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

Bush, Professor Perry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0836199626 ISBN 13: 9780836199628

Publisher: Herald Press (VA), 2015

Synopsis

What does it mean to be Mennonite in the modern 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 turn 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 Western civilization. Bush argues that Smith's body of historical writing furnished a new generation of Mennonites with both an understanding of their shared past and the tools to navigate an ever-shifting present. Key points: - Biography of one of the premier Mennonite intellectuals in the 20th century - Volume 49 in the Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History Series. 464 Pages.

About this title

About the Author

Perry Bush is professor of history at Bluffton (Ohio) University. He is the author of Rust Belt Resistance: How a Small Community Took On Big Oil and Won, Two Kingdoms, Two Loyalties: Mennonite Pacifism in Modern America and Dancing with the Kobzar: Bluffton College and Mennonite Higher Education. He and his wife, Elysia, live in Bluffton, where they are members of First Mennonite Church. They are parents of two daughters and a son.

From the Back Cover

"What the Mennonite church needs today is that its broken body should be healed and made whole."--C. Henry Smith

What does it mean to be Mennonite in the modern 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 twentieth 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 turn toward intellectual inquiry, and his confidence that Anabaptist faith and life offer gifts to the wider world.

Edition details

• Publisher: Herald Press (VA)
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0836199626
• ISBN 13: 9780836199628
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 464