wfn.org | Newsline: Brethren Service is recognized at Peace Fest in Germany

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Newsline: Church of the Brethren News Service -- Aug. 29, 2008
Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford, News Director
800-323-8039 ext. 260 -- cobnews@brethren.org

BRETHREN SERVICE IS RECOGNIZED AT PEACE FEST IN

>GERMANY

(Aug. 29, 2008) Elgin, IL -- Members of the Lutheran Pfarrkirche St.
Marien and the Marburg Peace Initiative hosted a Peace Fest on Aug. 1,
in Marburg, Germany. The event welcomed Brethren attending
celebrations of the 300th Anniversary of the Brethren movement.

The program focused on the history and progression of Church of the
Brethren work in Europe from the post-war period to the present. More
than 200 Brethren were joined by representatives of partner
organizations for peace that the Brethren helped found after World War
II.

Ken Rogers, a professor at Manchester College in North Manchester,
Ind., introduced the evening's speakers, noting that Christians had been
gathering in this location in Marburg for 900 years. Pfarrkirche pastor
Ulrich Biskamp greeted the meeting by saying, "Since the beginning, the
Church of the Brethren has cared about peace. We will never forget the
work of Church of the Brethren after the war, for which we are very
thankful."

Ken Kreider reported on Brethren work in Europe, beginning with the
work of Dan West in Spain in the 1930s. The Brethren next assisted in
Europe following World War II, providing for prisoners in POW camps
in England, the Netherlands, and Belgium, and distributing food in
France. Church of the Brethren leader M.R. Zigler was able to convince
the US military to allow him to go into Germany after the war to assess
needs there. The US military allowed the Brethren to provide for urgent
physical needs of the population, according to the Geneva Convention,
Kreider said.

Brethren aid following World War II also reached Poland, and the city of
Kassel in central Germany, which was 80 percent destroyed in the war.
A few of the original volunteers who worked at the Brethren House in
Kassel were present at the Peace Fest.

The US military suggested that the church begin a student exchange
program for German young people to go to the US for a year. Thus
began the International Christian Youth Exchange (ICYE), which is now
an independent organization. Four representatives of ICYE drove from
Berlin to Marburg to be present at the Peace Fest.

Brethren Colleges Abroad (BCA) was organized in 1962 as another way
to continue making meaningful connections between the Brethren and
the people of Europe. The city of Marburg was the first BCA site, and
the late Donald Durnbaugh was one of its first onsite directors. The
program expanded into many countries outside of Europe under the
direction of Allen Deeter, and now has participants from over 100
colleges.

Dale Ott, former coordinator of Brethren Volunteer Service (Europe),
reported that "wherever there was division in Europe, BVS projects tried
to be there." BVS sites have been places of dialogue for people to come
together and understand one another, he said. During his work for BVS,
Ott placed volunteers in N. Ireland, Berlin, Poland, Cypress, and
Jerusalem, and visited churches in the Eastern bloc.

After churches and grassroots groups in East Germany started the
movement which led to the Berlin Wall coming down, BVS expanded its
project sites into the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Serbia, Croatia, and
Belgrade, under the leadership of Kristin Flory, Brethren Service
(Europe) coordinator for the past 20 years. Expansion occurred despite
declining resources for the program. Flory quoted one volunteer as
saying, "We live in a hurting world and churches need to respond to that
in love."

Wilfried Warneck, who established Church and Peace building on the
efforts of M.R. Zigler and Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder,
was recognized at the Peace Fest. Church and Peace established a
Historic Peace Church network in Europe, together with the International
Fellowship of Reconciliation. Church and Peace general secretary
Marie-Noelle von der Recke, a French Mennonite theologian, remarked
that the Church of the Brethren was key in the foundation of Church and
Peace, and that members of Church and Peace also were instrumental in
leading the Decade to Overcome Violence of the World Council of
Churches.

"Jesus' nonviolence belongs to the core of the Gospel and the church is
called to give witness to this nonviolence in society" by showing God's
love and compassion, von der Recke said. "Love of enemies is the way
of the cross, confronting the myth of redemptive violence. Conscientious
objection and peace service; justice and solidarity with the oppressed,
victims of war, and injustice; and advocacy for justice in issues of
economics and the environment give expression to our belief that Jesus
is Lord. Peace and justice must be practiced on a daily basis.... True
security is found in God."

Angela Koenig, director of Eirene International Christian Service for
Peace, congratulated the Church of the Brethren on its 300th
Anniversary. Eirene, the conscientious objector service in Europe
founded by the Historic Peace Churches, cooperates with BVS in
sending volunteers to the US, throughout Europe, South America,
Morocco, Niger, and South Africa. Eirene celebrated its 50th anniversary
this summer. "We wish and pray that the Brethren continue to stay
strong and keep working in the spirit of your founders," Koenig said.

Wolfgang Krauss, who worked with the German Mennonite Peace
Committee for 25 years, brought Mennonite congratulations on the 300th
Anniversary. "The Anabaptist movement started almost 200 years
before...so let me, as an older brother, congratulate my younger brothers
and sisters!" he said. The German Mennonite Peace Committee was
founded in 1956 to recover an Anabaptist peace witness that had been
lost, Krauss explained. "German Mennonites had lost their
nonconformist peace position. Those who had gone to North America
helped us a lot after World War II, with material relief and even more in
helping us start a new discourse in peace theology."

After an evening of celebrating mutual mission efforts between the
Church of the Brethren and its partner organizations in Europe, Rogers
summed it all up by saying, "Thank you to our European brothers and
sisters for giving the Church of the Brethren so much!"

The Church of the Brethren is a Christian denomination committed to
continuing the work of Jesus peacefully and simply, and to living out its
faith in community. The denomination is based in the Anabaptist and
Pietist faith traditions and is one of the three Historic Peace Churches.  It
celebrates its 300th anniversary in 2008. It counts more than 125,000
members across the United States and Puerto Rico, and has missions and
sister churches in Nigeria, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and
India.

(This report was provided by Myrna Frantz, a former Brethren Volunteer
Service worker at Church and Peace.)

># # #

>For more information contact:

>Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford
>Director of News Services
>Church of the Brethren
>1451 Dundee Ave., Elgin, IL 60120
>800-323-8039 ext. 260
>cobnews@brethren.org

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