General cultural developments by the latter 1930s had made a number of American Mennonite leaders conscious of the need for periodic discussion of common problems on an inter-Mennonite basis. Acting on this awareness, Harold S. Bender, Guy F. Hershberger, Melvin Gingerich, and J. Winfield Fretz took the initiative in organizing a program for a one-day discussion of some of the common problems confronting Mennonites. It was called a Conference on Mennonite Sociology and was held on 31 December 1941 in the YMCA Hotel in Chicago, 47 of the 53 invited guests being present. It was unanimously agreed that further conferences should be held. A committee drew up a two-day program for a conference to be held on 7-8 August 1942. There were 119 registered guests at the first session of what came to be known as the Conference on Mennonite Cultural Problems.

The first six sessions were held annually, but from 1949 on it was decided to meet every two years, usually on Mennonite and Brethren in Christ college campuses on a rotating basis. Although this conference had a spontaneous origin by a group of interested individuals, it was decided at the first meeting to place the responsibility for future conferences in the hands of a more permanently organized group. The group chosen was the Council of Mennonite and Affiliated Colleges, which is a loosely organized association of college administrators. This Council appointed the program committee for the Cultural Conference sessions and assumed financial responsibility for the publication of the conference proceedings, which appeared regularly.

The significance of the Cultural Conference sessions was becoming more apparent as the results of its first ten sessions could be appraised. It provided the occasion for a periodic meeting of Mennonite and affiliated college faculty members to discuss common cultural problems. It stimulated intellectual inquiry and academic research in areas and on problems that universities and non-Mennonite colleges would normally not touch. It provided a method for regularly collecting and publishing research data, which in turn became valuable documentary material for further reference and study.

The last meeting of the Conference on Mennonite Educational and Cultural Problems (as it became known in 1951) was held in 1967. Proceedings of the 16 conferences are held at most Mennonite historical libraries.

Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Scottdale, Pennsylvania, and Waterloo, Ontario, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 3, pp. 619-620. All rights reserved. For information on ordering the encyclopedia visit the Herald Press website.

©1996-2008 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved.

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