Esther Epp-Tiessen. Mennonite Central Committee in Canada: A History. Winnipeg, MB: CMU Press, 2013. Pp. 328. $29.50 (CDN)
In 2013 Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Canada celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. Its formation in Canada was not nearly as smooth as that of the original MCC in the United States. Without the intervention of Brethren in Christ leader C. N. Hostetter Jr., in fact, MCC Canada might not have arrived at its present form at all (p. 89-90). The story is far more intriguing than an institutional history should be, and it is ably told by its author, Esther Epp-Tiessen, who has an intimate acquaintance with the organization, having served with MCC in the Philippines and on the staffs of MCC Ontario and MCC Canada, and currently serving with the Ottawa office.
One of Epp-Tiessen’s accomplishments in this volume is her clear explanation of the different characteristics of Canadian Anabaptists. The “Old” or “Swiss” Mennonites, including the Brethren in Christ and Amish, emigrated around 1780 from Pennsylvania. Between 1870 and the First World War, the descendants of these pioneer settlers in Ontario, with a smaller contingent in Manitoba, welcomed the first round of Kanadier (Canadian) Mennonites from Russia, who settled mostly in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, a further flow of Russlaender (Russian) Mennonites began to arrive. Their plight and that of others left behind in Russia was the impetus for the formation of the first Mennonite Central Committee, in 1920, in the United States.
Canadians also organized to assist these refugees, although not in such a centralized fashion as the Americans. Ontario Old Mennonites and Brethren in Christ had already, in 1918, established the Non-Resistant Relief Organization, and they were happy to use MCC as a channel for aid to Mennonites in Europe. Western Kanadier Mennonites organized a Canadian Central Committee in 1920 to collaborate with MCC. Later, in response to World War II, additional organizations arose for refugee resettlement, material aid, and conscientious objector advocacy. By 1963, at least eight different committees were working in various areas and also supporting the work of MCC. There was, however, resistance to uniting these various efforts under one umbrella. For a group of pacifists, Canadian Anabaptists found it difficult at times to accept one another’s theological and cultural differences. The model of MCC in the United States hovered as a possibility, and in fact MCC opened an office in Kitchener, Ontario, in 1944, to simplify the coordination of relief efforts. After the war ended, this office also served as a recruiting center for Canadian young people interested in voluntary service with MCC overseas and within North America.
Eventually, Canadian Anabaptists realized that there was more to be gained than lost in joining their various committees under one roof. Epp-Tiessen’s charts (pp. 71-75) create visual order out of what was often a messy process of development, as she lists and describes the various bodies that came together in 1963 to form MCC Canada. By this time, Winnipeg, Manitoba, had bypassed Kitchener-Waterloo in Mennonite population, and it became the organization’s headquarters. Within the next year provincial MCC agencies were established in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario.
Cultural and theological differences continued to present issues to the new organization, although by the 1970s it was clear that MCC Canada had proved itself as a respected relief and development organization, and had also become a vehicle for Mennonite ecumenicity as well as the public face of Mennonites and Brethren in Christ in Canada. The author highlights the strength of grassroots involvement that contributed to this development, noting that observers referred to MCC Canada as “a people’s movement, not always without criticism but generally with a loyalty so deep as to be the envy of almost every voluntary agency in the country” (p. 159). In 1979 the arrival of another diaspora, the “boat people” of Southeast Asia, sparked further grassroots support, with MCC Canada overseeing government negotiations. By 1980, half of all congregations in the constituency had sponsored families.
The extent of its acceptance of government support somewhat distinguished the Canadian from the American arms of MCC. There were other differences. From the beginning all international MCC work was organized and directed through the MCC office in the United States, in the interests of keeping a unified image overseas. Canadians increasingly chafed at these strictures. Some issues that took a significant amount of time at MCC’s Akron, Pennsylvania, office—e.g. the American church’s response to racism—were not as relevant to Canada, where the question of the church’s support for aboriginal claims was a more significant issue. Eventually, in 2011, a new organizational arrangement separated the international programs into two areas, one to be administered by MCC U.S., and the other by MCC Canada.
With the links between the two MCCs now severed, one wonders whether the history of MCC Canada could have any interest to American readers. Epp-Tiessen’s account, however, is rich with discussion of issues central to all Christian life: our Anabaptist relationship to the state; our responsibility to needs outside our own circles; our responsibility to our own institutions (e.g., MCC as opposed to World Vision); and concerns about paternalism and the use of North American workers overseas. In addition, her history is enlivened throughout with anecdotes that vividly illustrate the ethos and the impact of MCC.
It is a well-written book, logically organized by decades, with helpful charts throughout and extremely useful appendices that include a list of abbreviations, a glossary of French and German terms used, a list of personnel in leadership, and a report of MCC Canada income over the years. There is an extensive bibliography and an index of names.
As I opened the book I had two questions. The first concerned the treatment of the role of women in MCC Canada. Epp-Tiessen deals with this issue brilliantly. In spite of the preponderance of male names in leadership, she gives significant attention to the roles of women as grassroots workers and overseas staffers, and discusses the development of the more gender-neutral MCC leadership we currently see.
My second question was about the continuing place of MCC in Anabaptist congregational visioning. Does its history give any hint of its future? Will it remain the dominant relief organization for Canadian Anabaptists? Will its peace and social concerns advocacy remain important? Perhaps it is unfair to expect the historian of an organization to make such predictions. In fact, Epp-Tiessen leaves MCCs Canada’s future an open question. She emphasizes the many challenges it faces in remaining linked to its constituency and in confronting systemic injustice. She does note, however, that after fifty years, “MCC in Canada remained a beloved and iconic expression of Mennonite identity,” and that “for some Canadians, MCC had become their identity marker, the thing that defined them as Mennonites.” (p. 267)