Concise Encyclopedia of Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites

Concise Encyclopedia of Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites

Author: Donald B. Kraybill

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2010-11-01

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 0801899117

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Donald B. Kraybill has spent his career among Anabaptist groups, gaining an unparalleled understanding of these traditionally private people. Kraybill shares that deep knowledge in this succinct overview of the beliefs and cultural practices of Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites in North America. Found throughout Canada, Central America, Mexico, and the United States, these religious communities include more than 200 different groups with 800,000 members in 17 countries. Through 340 short entries, Kraybill offers readers information on a wide range of topics related to religious views and social practices. With thoughtful consideration of how these diverse communities are related, this compact reference provides a brief and accurate synopsis of these groups in the twenty-first century. No other single volume provides such a broad overview of Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites in North America. Organized for ease of searching—with a list of entries, a topic finder, an index of names, and ample cross-references—the volume also includes abundant resources for accessing additional information. Wide in scope, succinct in content, and with directional markers along the way, the Concise Encyclopedia of Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites is a must-have reference for anyone interested in Anabaptist groups.


California Mennonites

California Mennonites

Author: Brian Froese

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2015-02-19

Total Pages: 365

ISBN-13: 1421415135

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How did California Mennonites confront the challenges and promises of modernity? Books about Mennonites have centered primarily on the East Coast and the Midwest, where the majority of Mennonite communities in the United States are located. But these narratives neglect the unique history of the multitude of Mennonites living on the West Coast. In California Mennonites, Brian Froese relies on archival church records to examine the Mennonite experience in the Golden State, from the nineteenth-century migrants who came in search of sunshine and fertile soil to the traditionally agrarian community that struggled with issues of urbanization, race, gender, education, and labor in the twentieth century to the evangelically oriented, partially assimilated Mennonites of today. Froese places Mennonite experiences against a backdrop of major historical events, including World War II and Vietnam, and social issues, from labor disputes to the evolution of mental health care. California Mennonites include people who embrace a range of ideologies: many are historically rooted in the sixteenth-century Reformation ideals of the early Anabaptists (pacifism, congregationalism, discipleship); some embrace twentieth-century American evangelicalism (missions, Billy Graham); and others are committed to a type of social justice that involves forging practical ties to secular government programs while maintaining a quiet connection to religion. Through their experiences of religious diversity, changing demographics, and war, California Mennonites have wrestled with complicated questions of what it means to be American, Mennonite, and modern. This book—the first of its kind—will appeal to historians and religious studies scholars alike.


The Drama of a Rural Community’s Life Cycle

The Drama of a Rural Community’s Life Cycle

Author: S. Roy Kaufman

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2020-09-22

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1725269910

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Rural communities depend on the health of the agrarian cultures that compose them. These cultures grow out of the symbiotic relationship between a particular landscape and the human community that lives on and uses the land. Agrarian cultures had their origin in the development of agriculture and gave birth to the civilizations and empires of history. Based on the exercise of hierarchical power characteristic of their nature, empires and civilizations are always a threat to the welfare of their agrarian cultures, that by nature tend to be local, relational, reciprocal, and ecological. This is the story of the three Anabaptist agrarian cultures--Swiss German, Low German, and Hutterian--of the Freeman, South Dakota, rural community, and their sojourn within the empires of civilization through the centuries. More specifically, this is the story of their birth, growth, maturation, and death (or rebirth?) in the particular landscape of the Great Plains to which they came from Russia in the 1870s. Here we see the agrarian cultures' struggle to adapt to the new environment of the Great Plains and to maintain their unique identity while living within American society. This is the drama of a rural community's life cycle!


Peace, Progress and the Professor

Peace, Progress and the Professor

Author: Perry Bush

Publisher: MennoMedia, Inc.

