*Keith Graber Miller is Associate Professor of Bible, Religion and Philosophy at Goshen College.

1. This article is based on research for my forthcoming Wise as Serpents, Innocent as Doves? American Mennonites Engage Washington (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1996).

2. Guy F. Hershberger, The Mennonite Church in the Second World War (Scottdale, Pa.: Mennonite Publishing House, 1951), 248.
3. Guy F. Hershberger, "A Mennonite Office in Washington?," Gospel Herald (Feb. 27, 1968), 186.

4. This analysis is focused on the U.S. advocacy office and therefore does not address the similar Canadian office established in Ottawa in 1974. Partly because of Canadian Mennonites' more pervasive Dutch-Russian heritage and--more importantly--because of Canada's distinctive history and form of government, Mennonites in Canada generally respond differently to their state than do Mennonites in the U.S. For more on Canadians and the Ottawa office, see my forthcoming text, Chapter 1. Off and on since 1981, MCC also has assigned someone to monitor the United Nations in New York. See, e.g., John D. Rempel, "Work by the Church Does Make a Difference," Gospel Herald (Nov. 10, 1992), 8. From 1985 to 1991 a group of North American and European Mennonites also observed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) from Brussels, Belgium and published the NATO Watch newsletter.

5. James C. Juhnke's A People of Two Kingdoms: The Political Acculturation of the Kansas Mennonites (Newton, Kan: Faith and Life Press, 1975) and his Vision, Doctrine, War: Mennonite Identity and Organization in America, 1890-1930 (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1989), esp. Chapter 8 are among the best sources on this war-time guilt. See also Paul Toews, "The Impact of Alternative Service on the American Mennonite World: A Critical Evaluation," MQR 66 (Oct. 1992), 615-27; and Rodney J. Sawatsky, "History and Ideology: American Mennonite Identity Definition Through History" (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1977), esp. 122-39, 211-60.
6. The Wilson memo and remark about patriotism are from Robert S. Kreider and Rachel Waltner Goossen, Hungry, Thirsty, a Stranger: The MCC Experience (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1988), 25. Much of the information in these paragraphs is gleaned from Kreider and Goossen's text, as well as the many other sources which tell about the founding of MCC. See, e.g., John D. Unruh, In the Name of Christ: A History of the Mennonite Central Committee and Its Service, 1920-1951 (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1952); P. C. Hiebert and Orie O. Miller, eds., Feeding the Hungry: Russian Famine 1919-1925 (Scottdale, Pa.: Mennonite Central Committee, 1929); and Guy F. Hershberger, "Historical Background to the Formation of the Mennonite Central Committee," MQR 44 (July 1970), 213-44.
7. The figures are from Kreider and Goossen, Hungry, Thirsty, a Stranger, 24.
8. In addition to the other sources already cited, on this period see also Irvin B. Horst, A Ministry of Goodwill: A Short Account of Mennonite Relief, 1939-1949 (Akron, Pa.: Mennonite Central Committee, 1950).
9. Robert Kreider, "The Impact of MCC Service on American Mennonites," MQR 44 (July 1970), 245-46. Up until 1940, says Kreider, MCC's office was simply wherever the executive secretary lived--either in Scottdale or Akron, Pa. MCC began with seven affiliate groups, including some denominations which no longer exist. In 1944 several large Canadian Mennonite bodies cast their lot with MCC, making the organization an international--or at least binational--one.
10. These figures are from Unruh, In the Name of Christ, 262.
11. From Twenty-Five Years, The Story of the MCC, 1920-1945 (Akron, Pa.: Mennonite Central Committee, 1946), 20.
12. The NSBRO was formed November 26, 1940 as the agency through which the peace churches would work in dealing with Selective Service.
13. John A. Lapp, "The Peace Mission of the Mennonite Central Committee," MQR 44 (July 1970), 291. Other helpful sources for understanding the emergence and development of the Peace Section include the September-October 1992 issue of Peace Office Newsletter, titled "Fifty Years of Peacemaking." The newsletter is available from MCC's Akron office. See also Frank H. Epp and Marlene G. Epp, "The Progressions of Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section" (unpublished "topical history in outline form," 1985). Available at the Mennonite Historical Library (hereafter MHL), Goshen College, Goshen, Indiana. Over the years, the Peace Section has served as a kind of "lightning rod" for MCC, receiving the brunt of the constituency's criticism about MCC's cooperative peace efforts and political involvements. In the past, some constituent bodies who have sent representatives to the larger MCC board meetings have not sent persons to MCC's Peace Section meetings. Although the lines are not clearly drawn, the division of tasks has allowed each of MCC's supporting bodies to affirm the service, relief and development work of the organization while supposedly separating these involvements from the more controversial "peace" or "political" work which the organization sponsors.
