Latino Anabaptism and Global Mission

Jaime Prieto’s 2010 volume Mission and Migration presents the history of Anabaptism in Latin America as, on the one hand, a story of Anabaptist Christians migrating to Latin America from the United States, Canada, and Europe. On the other hand, Prieto depicts the long history of Anabaptist missionaries and service agencies from the US and Canada working in Latin America. In these narratives, the primary direction of travel for mission and migration has been from the North to the South. This description continues to capture an important dimension of Latin American Anabaptism, as movement from the North to the South still occurs. However, in recent years many Latino/a Anabaptists have migrated from the South to the North, joining churches and other ministries in order to do mission in the Northern Hemisphere. Latin American Anabaptists from various countries have also developed extensive mission connections with one another. Therefore, a unidirectional North-to-South model for understanding Anabaptist mission is no longer adequate.

The so-called mission “from everyone to everywhere” is a present reality among Latino/a Anabaptists, with Latino/a Anabaptist missional endeavors taking a diversity of form in the United States, Canada, Europe, and other Northern Hemisphere countries. There are also Latino/a Anabaptist missional endeavors in various Latin American countries; that is, there is an exchange of missionaries and resources within Latin America as well. In this respect, Latino/a Anabaptists are developing a global mission that takes many forms and connects them to Anabaptists from different countries and cultures in many ways.

All of the articles in this issue of Anabaptist Witness highlight the global Latino/a Anabaptist mission and the connections it fosters among people, organizations, and institutions. In this regard, the articles presented are as diverse as the Latino/a Anabaptist global mission is, including different missional-service experiences and missional concerns in various parts of the world.

In the first article, Luis Tapia Rubio reminds us that North American Anabaptist-Mennonites have questioned for some years now the unidirectional North-to-South mission. In an attempt to move away from this colonial model of mission, North American Anabaptist-Mennonites have emphasized a two-way mission that highlights the learnings they gain from their partners abroad in the mission field. Nevertheless, Rubio claims that this two-way approach is not radical enough to eradicate neocolonialism in the North American missional partnership with Latin Americans. To shift out of this neocolonialist model, Rubio says, it would be necessary to practice a truly multidirectional two-way mission—one that not only focuses on what American missionaries learn from Latin American partners abroad but also includes receiving Latin American missionaries in the US.

Francisca Pacheco Alvarado and Jonathan Minchala Flores’s article focuses on the work of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in Colombia through Semilla (Seed), a two-year service program that brings a cohort of young adults ages twenty to thirty-two from various parts of the world to Colombia to collaborate with Colombian Anabaptists in mission. Pacheco and Minchala highlight how Semilla challenges the dichotomy between employment and mission, offering an “incarnational” and “charismatic” approach to mission that aims to collaborate with God’s mission in Colombia. In this regard, Semilla is an example of the global and interconnected Latino/a Anabaptist mission, where a North American service agency (MCC) funds Anabaptist missional endeavors in Colombia that are led by Colombian Anabaptists with the support of Latino/a MCC workers—Jonathan is Ecuadorian and Francisca Chilean—and “Semilleros” (Seed workers) who come to Colombia from other countries.

In a work of qualitative sociological research, Robert Brenneman uses a set of five interviews conducted with Anabaptist peacebuilders in northern Central America to show that Latino/a Anabaptists are building peace in contexts of post-war crime and inequality-driven violence, far from the traditional peacebuilding work in identifiable “war zones” and political hot spots. Brenneman’s article also highlights the North American and Latin American Anabaptist connections in this peacebuilding missional work by pointing out the influence of SEMILLA—Latin American Anabaptist Seminary, located in Guatemala City and founded by North American missionaries—in the Central American region.

Regarding the missiological discussions about the global Christian mission “from everyone to everywhere” and the place of Latin Americans in it, the life and work of the renowned Baptist missiologist and theologian Samuel Escobar (recently deceased) must be mentioned. In his article, Carlos Martínez García shows that Escobar not only offered several missiological proposals in line with Anabaptist convictions but was also influenced by John Howard Yoder in Argentina, to the point that Escobar eventually claimed Anabaptist identity for himself.

Next, Peter Wigginton, a Mennonite Mission Network worker in Ecuador, shares his reflections about the increase in violence in the country and speaks to the mission that Ecuadorian Anabaptists must develop in response to it. For Wigginton, virtue ethics presents a suitable option for responding to the ethical dilemmas that the Ecuadorian church is facing. In this regard, Wigginton claims that the Ecuadorian church has the task of defining and constructing its own theology of peace amid the current dark and violent reality in Ecuador.

Francisco Mosquera Angulo shares his experiences and personal reflections about his participation in a trip to Panama with Como Nacido Entre Nosotros, an organization of diverse Christian groups from Latin America and the Caribbean that aim to welcome and support migrants. Francisco’s testimony shows how the Latino/a Anabaptist mission today focuses on the pressing issues that Latinos/as undergo and is developed in international and ecumenical cooperation.

Finally, in the last article of this issue, Nancy Yael Bernal shares her story of migration and cultural adaptation in the Netherlands. Her story reveals how the Latino/a global Anabaptist mission is often connected to personal circumstances that, providentially, orient Latino/a Anabaptists to God’s mission. By highlighting her ministries in Colombia and the Netherlands, Yael Bernal’s testimony also shows how different contexts demand different missional responses from Latino/a Anabaptists. The issue concludes with a review essay by Steve Nolt on Mennonite mission in China and a review by David Weaver Zercher of a new presentation of the Martyrs Mirror.

The articles in this issue of Anabaptist Witness depict the new reality of Latin American Anabaptism, in which “mission and migration” are practiced not only by northern Anabaptists but also by Latino/a Anabaptists, in collaboration with one another and with other global partners. Latino/a Anabaptists are creating the future of Anabaptism in the Americas and beyond.

—Luis Tapia Rubio, guest editor
—Jamie Pitts, editor