“Where the administrative gift tends to become noticeable and prominent anywhere, it’s a pity,
because it’s not intended to be that.”
When Orie returned from Russia in 1921, it was to a troubled church.
Mennonites were caught up in a theological crucible, which included
premillennialism, resistance to modern cultural change, and the fundamentalist-
modernist debate. Fundamentalism, which emerged in the wake
of World War I, was a militant protest against liberal theology and social,
cultural, and intellectual changes. Modernists believed it possible to
reconcile recent discoveries in history, science, and religion with Christian
faith. Fundamentalists attempted to safeguard traditional views of biblical
inspiration and authority against Darwinism and higher critical methods
of Bible study. Essential “fundamentals” of doctrine included inerrancy
of Scripture, the virgin birth, Christ’s bodily resurrection, and the historical
reality of his miracles. One result of the turmoil was a realignment of
American Protestantism into “mainline” liberal Christianity on the one
hand, and evangelical and fundamentalist churches on the other.
Goshen College Caught in the Storm
The leaders of the Mennonite Board of Education and the Indiana-
Michigan Conference, in whose territory Goshen College operated, used
their influence to close and remake the college. Orie had hoped drastic
measures could be avoided. In 1921, when 1921 D. D. Miller mentioned
the possible closing, Orie was thoroughly disappointed: “It seems to me
the last thing that should be thought of is to close the school. . . . There
must be some way out.”
By March 1923, however, he was persuaded otherwise.
An Ideal Mennonite College
Writing from Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri, later that year,
Orie reflected on his recent visit to Hesston College. After a meeting of
the Mennonite Colonization Board in Newton, Kansas, President D. H.
Bender had persuaded Orie to spend the evening at Hesston. The visit
prompted Orie to write to Elta, “I always enjoy the fine spirit at Hesston
[College]. I wish somehow at Goshen we could get the same spirit and
loyalty plus the culture and broad mindedness and scholarship that
Goshen has stood for in the past. That in my mind would be the ideal
combination for a Mennonite college.” He continued his musings as he
boarded the train to sell shoes in Nashville and New Orleans.
Negotiating on Behalf of “the 62”
After Orie’s return from Russia in 1921, he promoted ongoing relief
efforts tirelessly and persistently. In 1922, Lancaster congregations and
individuals through Eastern Mennonite Missions contributed $73,426;
in 1923, $72,889; and in 1924, $90,486. Line items included the NER,
German relief, Russian relief, Fordson tractor fund for Russia, passage
money for Constantinople refugees, Canadian immigration, and loans
to immigrants.
More Committees and a New Shoe Company
That’s not all Orie was doing. In addition to his involvements with
Goshen College, the MBE, and refugee settlement, Orie took on three
more institutional affiliations and offices in the 1920s: chair of the Young
People’s Problems Committee (1921–37); financial agent and member of
the MBE executive committee (1922–55); and the MC Peace Problems
Committee, which he would serve as executive secretary (1925–53).
It was an era of identifying tasks as problems—appropriate for the
troubled twenties.
Albert and Daniel Join the Family
On January 29, 1922, Orie went to the NER offices in New York City to
accept a medal for meritorious and humanitarian service in the Middle
East, an honor he never seemed to mention to anyone. Surely the most
significant event of 1922 for Orie was the birth of Albert Wolf Miller on
March 18. Albert, Orie and Elta’s second child and first son, was named
for his grandfather Albert N. Wolf.
Called to Be an Administrator
Like a magnet attracting metal, Orie continued to attract offices and
duties. In 1924, in addition to fundraising for Goshen College, he was
appointed to the executive committee of the Mennonite Colonization
Board. He offered privately to John Mellinger to help launch a missionary
paper, and Mellinger made Orie the founding editor of the Missionary
Messenger, the periodical of EMM. Mellinger’s paradoxical quip summed
up Orie’s productivity: “If you need to get something done, ask Orie
Miller. He is busy and he will have time to help you.”45 In 1925 (August
5), Orie was elected vice president of EMM, an office he would hold until
he became secretary in 1935, serving until retirement in 1958.
“Brother Orie is a Dangerous Man”
On December 27, two days before an important peace conference at
Elizabethtown (Pennsylvania) College, Mosemann complained vociferously
in a letter to Orie about his association with such dangerous
people as former Goshen College president Noah E. Byers. Since Orie’s
name appeared with that of Byers on the letterhead of the Continuation
Committee of the Conference of Pacifist Churches, “Can you blame any
one for believing that your sympathies run strong toward the old Goshen
ideas of world progress, world betterment and world improvement? Is not
this conclusion justly drawn?”
Bible in One Hand, Newspaper in the Other
In countless future conversations with colleagues and protégés, Orie
described his reading practices (in a formulation later attributed to Karl
Barth) as the Bible in one hand and a major newspaper, such as the New
York Times or the Wall Street Journal, in the other. It was not enough
to read one without the other, because each illuminated the other. The
Bible provided the prism through which he saw nearly everything. Orie
had “hidden the Word in his heart,” and he applied Scripture to most
everything. Often his first response to a problem or event was a biblical
allusion. “He owns the cattle on a thousand hills” was his response to
the challenge of raising a monumental amount of money to move several
thousand refugees to South America. The Wall Street Journal was the lens
though which he saw the world—international events or trends and financial
markets. Reading the trends often informed his decisions about new
service or mission opportunities.
Feeding the Hungry
The ultimate MCC report on relief work in Russia, titled Feeding the
Hungry, was published in 1929. P. C. Hiebert, MCC chair, did the majority
of the work, but Orie is listed as coauthor.
When relief operations in Russia closed in 1925, many assumed the
work of MCC was finished. P. C. Hiebert and Orie Miller were not among them. Already on August
9, 1923, Hiebert issued a call to all Mennonites to make MCC a longterm
agency in order to respond to future emergencies. Unspent funds
could be applied to other needs. In his open letter, Hiebert asked the
readers of Mennonite periodicals whether it would not be beneficial
to make MCC a permanent organization. “Is our mission as a peoplehood
finished? Does God say, ‘Enough, Now you may quit?’”
No comments:
Post a Comment