Scene from a church

I recently became aware that the Rijksmuseum, the Dutch national museum in Amsterdam, has made available online over 300,000 images of different artifacts, objects, and documents held within the museum. Curious, I went to their website (here) and searched the word Mennonite to see what might be on offer. Most of the results were of little interest, but one print caught my eye.

This print, which appeared in an unknown book, was likely created between 1780 and 1790. The caption can be translated into English as follows: “Baptism ceremony of the Mennonites.” According to the Rijksmuseum website, the print shows the interior of the Lamist Mennonite Church (Kerk bij ’t Lam) in Amsterdam.

Clearly, this was a large and important church, which is not surprising, given Mennonitism’s origins within and ties to the Netherlands. What is striking about the print are some of the details that may be overlooked if one gets caught up in the immensity of the church and the size of the crowd.

Focus first on the primary subject matter of the print and the service: a baptism ceremony. Those of us who grew up in a certain church or tradition may have specific expectations of a baptism service, complete with a large pool or body of water and special clothing appropriate for someone about to be completely immersed; the Dutch Mennonite ceremony was quite different.

The three baptismal candidates appear to be dressed likely every other male, and instead of a pool of water we see a large pan—all that was needed to pour water over the head of a baptizand. Of course, what was important was not the mode of baptism but the time of baptism: Mennonites did not baptize infants but only adults who professed faith in Christ. That was what set them (and other Anabaptists) apart from both the Catholic Church and other groups within the Protestant Reformation.

Although the baptism of these three men is the center of the ceremony and the focus of the print, several other details are worth noting.

Above and behind the baptismal area is the pulpit, which in European churches of that era was raised above the rest of the congregation and accessed, generally, via stairs. Note also the stand for the Bible or other books from which the speaker could read.

Above the pulpit one sees a pipe organ (reminiscent of Bethesda Church in Henderson). Apparently this organ was added to the Lamist Church in 1777, which helps one date the print to sometime after that.

This print has little to do with Bullers per se, except to remind us that our family stands in a tradition that preceded our family and extended far beyond the regions where our ancestors lived, a tradition that defined who they were and thus remains a part of our own history even today.