Mennonite Weekly Review

ELKHART, Ind. — A book that broke new ground in 1963 provides fresh insights for today.

Ginny Martin, AMBS student and development officer, talks with Weyburn Groff about his book on Gandhian and Mennonite nonviolence. — Photo by Mary E. Klassen/Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary

Weyburn W. Groff’s doctoral dissertation, Satyagraha and Nonresistance: A Comparative Study of Gandhian and Mennonite Nonviolence, was released at a celebration honoring Groff and his wife, Thelma, Nov. 6 at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary. The Institute of Mennonite Studies and Herald Press published the book.

Though only three copies existed until now, Satyagraha and Nonresistance still urges us forward in 2009, said John Rempel, IMS associate director.

Groff’s dissertation had been set aside while he served on the faculty and administration of Goshen Biblical Seminary, which was part of AMBS, from 1965 to 1986.

The Groffs worked in India for almost 20 years under Mennonite Board of Missions, and for most of that time — from 1951 to 1964 — Weyburn Groff taught at Union Biblical Seminary in Yavatmal. Confronted with the vastness of the problems of poverty, intolerance and war, he explored the beliefs of Gandhi and the ways Martin Luther King Jr. merged those beliefs with his Christian faith.

Groff was aware that one tendency for Mennonites was to withdraw from problems that required political engagement, Rempel said. Another tendency was the lack of a Mennonite technique for implementing alternatives to violence.

So in the dissertation, completed for his doctorate from New York University in 1963, Groff examined pacifist literature in the East and West, then described the spirituality and practice of Gandhi’s belief and compared these with historic Mennonite nonresistance.

“Without ignoring foundational differences of piety and doctrine between Christianity and Hindu­ism, Weyburn made a powerful plea for them to recognize commonalities and shared responsibility,” Rempel said. “It is hard to overstate the radicality of such a plea for social engagement by a representative of a Mennonite church institution in 1963.”

John Paul Lederach, a Mennonite mediator who has worked in numerous international settings, wrote in his foreword that Satyagraha and Nonresistance “is well worth turning to in our continued discernment, for nuclear issues remain at the top of our global challenges, our neighbors are global no matter where we live, and the world continues to need prophetic and pastoral expressions of agape-love.”

The book breaks ground in a more pragmatic way also. This is the first project that IMS is offering as an e-book as well as in print volumes. More information is available on the IMS Web site.