John F. Funk
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John Fretz Funk (April 6, 1835 – January 8, 1930) was a publisher and leader of the
Biography
Early life
John Fretz Funk was born on April 6, 1835, in
Attended Freeland Seminary (now Ursinus College) to become a public school teacher but taught for only two years in his home community before accepting the invitation of his brother-in-law Jacob Beidler to go, in 1857, to Chicago, Illinois, to join him in his lumber business.[2]
Chicago
In Chicago, Funk converted, in 1858, to
In 1860, Funk returned home to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to be baptized in the
Elkhart
In 1867, John F. Funk moved to Elkhart, Indiana, with his wife and young daughter.
On January 8, 1930, John F. Funk died at the age of 94 and was buried in the Prairie Street Cemetery.
Ministry
In Chicago in 1861, Funk was made superintendent of the Milwaukee Depot Sunday School.[4]
Funk was ordained as a minister for a Mennonite congregation near Gardner, Illinois, in 1865.[4]
About 1866, Funk and Peter Neff began a small Mennonite congregation in Chicago which lasted until Neff's house, the church's meeting place, was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.[5]
Prairie Street Mennonite Church
In 1870, Funk and other Mennonites living in and around Elkhart began meeting for church services in members' homes. A church building was completed in 1871 and the church was thereafter named Prairie Street Mennonite Church after the road on which it was situated.[6]
Funk became a
Publishing
As a young man in Pennsylvania, Funk wrote some letters to the editor of the local paper. When he moved to Chicago, he began to subscribe to Das Christliche Volks-Blatt, a paper edited by John H. Oberholtzer who had broken from the Mennonite Church near Funk's hometown.[5]
In 1863, in the midst of the American Civil War, Funk published War: Its Evils, Our Duty, his first printing endeavor.[4]
On moving to Elkhart, Funk began his publishing company, originally named "John F. Funk and Brother" (as his younger brother A. K. Funk joined him in the venture). The company was incorporated as Mennonite Publishing Company in 1875.[2]
The most well known and enduring works to come out of Funk's publishing house were the English translations of The Complete Works of Menno Simons and Martyrs Mirror.
Herald of Truth
In 1864, John F. Funk began the
Young Denominational Leaders
Funk's publishing company attracted many young men who went on to be leaders in the
- John S. Coffman
- John Horsch
- G. L. Bender
- H. A. Mumaw
Decline
John A. Hostetler argues in God Uses Ink that Funk's removal from his position of Bishop in 1902, increasing competition from the Mennonite Tract and Book Society as well as the Gospel Witness, bankruptcy due to a bank failure in 1904, and finally a devastating fire in 1907 caused the steep decline in the fortunes of John F. Funk's Mennonite Publishing Company.[7] James C. Juhnke argues that many of those factors reflected Funk's unwillingness to yield to a younger generation of Mennonite leaders.[8] In any case, all of the company's periodicals were sold to the Mennonite Publishing Board in 1908.[9]
Aid to Russian Mennonite Immigrants
When, in the 1870s, the
Legacy
John F. Funk is credited with introducing
Funk collected many volumes of Mennonite history which formed the core of the Mennonite Historical Library.[2]
One of Funk's daughters, Phoebe, married Abram B. Kolb, who worked with Funk at the Mennonite Publishing Company.[11]
Funk's personal papers are housed in the Mennonite Church USA Archives.
Works
- Warfare: Its Evils, Our Duty, 1863.
- The Mennonite Church and Her Accusers; a vindication of the character of the Mennonite Church of America from her first organization in this country to the present time, 1878
- A Biographical Sketch of Bishop Christian Herr, compiled by John F. Funk, 1887
- The Peaceful Kingdom of Christ or An Exposition of the 20th Chapter of the Book of Revelations, by Peter J. Twisk Translated by John F. Funk, 1913
References
- ^ "John Fretz Funk, 1835-1930, Collection". Archived from the original on 2009-03-23. Retrieved 2009-03-15.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Bender, Harold S. "Funk, John Fretz (1835-1930)". Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Herald Press. Retrieved 11 January 2012.[permanent dead link]
- ^ a b c Gates, Helen Kolb (1964). Bless The Lord O My Soul: A Biography of John Fretz Funk. Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press.
- ^ a b c Kolb, A. C. (July 1932). "John Fretz Funk 1835-1930: An Appreciation". Mennonite Quarterly Review. 6 (3): 144–155. Retrieved 5 March 2012.
- ^ a b Liechty, Joseph; James O. Lehman (July 1985). "From Yankee to Nonresistant: John F. Funk's Chicago Years, 1857-1865". Mennonite Quarterly Review. 59 (3): 203–247. Retrieved 5 March 2012.
- ^ Mishler, Dorsa (1996). The Prairie Street Mennonite Story: 1871-1996. Elkhart, IN: Mennonite Board of Missions. p. 98.
- ^ Hostetler, John A. (1958). God Uses Ink. Scottdale, PA: Mennonite Publishing House.
- ISBN 9780836131048.
- ^ Bender, H. S. "Mennonite Publishing Company". Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Herald Press. Retrieved 7 March 2012.
- ^ Schnell, Kempes (1 July 1950). "John F. Funk, 1835-1930, and the Mennonite Migration of 1873-1875". Mennonite Quarterly Review. XXIV (3): 199–229. Retrieved 23 January 2012.
- ^ Steiner, Sam. "Kolb, Abram B. (1862-1925)". Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Herald Press. Archived from the original on 28 September 2011. Retrieved 11 January 2012.