Published: 2015-09-15

Total Pages: 608

ISBN-13: 0836147588

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What does it mean to be Mennonite in the modern world? And what is the witness of a peace church that is always at risk of splintering? C. Henry Smith—son of an Amish family, erudite historian, urbane bank president, and pioneer of Mennonite scholarship—sought answers to these questions in the middle of the 20th century, and his answers reverberate through the church to this day. In this engaging narrative biography, historian Perry Bush chronicles Smith’s childhood in an Illinois farming community, his youthful turn toward intellectual inquiry, and his confidence that Anabaptist faith and life offer gifts to the wider world. By recounting the story of one of the foremost Mennonite intellectuals, Bush surveys the storied terrain of 20th-century Mennonite identity in its selective borrowing from wider culture and its tentative embrace of progressive reforms and higher education, and growing conviction that Anabaptism served as a taproot of Western civilization. Bush argues that Smith’s body of historical writing furnished a new generation of Mennonites with both an understanding of their shared past and the tools to navigate an ever-shifting present. Volume 49 in the Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History Series.


A History of the Amish

A History of the Amish

Author: Steven M. Nolt

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2016-02-02

Total Pages: 435

ISBN-13: 1680991094

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The Amish, one of America’s most intriguingly private, unique, and often misunderstood religious communities, have survived for three hundred years! How has that happened? While much has been written on the Amish, little has been revealed about their history. This book brings together in one volume a thorough history of the Amish people. From their beginnings in Europe through their settlement in North America, the Amish have struggled to maintain their beliefs and traditions in often hostile settings. Now updated, the book gives an in-depth look at how the modern Amish church continues to grow and change. It covers recent developments in new Amish settlements, the community’s conflict and negotiation with government, the Nickel Mines school shooting, and the media’s constant fascination with this religious people, from reality TV shows to romance novels. Authoritative, thorough, and interestingly written, A History of the Amish presents the deep and rich heritage of the Amish people with dozens of illustrations and updated statistics. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.


Searching for Sacred Ground

Searching for Sacred Ground

Author: Raylene Hinz-Penner

Publisher:

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13:

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Through the story of Lawrence Hart, Raylene Hinz-Penner bridges the Mennonite world and the world of the Cheyenne-Arapaho people. This is a story that cuts against the grain of the expectations of who American Indians are and what American Indians can do.


Mennonites, Politics, and Peoplehood

Mennonites, Politics, and Peoplehood

Author: James Urry

Publisher: Univ. of Manitoba Press

Published: 2011-07-15

Total Pages: 782

ISBN-13: 0887554113

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Mennonites and their forebears are usually thought to be a people with little interest or involvement in politics. Mennonites, Politics, and Peoplehood reveals that since their early history, Mennonites have, in fact, been active participants in worldly politics. From western to eastern Europe and through different migrations to North America, James Urry’s meticulous research traces Mennonite links with kingdoms, empires, republics, and democratic nations in the context of peace, war, and revolution. Urry stresses a degree of Mennonite involvement in politics not previously discussed in literature, including Mennonite participation in constitutional reform and party politics, and shows the polarization of their political views from conservatism to liberalism and even revolutionary activities. Urry looks at the Mennonite reaction to politics and political events from the Reformation onwards and focuses particularly on those people who settled in Russia and their descendants who came to Manitoba. Using a wide variety of sources, Mennonites, Politics, and Peoplehood combines an inter-disciplinary approach to reveal that Mennonites, far from being the “Quiet in the Land,” have deep roots in politics.


A Pilgrimage of Faith

A Pilgrimage of Faith

Author: John B. Toews

Publisher: Kindred Productions (c) 1993

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 9780921788171

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It is now [1990] one hundred and thirty years since the birth of the Mennonite Brethren Church and therefore time for someone in that church to take a backward glance to see how things have developed. Who better to do this John B. Toews. His life spans well over half of those years and he has experienced much of what he writes. "JB" as he is affectionately known by both students and colleagues is a patriarchal figure in the Mennonite Brethren Church. Born in Ukraine, the Russian Revolution and its aftermath were the crucible that shaped his youth and young adult years. After studying in Western Europe, Toews immigrated to Canada in the late 1920s. Much of his life has been in Mennonite Brethren educational institutions in Canada and the United States. During ten years as Executive Secretary of the Mennonite Brethren Board of Missions he traveled widely and came to know Mennonite Brethren people around the world. In between educational and mission administrative responsibilities he pastored in Kansas and California. After retiring from the presidency of the Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary he became the founding Director of the Historical Commission of the Mennonite Brethren Church.