Religion does not play a leading role in my life. I long ago parted ways with the Catholic Church, over the issues of birth control and the role of women in the church. My boys spent a very short time in the Sunday school of our local United Church, but not long enough for anything to sink in. As a result, religion remains a mystery to them. I remember one Christmas time, asking my young son to tell me whose birthday we were celebrating. He got that wide-eyed, panicked look that says, oh no, it’s a test I haven’t studied for, then he said nervously, “Saint Nicholas?”
My father grew up knowing the correct answer to that question. And also the names of all the books in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, and in the correct order. He attended four church services a week, three on Sunday, plus summer Bible school for two weeks every year. This was the way of the Pentecostal church, the church of my grandmother, Mabel Augusta Wilcox Eckhardt.
“They called us ‘holy rollers’” my father tells me. “Thought we rolled around on the floor yelling.” Although there was more singing than yelling in my father’s church, the Pentecostals are a branch of conservative Protestants who emphasize the work of the Holy Spirit, including direct experiences of the Holy Spirit which result in “speaking in tongues” – either a language unknown to the speaker, or a language unknown to anyone.
My grandfather Albert Eckhardt’s parents were both from Pennsylvania German Mennonite stock. They attended the first Mennonite church in Canada, built in 1801 on part of Jacob Moyer’s farm in Vineland. On his mother’s side, Albert was the 6th generation of attendees at that church.
The Mennonite faith was and is a belief system that governs all the actions of everyday life. Followers are baptized by choice, as adults, not as children. People in the community hold each other accountable for living according to the model set by Jesus. Traditionally, Mennonites do not bear arms, nor do they defend themselves with force.
By Albert’s time, the Mennonite influence was almost completely diluted. Albert did not attend church, nor did he speak German (the language of First Mennonite Church in Vineland for generations). When called up for the First World War, he did not declare himself a conscientious objector, but stated his religion was Mennonite on his recruitment papers and went overseas.
Catholicism dominates my mother’s side of the family – the religion that all the Eckhardt side’s religions were created in protest of. (In fact, “Protestant” comes from the word “protest.”) The Catholic Church is also historically a strong dictator of behaviours. Before my Pentecostal father could marry my Catholic mother in 1953, the priest told him he had to convert to Catholicism. He refused, and the priest refused to marry them. So my mother told the priest they’d “go down the street” and find someone else to do the job, upon which the priest relented, on the condition that my father agreed to undergo Catholic instruction. He dutifully reported for the first session, and found to his delight that Father Joe was as big a baseball fan as he was. So the two of them met regularly and talked baseball – which is of course, to many people, a religion unto itself.
Oh man, I LOVE that baseball story :). I got another of Edna Staebler’s cookbooks for Christmas – Schmeks Appeal – and it’s full of little anecdotes about Mennonite life. I’m loving it – basically reading it cover to cover, unusual for a cookbook! I’m also non-religious but I find the belief systems of others to be fascinating. Some great stories there!
And there’s more! I’ve just learned that my great-grandmother Sarah Fretz Eckhardt (daughter-in-law of the elusive Fredrick) was one of the founders of the Pentecostal church in Vineland. It seems her influence resulted in my father and all his siblings going to that church. The Pentecostals also baptize adults; my dad remembers being baptized in Lake Ontario near Jordon Harbour.