Celebration honors Weyburn Groff

The doctoral dissertation Satyagraha and nonresistance: A comparative study of Gandhian and Mennonite nonviolence, by Weyburn W. Groff, broke new ground in 1963 and continues to provide fresh insights for today.

The book has just been published by the Institute of Mennonite Studies and Herald Press and was released at a celebration honoring Weyburn and Thelma, his wife, on November 6 at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary.

Groff’s dissertation had been set aside while he served on the faculty and administration of Goshen Biblical Seminary (part of AMBS) from 1965 to 1986. However, in spite of the fact that only three copies existed until now, Satyagraha and nonresistance serves as a challenge that urges us forward in 2009, John Rempel, associate director of IMS, said.

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

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

So in the dissertation, completed for his Ph.D. from New York University in 1963, Weyburn 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. It is hard to overstate the radicality of such a plea for social engagement by a representative of a Mennonite church institution in 1963,” Rempel continued.

John Paul Lederach, Mennonite mediator who has worked in numerous international settings, wrote in his foreword that this book “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. Information is available on the IMS Web site: www.ambs.edu/ims.

Mary E. Klassen / November 2009