Professor Royden Loewen

A Mennonite History professor from Steinbach says it's a bit of a misnomer that Steinbach and the RM of Hanover have traditionally been "dry" communities. Royden Loewen, the Chair in Mennonite Studies at the University of Winnipeg, was commenting on news last week that the RM of Hanover discovered it has never been a dry municipality as had always been assumed. Loewen says Mennonites have historically accepted moderate alcohol use.

"They were never really completely dry in the history of Mennonites. There would have been teachings against excess drinking and certainly teachings against frivolous drinking but most Mennonites would have had some alcohol in their homes for medicinal purposes. And, it wasn't until the 1970's, in fact, that the Tourist Hotel in Steinbach shut down. And, the Tourist Hotel was right in downtown Steinbach. So this idea that Steinbach or other Mennonite communities have always been dry is a bit of a misrepresentation."

Meanwhile, retired History professor Lawrence Klippenstein of Steinbach says there have,

Professor Lawrence Klippensteinhistorically, been differences among various Mennonite church groups as to whether alcohol use is acceptable.

"When it came then to the groups that became a part of the Mennonite community here in Manitoba, you had differences among those groups too. Some had maintained the habit of the use of these substances, to some degree at least, and some had already taken their stand (against alcohol) way back then (in Europe) so that you have differing opinions on whether these are, in fact, Christian practices or not among the various Mennonite groups."

But Loewen says the concept of "dry" Mennonite communities is relatively recent.

"In fact, Mennonites learned the idea of "dry communities" from the Temperance Movement amongst English-speaking Canadians back early in the 20th century. But, back in Europe, Mennonites would have certainly have embraced the use of alcohol in a private and very limited way."

Loewen adds, if you go back in history to the 18th century, Mennonites were some of the most noted brandy producers in northern Poland.

He says it's not all that surprising that the RM of Hanover never passed a By-Law to declare itself dry because alcohol use has, historically, not been that big an issue among Mennonites.

"It wasn't an issue. Certainly drunkenness and sobriety were issues and very few Mennonite churches would have tolerated their members attending pubs and so on. But the idea that there was no alcohol at all, that's, in historical terms, a relatively new idea."

The following is an excerpt from the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online:

Menno Simons' writings contain many statements against the use of alcoholic drinks. This does not prove that the early Anabaptists required total abstinence, but does indicate a very sensitive conscience on the question of alcoholic drinks. There is abundant evidence on the other hand that the Hutterite Bruderhofs grew hops and grapes, and manufactured wine and beer, at least for delivery to their feudal overlords. That the modern Hutterites in North America make and drink their own wine would suggest that they drank wine also in their early history.

It appears that the Anabaptists as a whole were not quite so strict in regard to alcohol as some of the Swiss Brethren and Hutterites. While the writings of Menno Simons, Dirk Philips, and others contain many admonitions to a sober life with warnings against drunkenness based upon such passages as 1 Thessalonians 5:5-8, they did not call for total abstinence. In the Martyrs' Mirror one of the martyrs is reported as drinking a glass of wine. The noted elder Leenaert Bouwens was certainly not a teetotaler, and there is no evidence that the Mennonites of Holland in the 17th and 18th centuries were objectors to alcohol. On the contrary, there were many brewers and especially distillers of brandy among them. However, topers (droncken-drinckers) were subject to excommunication.