14. Between 1950 and 1969 MCC's work expanded into another 31 countries, more than doubling the number the organization had served since 1920. Until 1950, MCC had begun work in 26 countries, most of which had ongoing units. One program not mentioned here is the significant Pax program, which provided a place for conscientious objectors to serve during the 1950s and 1960s. On Pax, see Urie A. Bender, Soldiers of Compassion (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1969).
15. One source on the Winona Lake conference is the November-December 1991 Peace Office Newsletter, titled "New Inter-Mennonite Peace Statement." The newsletter includes memories of the conference as well as the declaration itself. MCC's board adopted a new peace statement, "A Commitment to Christ's Way of Peace," at its Feb. 19-20, 1993 meeting at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. The statement is intended to be an update of the Winona Lake document, reflecting changes in the church and world since that time. Among other additions and alterations, the new "Commitment" recognizes that violence occurs not only in warfare but through economic structures and that violence has reached into Mennonite and Brethren in Christ churches and families.
16. One of the best sources on the Puidoux conferences is Donald F. Durnbaugh, ed., On Earth Peace: Discussions on War/Peace Issues Between Friends, Mennonites Brethren and European Churches, 1935-1975 (Elgin, Ill.: The Brethren Press, 1978).
17. These conferences and the documents, pamphlet series, texts and statements they spawned have been covered extensively in a variety of other places. Although these meetings and writings are extremely important for understanding the fuller social and theological backdrop for this analysis, the focus here on MCC and its movement toward establishing the Washington lobbying office disallows adequate development of this material. The milieu of the 1950s and 1960s was fertile ground for the changes that were occurring in the various Mennonite churches on issues related to the church and state and to war and peace. Among the best recent sources which provide an overview of twentieth-century theological conversations among Mennonites are: Leo Driedger and Donald B. Kraybill, Mennonite Peacemaking (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1994); Perry J. Bush, "Drawing the Line: American Mennonites, the State, and Social Change 1935-1973" (Ph.D. dissertation, Carnegie Mellon University, 1990); and Hope Renae Nisly, "Witness to a Way of Peace: Renewal and Revision in Mennonite Peace Theology, 1950-1971" (M.A./M.L.S. thesis, University of Maryland, 1992). For a viewpoint of Mennonite social changes during this period from the perspective of rhetorical analysis, see Ervin R. Stutzman, "From Nonresistance to Peace and Justice: Mennonite Peace Rhetoric, 1951-1991" (Ph.D. dissertation, Temple University, 1993). Other briefer sources are: Beulah Stauffer Hostetler, "Nonresistance and Social Responsibility: Mennonites and Mainline Peace Emphasis, ca. 1950 to 1985," MQR 64 (Jan. 1990), 49-73; John Richard Burkholder, Mennonites in Ecumenical Dialogue on Peace and Justice (Akron, Pa.: MCC, August 1988); and John Richard Burkholder, Continuity & Change: A Search for a Mennonite Social Ethic (Akron, Pa.: MCC Peace Section, 1977). For information on the Concern movement which published numerous pamphlets between 1954 and 1971, see the Concern publications housed in MHL. For more on the movement, see the Spring 1990 volume of Conrad Grebel Review and J. Lawrence Burkholder, "Concern Pamphlets Movement," ME 5:177-80.
18. Kreider, "The Impact of MCC Service," 253-55.
19. James Stayer suggests that the move to Latin and South America contributed to the "quick and painless death of the normative vision of sixteenth-century Anabaptism." The cause of death was "a virus brought back by Mennonite missionaries and volunteer workers from the Third World, a different assessment of the Christian potentialities of a social revolutionary climate."--"The Easy Demise of a Normative Vision of Anabaptism," in Calvin Wall Redekop and Samuel J. Steiner, eds., Mennonite Identity: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (Waterloo, Ont.: Institute of Anabaptist and Mennonite Studies, 1988), 114.
