EARLY ANABAPTISM IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
Past, Present, and Future at 500 Years
July 22-24, 2025
Conference co-sponsor:
Conference Schedule
Optional pre-conference tour: Visit Mennonite Life in Lancaster, Pa., to tour the library and archives and view the exhibit “Decorated and Plain.” (Depart by bus from the Young Center at 9:00 a.m. and return by 12:30 p.m.)
Tuesday, July 22
10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Registration
1 – 1:20 p.m.
Conference Opening / Welcome
1:30 – 3 p.m.
SESSION 1
A. Papers: Menno Simons, Anabaptist Witness, and the Doctrine of Discovery
- Menno Simons’ Critique of Christian Empire (Gerald J. Mast)
- Historic Believers Church Theologies of Public Witness (J. Denny Weaver)
- Early Anabaptist Witness and the Work of Decolonization (Sarah Augustine)
- The Ties that Bind: Examining Cross-Border Early Modern Anabaptists Networks through PRINT (Rosalind Beiler and Adaeze Nwigwe)
3 – 3:30 p.m.
Break
3:30 – 5 p.m.
SESSION 2
A. Papers: Perspectives on Early Anabaptism: Contextual and Comparative
- The Social & Theological Contexts of Balthasar Hubmaier (Breanna J. Nickel)
- The Japanese Clandestine Christians in the Early Modern Period in Comparison with the Anabaptists in Europe (Tomoji Odori)
- The Largest Church of the Reformation: The Clandestine Network of the Swiss Brethren (Martin Rothkegel)
- You Mean That’s Actually Dutch? The International Dissemination of Early Dutch Mennonite Material and Visual Culture (Nina Schroeder-van’t Schip)
- Anabaptists Sing: What We Can Learn from Sixteenth-Century Anabaptists and Global Worshipping Communities Today (James R. Krabill)
- Reading Early Anabaptist Sources in Community: An Interactive Workshop (Gerald J. Mast)
5:15 – 6 p.m.
Dinner
7 p.m.
SESSION 3: KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Horizons of Expectation: Space, Sense, and Religious Reform in a Globalizing Age (Nicholas Terpstra)
8:30 p.m.
Reception
Wednesday, July 23
7:45 – 8:15 a.m.
Continental breakfast
8:30 – 10 a.m.
SESSION 4
A. Papers: Commerce, Empire, and Diplomacy in the Early Modern World
- Second-Generation Anabaptism and the Dutch Global Empire: Capitalism, Colonialism, and the Slave Trade (Mary S. Sprunger)
- "Simple Before Men": Benedict Brechtbühl as a Champion of Swiss Mennonite Migration to Pennsylvania in the Early Eighteenth Century (Brendan Jordan)
- Anabaptists Condemned to Mediterranean Galleys: Diplomatic and Theological Responses (Edsel Burdge Jr.)
- Peace Spirituality of Mennonites: A Socio-Historical Study of the Javanese Mennonite Church and Its Relationship with the Islamic Community in Java in the Decades 1940 to 1990 (Teguh Karyanto)
- Toward a Latino/a Anabaptist Theological Tradition: Contemporary Latino/a Reception of Early Anabaptist History and Theology (Luis Tapia)
- Echoes of the Anabaptist Spirit: Exploring Parallels between Sixteenth-Century Beliefs and Contemporary Faith in Meserete Kristos Church (Kebede Bekere and Henok T. Mekonin)
10 – 10:30 a.m.
Break
10:30 a.m. – Noon
SESSION 5: PLENARY ADDRESS
Lost and Living Pasts: Early Modern Histories and Global Mennonite Belonging (Kat Hill)
Noon – 1 p.m.
Lunch
1:15 – 2:45 p.m.
SESSION 6
A. Papers: Anabaptism in Conversation with Pietists, Quakers, and Baptists
- Primitivism, Place, and Publications: Early Pietist Connections to Anabaptism (Denise Kettering-Lane)
- Quakerism and the Renewal of Spiritualist-Prophetic Apocalypticism among Seventeenth-Century Dutch Mennonites (Joseph F. Pfeiffer)
- Anabaptism Disowned: The Question of English and Irish Nonconformist Antecedents (Tony Walsh)
- Translating Anabaptist Source Materials: Challenges, Opportunities, Priorities (Jamie Pitts, moderator)
- Incarnational Hospitality: An Anabaptist Approach to Meeting Muslims (Peter M. Sensenig)
2:45 – 3:15 p.m.
Break
3:15 – 4:45 p.m.
SESSION 7
A. Papers: Swiss Anabaptists and Early Modern Orders of Movement
- The Confessional Mobility of Early Swiss Anabaptists (David Y. Neufeld)
- (Re)constructing Identity: Swiss Networks of Mobility Reimagined in the Electoral Palatinate, 1650 to 1711 (Cory D. Davis)
- Seeking Refuge: Exploring the Voyages Made by Anabaptist Women in the Early Eighteenth Century to Escape Religious Persecution (Kailey Freeman-DePelisi)
- Beyond the Crises of Origins and Ends: Theopolitical Normativity in Anabaptist Historiography (Maxwell Kennel)
- Who Owns the Anabaptist Story? Looking to Margins as Well as the Past to Define Anabaptist Identity (Ryan Gladwin)
- Polygenesis and Polyphony: How Historic Anabaptism Invites a Contemporary Anatheism (Scott Holland)
5 – 6 p.m.
Dinner
7 p.m.
SESSION 8: PLENARY ADDRESS
Constructing a Multi-Textual Anabaptist Theology from an Indonesian Perspective (Danang Kristiawan)
8:30 p.m.
Reception
Thursday, July 24
7:45 – 8:15 a.m.
Continental breakfast
8:30 – 10 a.m.
SESSION 9
A. Papers: Anabaptism and the Search for a Useable Past
- Nineteenth-Century Mennonites Reading Martyrs Mirror: Identity, Renewal, and a Useable Past (Andrew V. Ste. Marie)
- The Ingrafting of a Tradition: Why Baptists Hold an Interest in Anabaptism (Brian C. Brewer)
- Mennonites in Eastern Pennsylvania Engage an Anabaptist Past (Joel Horst Nofziger)
- Hutterite History as a Refugee Story (Emmy Barth Maendel)
- Mennonites’ Adjustment to Life in Colonial Pennsylvania through Family Stories (Tanya Kevorkian)
- Language Maintenance and Shift in Early Anabaptist Communities (Mark L. Louden)
- Teaching Early Anabaptism (Jamie Pitts, Danang Kristiawan, Elizabeth Miller, and David Y. Neufeld)
10 – 10:30 a.m.
Break
10:30 a.m. – Noon
SESSION 10: PLENARY ADDRESS
The Future(s) of Anabaptist History: Global Perspectives and Methods (Elizabeth Miller)
Noon
Conference closes
Optional post-conference tours: (1) Visit the 1719 Museum (Lancaster Longhouse and Herr House), Willow Street, Pa.; or (2) Visit Muddy Creek Farm Library, Ephrata, Pa., and tour its library and museum. (Both tours depart by bus from the Young Center at 12:30 p.m. and return by 4:30 p.m.)