Foreward and Preamble

Mennonite Confession Of Faith Adopted by Mennonite General Conference August 22, 1963 *Scriptures cited after each article are representative, but not exhaustive.

Supporting Scriptures are sighted following each article of the 1963 Mennonite Confession of Faith.

Foreword As early as 1527 the Swiss Anabaptists adopted the Schleitheim Confession of Faith. In the following century the European Mennonites wrote many confessions of faith, one of the most influential being that of Dordrecht, 1632. The Dordrecht Confession was adopted at a conference of Pennsylvania Mennonite ministers in 1725, and continued until the 1960’s as the official statement of doctrine of the Mennonite Church. In 1921 Mennonite General Conference adopted a statement on the Fundamentals of the Christian Faith consisting of eighteen articles. But in recent years there has been some Conviction that it is imperative to draw up a new confession of faith, not to repudiate any earlier confessions, but to restate the doctrinal position of the church in terms relevant to today’s issues, and especially to incorporate the insights of the various doctrinal pronouncements of Mennonite General Conference.

Consequently in the biennial sessions of 1957, the Mennonite General Conference officially authorized the preparation of a new confession of faith. A committee was then appointed to take up the work. The committee sought to prepare a statement which was Biblical in character, rather than theological; positive, rather than polemical; and simple, rather than technical or philosophical.

After much council, both private and official, the semifinal draft was presented to the delegates of the 1963 sessions of the Mennonite General Conference. After discussion and final revisions, the new confession was unanimously adopted. This new statement of doctrine is now presented to the church and the public in the hope that it may prove to be a unifying and edifying instrument in the congregations of the Mennonite Church and a Christian witness to all men.

Preamble The Mennonite Church, begun in Switzerland in 1525, was a part of the Reformation which attempted to restore the New Testament church. We conceive the church to be a body of regenerated believers, a fellowship of holy pilgrims baptized upon confession of faith in Christ. As committed believers we seek to follow the way of Christian love and nonresistance, and to live separate from the evil of the world. We earnestly endeavor to make Christian disciples of all the nations. In its beliefs the Mennonite Church is bound ultimately to the Holy Scriptures, not to any human formulation of doctrine. We regard this present confession as a restatement of the Eighteen Articles adopted at Dordrecht in the Netherlands in 1632 and of the other statements adopted by our church. In this expression of our faith we sincerely accept the lordship of Jesus Christ and the full authority of the written Word of God, the Bible, and seek to promote the unity of the brotherhood, to safeguard sound doctrine and life, and to serve as a testimony to others.