20. John Boli-Bennett, "The Ideology of Expanding State Authority in National Constitutions, 1870-1970," in John W. Meyer and Michael T. Hannan, eds., National Development and the World System (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 228-38. Much of the literature on the growth of political institutions calls attention to the effects such expansion has on religious organizations and other entities in the "voluntary sector," which once carried primary responsibility for health, education and social welfare needs. See, e.g., Robert Wuthnow, Between States and Markets: The Voluntary Sector in Comparative Perspective (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991).
21. All of the figures are from David Harrington Watt, "United States: Cultural Chal-lenges to the Voluntary Sector," in Wuthnow's Between States and Markets, 248 and are based on data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census.
22. Harrington Watt, "United States," 248. Data sources include the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.
23. David H. Kamens and Tormod K. Lunde, "Institutional Theory and the Expansion of Central State Organizations, 1960-1980," in Lynne G. Zucker, ed., Institutional Patterns and Organizations: Culture and Environment (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger Publishing Company, 1988), 171.
24. John A. Lapp, "Missionaries and the Political Process," in "Missionary Retreat 1976," 5. Available in MHL.
25. Delton Franz et. al., "Self-Study," prepared for "20th Anniversary Consultation on the Washington Office," Jan. 12-14, 1989, p. 3.
26. Both MCC and the Eastern Mennonite Board of Missions had volunteers in South Vietnam. EMBM's mission program was initiated in 1957.
27. Story told in James Metzler, From Saigon to Shalom (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1985), 30.
28. Mennonite theologian John H. Yoder compared MCC's relief work in this context to German Christians sending social workers to concentration camps without objecting to the camps themselves. John Howard Yoder to Paul Peachey, Nov. 29, 1965, available in Archives of the Mennonite Church, Goshen, Ind. (hereafter AMC), CPSC files, 1-3-5.13, box 69/3. Cited in Hope Renae Nisly, "Witness to a Way of Peace," 87-88. Nisly's master's thesis, particularly pp. 83-98, is an excellent source on Vietnam and its effect on Mennonites. See also the more thorough treatment in Perry J. Bush, "Drawing the Line," especially pp. 242-81.
29. See Guy F. Hershberger, "Washington Visitation on Vietnam," Gospel Herald (June 15, 1965), 520.
30. Luke Martin, James Metzler, Everett Metzler and Donald Sensenig, "A Missionary Concern," The Mennonite (Jan. 25, 1966), 63. That issue of The Mennonite and the following day's Gospel Herald were special issues devoted to Vietnam concerns. Writers for the issues or "action manuals" included relief workers, missionaries, peace committee members and theologians.
31. Cited in Dyck, Responding to Worldwide Needs, 111-13.
32. The text of the letter can be found in "MCC Presents Vietnam Letter," Gospel Herald (Nov. 21, 1967), 1069-70.
33. John K. Stoner, "A Theology of Development Beyond Relief and a Theology for Witness to the State" (unpublished discussion paper presented to a May 13-14, 1977 meeting of conference moderators and secretaries). Available in AMC, MCC files IX-12 (Data Files #7), file "Development, 1975-79."
34. The quote is from Peter L. Berger and Richard John Neuhaus, Movement and Revolution (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, 1970), 13. Notes from most seminar presentations by Delton Franz and Keith Gingrich cite the Berger remark.
35. From 1940 to 1967, before the opening of MCC Washington, Mennonites testified before Congress a total of fourteen times, always in relation to conscription.
36. NSBRO is now known as the National Interreligious Service Board for Conscientious Objectors (NISBCO).
37. MCC Peace Section's appointees who served in significant roles at NSBRO during this period include Paul Goering (1945-1950), Elmer Neufeld (1951-1954), Edgar Metzler (1954-1956), John R. Martin (1956-1958) and J. Harold Sherk (1958-1969). To this day MCC routinely assigns one of its Washington-based Voluntary Service workers to NISBCO. This is in addition to, but separate from, the work of MCC Washington.
38. The Quakers have had a continuing Washington presence since 1940, and the Friends Committee on National Legislation was the first--and for several decades the only--religious organization openly to register as a lobby. Registering as a lobby is significant, partly since it means that contributions to FCNL are not tax-exempt. Nearly all of the other religious advocacy offices in Washington still are not registered as lobbies.
