandma and Grandpa grew up in Bruderhof-now-Haban homesteads. In both Sobotište and Moravský Svätý Ján today there are historic sections of town called Habánsky Dvor or Haban Court, the old Hutterite homes of the Bruderhofs, grouped together with other buildings, such as mills, and a chapel for gathering to worship.

Present day photo of the Habansky Dvor in Grandma's hometown of Sobotiste




*In 1527, a group of Swiss Anabaptists in Schleitheim, Switzerland, met and agreed unanimously on the middle seven of these Anabaptist beliefs. It was referred to as the Schleitheim Confession. The first belief listed, the Bible as God's true word and ultimate authority was already a given in Anabaptist circles by this time in the Protestant Reformation. The last belief listed, the community of goods, also described as holding all things in common, was primarily Hutterite.

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