Will the Real Augustinian Please Stand Up?
Conference on “Anabaptists in Conversation: Mennonite and Brethren Interactions with Twentieth-Century Theologies,” 19-21 June 1997. Young Center for the Study of Anabaptist and Pietist Groups, Elizabethtown (Pa.) College.
- Agapeism and Hershberger
- Niebuhr and Augustine
- Sacrificial and Mutual Love
- Could Mennonite Theology Be Augustinian?
- Notes
Agapeism and Hershberger
In the 1950s, it must have seemed to leading Mennonite thinkers such as Guy F. Hershberger that Christian ethicists — at least Protestant ones — had settled on a common definition of authentic Christian love. As a leading formulator of Mennonite peace witness, Hershberger’s primary concern was that his ethic be faithful to scripture. Yet Hershberger could also articulate his Mennonite defense of one kind of Christian pacifism from within this apparent consensus concerning Christian love. To do so might actually help him counter the claims of his main opponent, Reinhold Niebuhr.