39. J. Harold Sherk to Irvin B. Horst, Sept. 19, 1955, available in AMC IX-6-3-77, MCC Correspondence, file "Horst, Irvin B., 1955." Horst, then a young professor at Eastern Mennonite College, had prior service experience with MCC. Horst provided a one-page report on the explorations in New York and Washington in late 1956. "This project is unfinished," he wrote. "Something more on the doctrinal basis and historical background of our witness to the State needs to be done." The report was Exhibit III at the Dec. 27, 1956 annual meeting of MCC Peace Section. Available in AMC IX-12-4, file "MCC Peace Section Minutes, 1946-1956."
40. From minutes of MCC Peace Section Executive Committee meeting, March 1, 1957, available in AMC IX-12-4, file "MCC Peace Section Minutes, 12/29/54 to 12/13/58." One forward-looking paper presented at the conference was former MCC worker Elmer Neufeld's "Christian Responsibility in the Political Situation," published in MQR 32 (April 1958), 141-62.
41. From minutes of the MCC Peace Section Executive Committee meeting, Sept. 6, 1958, available in AMC IX-12-4, file "MCC Peace Section Minutes, 12/29/54 to 12/13/58."
42. (Newton, Kan.: Faith and Life Press, 1964). Yoder also did a series of articles titled "Questions on the Christian Witness to the State" for Gospel Herald, April to August 1963.
43. The projection turned out to be prophetically accurate, almost to the month. The five-year projection was Exhibit 4 at the Aug. 9-10, 1963 MCC Peace Section Executive Committee meeting, available in AMC IX-7-8, file 3/1.
44. The quote is from Unruh's Sept. 6, 1963 report to the MCC Peace Section Executive Committee, labeled Exhibit 6, available in AMC IX-7-8, file 3/1. Unruh was in Washington July 29 to August 24.

45. All of these remarks are from Unruh's seven-page report dated Sept. 6, 1963.
46. Information in this paragraph is gleaned from "The MCC Peace Section Washington Office: A Review," Attachment II to the MCC Peace Section minutes, March 29-31, 1973, available in AMC IX-7-8, file 3/8. In general, Mennonite Church leaders have been a bit more reluctant to engage the political sphere than have their General Conference siblings. This is partly due to the different experiences of Swiss and South German Anabaptists and the Dutch-North German-Russian Anabaptists. Although the latter generally were not involved in national politics, they did take more responsibility for life in the local community than did the Swiss and South German Anabaptists.
47. The following quotes from King are taken from his "A Report, Including Recommen-dations, to the MCC Peace Section on an Investigation of the Washington Scene in Order to Illumine Further Consideration of a Mennonite Office in the Nation's Capital" (unpublished paper, Sept. 1, 1966). Available from MCC Washington.
48. King also said a Washington office would be better than separate offices in selected state capitals. When the report was presented to MCC Peace Section Executive Committee, Canadian Frank Epp suggested several reasons why it might be better to have Mennonite's initial effort in this direction in Ottawa rather than Washington. See the minutes of the Sept. 1, 1966 MCC Peace Section Executive Committee meeting, available in AMC IX-7-8, file 3/4.
49. King, "Report," 19. Earlier (pp. 3-4) King spoke about various Washington agencies' "Mandates and Resolutions from Governing Bodies." At the time, the Presbyterian Office of Church and Society was one of the organizations most dependent on its governing body.
50. Available in AMC IX-7-8, file 3/5. In the same file, see also "A Message to Mennonite and Brethren in Christ Church Leaders and Peace Committees" (three-page paper adopted by MCC Peace Section, Jan. 19, 1967). The Section was attempting to sensitively interpret its mandate regarding the Christian witness to the state.
51. Throughout its history MCC Washington has been under criticism by some major segments of its Mennonite constituency for its existence as well as its "liberal" views on political matters. In my forthcoming text, see especially Chapter 4. One observer in 1978 said, "The truth is that almost as much of [MCC Washington's] time is spent trying to justify itself to the constituency as in trying to shape national policy." See Fred Swartzendruber, "A Mennonite Lobby in Washington?," Forum (Dec. 1978), 1-3. The balance of time spent in self-justification is considerably less today, but nearly all of the office's Washington seminars have this component.
