A Usable Past: A Story of Living and Thinking Vocationally at the Margins

Christendom or believers church? Here a twentieth-century Anabaptist ponders this and other key questions while telling his 90-year life story. As he records, Peachey was shaped in the free church tradition and by encountering a traumatized post-World War II Europe. From that vantage point, he and Mennonite colleagues saw strengths in their heritage and developed concerns that their denomination’s focus on professionalization and institution building risked hiding the Anabaptist light under a bushel. This led to the "Concern" movement, whose themes still resonate in Peachey’s quest to discern whether his is "a usable past" able to offer fruitful perspectives on contemporary trends.