A Modest Mennonite Home

A Modest Mennonite Home
Author: Steve Friesen
Publisher: Intercourse, Penn. : Good Books
Total Pages: 136
Release: 1990
Genre: History
ISBN:

In this 128 page book, Steve Friesen tells the story of the Hans Herr House located in an area known as "Conestoga" in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. It was built in 1719 by Mennonites who traveled west from Philadelphia to settle in this area of Pennsylvania. To this day, the house remains an integral part of not only Lancaster County history, but that of the settlement by Mennonites nearly 300 years ago. Includes several black and white photos, illustrations and a few color photos as well.

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress
Author: Rhoda Janzen
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2009-10-13
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 080508925X

In the spirit of Anne Lamott and Nora Ephron comes Janze's hilarious and moving memoir about a woman who returns home to her close-knit Mennonite family after a personal crisis.

Horse-and-buggy Mennonites

Horse-and-buggy Mennonites
Author: Donald B. Kraybill
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2006
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0271028653

Examining how the Wengers have cautiously and incrementally adapted to the changes swirling around them, this book offers an invaluable case study of a traditional group caught in the throes of a postmodern world."--Jacket.

Menno-lite

Menno-lite
Author: Merle Good
Publisher:
Total Pages: 100
Release: 2001
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 9781561482955

A lighthearted look at Mennonite life and practice, with all the quirky foibles and contradictions of an idealistic (but imperfect) people. Includes "Sentences Mennonites struggle to finish," "10 movies Mennonites should make," "Top 10 ways to spot an ex-Mennonite," "How to travel simply (cheaply) by depending on (sponging off) other Mennonites," and much more!

The Riddle of Amish Culture

The Riddle of Amish Culture
Author: Donald B. Kraybill
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 586
Release: 2003-05-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0801876311

Revised edition of this classic work brings the story of the Amish into the 21st century. Since its publication in 1989, The Riddle of Amish Culture has become recognized as a classic work on one of America's most distinctive religious communities. But many changes have occurred within Amish society over the past decade, from westward migrations and a greater familiarity with technology to the dramatic shift away from farming into small business which is transforming Amish culture. For this revised edition, Donald B. Kraybill has taken these recent changes into account, incorporating new demographic research and new interviews he has conducted among the Amish. In addition, he includes a new chapter describing Amish recreation and social gatherings, and he applies the concept of "social capital" to his sensitive and penetrating interpretation of how the Amish have preserved their social networks and the solidarity of their community.

Surrendered Love

Surrendered Love
Author: Laura V. Hilton
Publisher: Whitaker House
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2013-03-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1603747311

Janna Kauffman enjoys working as a personal shopper for the homebound in her Amish community. But when her wayward niece comes to live with her family, Janna finds herself spending less time shopping and more time explaining Meghan’s erratic behavior to the local authorities. Her dealings with the law aren’t entirely bad, though, as they bring her back into contact with a childhood crush.Police officer Troy Troyer shed his given name when he left the Amish eight years ago in an effort to escape his demons. He has no intentions of going back, either—not even for Janna Kauffman, the girl he’s admired as long as he can remember. He can’t believe his luck when she still welcomes a relationship with him, and he does his best to straddle both worlds, even as he questions the point in pursuing a love that cannot last. Caught up in the exhilaration of their youthful dreams coming true, the couple makes a brash decision that jeopardizes the reputations of Janna and her father, the local bishop, and also threatens to destroy the fragile stability being built into Meghan’s life. It will require the power of forgiveness to mend broken bonds and pave a path for future bliss.

Thrill of the Chaste

Thrill of the Chaste
Author: Valerie Weaver-Zercher
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 339
Release: 2013-04-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1421408902

Weaver-Zercher blends academic analysis with her own experiences of researching, reading, and talking with others about Amish fiction in order to explore the phenomenon, with particular attention to the hypermodernity and hypersexuality that are fueling the appeal of the genre for evangelical Christian readers.

Architecture and Artifacts of the Pennsylvania Germans: Constructing Identity in Early America

Architecture and Artifacts of the Pennsylvania Germans: Constructing Identity in Early America
Author:
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 264
Release:
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9780271047430

How did a mid-eighteenth-century group, the so-called Pennsylvania Germans, build their cultural identity in the face of ethnic stereotyping, nostalgic ideals, and the views imposed by outside contemporaries? Numerous forces create a group's identity, including the views of outsiders, insiders, and the shaping pressure of religious beliefs, but to understand the process better, we must look to clues from material culture. Cynthia Falk explores the relationship between ethnicity and the buildings, personal belongings, and other cultural artifacts of early Pennsylvania German immigrants and their descendants. Such material culture has been the basis of stereotyping Pennsylvania Germans almost since their arrival. Falk warns us against the typical scholarly overemphasis on Pennsylvania Germans' assimilation into an English way of life. Rather, she demonstrates that more than anything, socioeconomic status and religious affiliation influenced the character of the material culture of Pennsylvania Germans. Her work also shows how early Pennsylvania Germans defined their own identities.

Chosen Nation

Chosen Nation
Author: Benjamin W. Goossen
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2019-05-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 069119274X

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the global Mennonite church developed an uneasy relationship with Germany. Despite the religion's origins in the Swiss and Dutch Reformation, as well as its longstanding pacifism, tens of thousands of members embraced militarist German nationalism. Chosen Nation is a sweeping history of this encounter and the debates it sparked among parliaments, dictatorships, and congregations across Eurasia and the Americas. Offering a multifaceted perspective on nationalism's emergence in Europe and around the world, Benjamin Goossen demonstrates how Mennonites' nationalization reflected and reshaped their faith convictions. While some church leaders modified German identity along Mennonite lines, others appropriated nationalism wholesale, advocating a specifically Mennonite version of nationhood. Examining sources from Poland to Paraguay, Goossen shows how patriotic loyalties rose and fell with religious affiliation. Individuals might claim to be German at one moment but Mennonite the next. Some external parties encouraged separatism, as when the Weimar Republic helped establish an autonomous "Mennonite State" in Latin America. Still others treated Mennonites as quintessentially German; under Hitler's Third Reich, entire colonies benefited from racial warfare and genocide in Nazi-occupied Ukraine. Whether choosing Germany as a national homeland or identifying as a chosen people, called and elected by God, Mennonites committed to collective action in ways that were intricate, fluid, and always surprising. The first book to place Christianity and diaspora at the heart of nationality studies, Chosen Nation illuminates the rising religious nationalism of our own age.

Lancaster County

Lancaster County
Author: Ed Klimuska, Keith Baum, Jerry Irwin
Publisher:
Total Pages: 148
Release: 1975
Genre: Lancaster County (Pa.)
ISBN: 9781610604338

Our local experts tell the whole story of this remarkable area.