52. From MCC Peace Section meeting minutes, March 8, 1967, available in AMC IX-7-8, file 3/5.
53. Noted in the minutes of the MCC Peace Section Executive Committee meeting on June 10, 1967, available in AMC IX-7-8, file 3/5.
54. Hershberger, "A Mennonite Office in Washington?," 186.
55. John E. Lapp and Guy F. Hershberger were among the peace church leaders who went to Washington to explain that if Congress made the bill law, many of the young people from the peace churches would go to jail in violation of the law. The senators with whom they spoke said they were unaware of the consequences of their action and did not want to put Mennonites and other COs in jail. The story of this incident is told in many places in Mennonite writings. Among them is William Keeney, "The Establishment of the Washington, D.C., and Ottawa Offices" (first draft of unpublished paper prepared as background for Kreider and Goossen's Hungry, Thirsty, a Stranger), 8. Available in MCC Washington files.
56. Hershberger, "A Mennonite Office in Washington?," 186. Hershberger's comments, as quoted here, suggest that more direct self-interest was involved in establishing the office than I have been proposing. I think that the 1967 Selective Service incident added urgency to MCC Peace Section's decision but that the direction had been established long before. The hope was to help others speak by bringing Mennonite overseas experience to bear in Washington. Later in the article Hershberger also broadens the reasons for opening MCC Washington.
57. Minutes of the June 10, 1967 MCC Peace Section Executive Committee meeting, available in AMC IX-7-8, file 3/5.
58. Available in AMC IX-7-8, file 3/6.
59. Later in "The Establishment," 8, William Keeney wrote that the "listening post" language indicated that the office was to be the eyes, ears, hands and feet for the churches, "not primarily the mouth except as specifically asked to speak for them."
60. A year later Franz moved the office around the corner into the United Methodist Building, heart of the "peace and justice" religious lobbying culture.
61. From Franz's March 1968 resume.
62. Staffer Ken Martens Friesen served as interim director from January to August 1994. J. Daryl Byler, a former pastor and attorney, became the office's second director in August 1994.
63. Most of this biographical information was gleaned from Franz's resume, his presen-tations at MCC Washington seminars, my interviews with him and two other sources: Delton Franz, as interviewed by Robert Kreider, "Planting a Church in a Changing City," Mennonite Life (March 1988), 23-27; and Alan J. Beitler, "The Impact of Social Context on Theological Belief and Political Involvement: The Life Stories of Three Mennonite Men" (M.A.P.S. thesis, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries, Elkhart, Ind., 1985).
64. Quotes in this paragraph are from Franz's draft copy of a 1977 "testimonial" prepared for The Mennonite. Available in MCC Washington files.
65. Franz's first-year salary was $7320; the office space at FCNL rented for $27 per month.
66. Franz obviously is the longest-term employee of MCC Washington, with about 26 years of service. Several dozen other persons, including student interns from Mennonite colleges, have served one- to ten-year terms in the office.
67. Considering the number of employees and the price of Capitol Hill office space, MCC Washington's annual budget, about $170,000, is remarkably low.
68. By late 1973 the Church of God in Christ, Emmanuel Mennonite Church and Conservative Mennonite Church had stopped sending representatives to Peace Section meetings. In August 1973 the Evangelical Mennonite Church formally withdrew from MCC Peace Section. Several years earlier the Evangelical Mennonite Brethren had officially withdrawn from MCC entirely. MCC Peace Section Executive Secretary Walton Hackman said two factors probably contributed to the withdrawals: (1) Selective Service was not actively drafting young men, so the Peace Section was less needed; and (2) "Among many church people--Mennonites and others--there seems to be a kind of reaction against social concerns." See Walton Hackman to Delton Franz, Nov. 29, 1973, available in AMC IX-7-13, file 1/3.
69. See Lynette Youndt Meck to MCC U.S. Board, Jan. 17, 1992, and the attached "Proposal to Dissolve the MCC U.S. Peace Section Board and to Transfer Those Responsibilities to the MCC U.S. Board." Available in MCC Washington files.
70. John Richard Burkholder, "Talking Back to Caesar: The Christian Witness to the State" (unpublished paper, 1984-85 C. Henry Smith Lecture), 7. Available from the author.