Finding Common Ground in the Past - Young Center Conference Day Two

OK … so it has taken a couple weeks for me to get back to reflections on the conference at the Young Center held earlier in the summer. I have been preoccupied with the challenges of writing institutional history – I am co-editing a history of Grace College and Seminary that will be out next year. But that’s another blog post …

On day two, the conference presentations began to focus on the nuts and bolts of Alexander Mack Jr. – his life, faith, and ministerial career. The focus has often been on “Sander’s” father (Alexander Mack Sr.), who founded the Brethren movement. But the younger Mack is much more significant for the development of pietism in the American context. Coming of age among the Brethren in Germantown, Sander joined the more radical pietists at Ephrata for a number of years and even lived the life of a solitary hermit in the Virginia back country. Coming back to Germantown and assuming a more traditional religious identity, Mack helped supervise a period of organizational development among the Brethren. He authored apologetic works, hymns and poetry. Living into the 19th century, Sander’s life even spanned across important political events, from the tumultuous years of the Seven Years War and the Revolution, to the organization of the new nation.

I was new to this circle of historians and church members. It was an “ecumenical” crowd, at least in an Anabaptist sort of way. “Progressive” brethren, liberals, Amish, Old Order Anabaptist, and non-brethren scholars mingled in a way that seemed quite unique to anything I had ever experienced. Historical inquiry seems to have a way of helping people overcome their differences and find common ground in a shared interest in the past.