Land, Piety, Peoplehood

Land, Piety, Peoplehood
Author: Richard Kerwin MacMaster
Publisher: Herald Press (VA)
Total Pages: 352
Release: 1985
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

The Mennonite Experience in America Series weaves together the histories of all Mennonite and Amish groups in the United States. It offers something new in Mennonite and Amish history: an attempt to tell not only the inside story but also how one religious people, or set of peoples, has lived and developed along with the pluralism of the nation.Richard K. MacMaster follows the Mennonite migration to the New World and analyzes the economic, social, political, and religious forces which drove these people out of the Old World into America. MacMaster paints a portrait of the lives of the early American Mennonite people: their wealth, migration patterns, social structures, family patterns, and changing attitudes toward education. He traces the influence of such movements as Pietism on these people and shows how they fit into the total context of colonial and revolutionary America. Volume 1.

An Introduction to Mennonite History

An Introduction to Mennonite History
Author: Cornelius J. Dyck
Publisher: MennoMedia, Inc.
Total Pages: 563
Release: 1993-07-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 083619733X

A unique resource for a generation, the preeminent textbook in its field. Cornelius J. Dyck interacts with the many changes in the Anabaptist/Mennonite experience and historical understandings in this revised and updated edition. This is a history of Mennonites from the 16th century to the present. Though simply written, it reflects fine scholarship and deep Christian concern.

In Search of Promised Lands

In Search of Promised Lands
Author: Samuel J. Steiner
Publisher: MennoMedia, Inc.
Total Pages: 675
Release: 2015-03-09
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0836199804

The wide-ranging story of Mennonite migration, theological diversity, and interaction with other Christian streams is distilled in this engaging volume, which tracks the history of Ontario Mennonites. Author Samuel J. Steiner writes that Ontario Mennonites and Amish are among the most diverse in the world—in their historical migrations and cultural roots, in their theological responses to the world around them, and in the various ways they have pursued their personal and communal salvation. In Search of Promised Lands describes the emergence and evolution of today’s 30-plus streams of Ontarians who have identified themselves as Mennonite or Amish from their arrival in Canada to the last decade. In Search of Promised Lands also considers how various Mennonite groups have adapted to or resisted evangelical fundamentalism and mainline Protestantism, and it identifies the nineteenth- and twentieth-century shifts toward personal salvation and away from submission to the church community. Volume 48 in the Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History series. Find out more about Ontario Mennonite and Amish history at the author’s blog.

A Peculiar Mixture

A Peculiar Mixture
Author: Jan Stievermann
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2015-06-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 0271063009

Through innovative interdisciplinary methodologies and fresh avenues of inquiry, the nine essays collected in A Peculiar Mixture endeavor to transform how we understand the bewildering multiplicity and complexity that characterized the experience of German-speaking people in the middle colonies. They explore how the various cultural expressions of German speakers helped them bridge regional, religious, and denominational divides and eventually find a way to partake in America’s emerging national identity. Instead of thinking about early American culture and literature as evolving continuously as a singular entity, the contributions to this volume conceive of it as an ever-shifting and tangled “web of contact zones.” They present a society with a plurality of different native and colonial cultures interacting not only with one another but also with cultures and traditions from outside the colonies, in a “peculiar mixture” of Old World practices and New World influences. Aside from the editors, the contributors are Rosalind J. Beiler, Patrick M. Erben, Cynthia G. Falk, Marie Basile McDaniel, Philip Otterness, Liam Riordan, Matthias Schönhofer, and Marianne S. Wokeck.

Where the People Go

Where the People Go
Author: John D. Roth
Publisher: MennoMedia, Inc.
Total Pages: 381
Release: 2020-06-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1513806793

A barn raising. A quilting bee. A credit union. A socially responsible investment. Where the People Go tells the story of Anabaptist-Mennonite efforts to enable communal forms of sharing. Mutual aid, stewardship, and generosity are deeply embedded in the Christian faith and have been actively nurtured among Anabaptist-Mennonite groups. Spontaneous forms of assistance—a barn raising, a quilting bee, shared meals—are the best-known expressions of such compassion and generosity, but the commitment to “sharing one another’s burdens” has also found expression in more formal structures. Seventy-five years ago, Mennonite Mutual Aid emerged to organize the principle of sharing within a growing Mennonite denomination. A dynamic organization from the beginning, MMA moved quickly from a burial and survivor’s aid plan to include health, property, and automobile insurance. In coming decades, the organization shifted its focus from mutual aid to stewardship and generosity, symbolized by a growing emphasis on socially responsible investment programs, wholistic health, financial planning, and services associated with its member-owned credit union. Always an agency of the Mennonite church, MMA, now known as Everence, has balanced its spiritual commitments with an increasingly complex regulatory environment, the national strains associated with the health-care debate, the shifting sensibilities of its customers, and the organizational complexities of a major corporation. This story of Everence captures the stresses and idealism of a church-related institution committed to mutual aid, stewardship, and generosity during its seventy-five-year history.

Resist!

Resist!
Author: Michael G. Long
Publisher: Orbis Books
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2014-07-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1608330516

A Companion to German Pietism, 1660-1800

A Companion to German Pietism, 1660-1800
Author: Douglas Shantz
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 585
Release: 2014-11-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004283862

A Companion to German Pietism offers an introduction to recent Pietism scholarship on both sides of the Atlantic, in German, Dutch, and English. The focus is upon early modern German Pietism, a movement that arose in the late 17th century German Empire within both Reformed and Lutheran traditions. It introduced a new paradigm to German Protestantism that included personal renewal, new birth, women-dominated conventicles, and millennialism. The “Introduction” offers a concise overview of modern research into German Pietism. The Companion is then organized according to the different worlds of Pietist existence—intellectual, devotional, literary-cultural, and social-political.

Radicals and Reformers

Radicals and Reformers
Author: Troy Osborne
Publisher: MennoMedia, Inc.
Total Pages: 463
Release: 2024-06-04
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1513813331

With Bibles and baptism, a movement was born. From renegade gatherings of Christian believers in the 1500s to a global communion of more than 2.1 million members, the Anabaptist-Mennonite movement has been marked by faithfulness and failure, continuity and conflict, radicalism and reformation. In this engaging history, Radicals and Reformers traces the origins and development of the Anabaptist and Mennonite movements from their beginnings in Europe through their spread across the globe. In this new authoritative introduction to Anabaptist history, historian Troy Osborne reflects on the ways that Anabaptists have defined their identity in new settings and in response to new theological, intellectual, geographic, and political contexts. Drawing from current scholarship and a range of written and visual sources, this book provides an overview of how Mennonites from Zurich to Zimbabwe have adapted to or resisted the world around them.

The New Conscientious Objection

The New Conscientious Objection
Author: Charles C. Moskos
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 1993-04-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0195359933

Although conscientious objection is a long-standing phenomenon, it has only recently become a major factor affecting armed forces and society. The only comprehensive, comparative scholarly study of conscientious objection to military service, this book examines the history of the practice in the Western world and state policies that have grown up in response to it. It shows how the contemporary refusal to bear arms is likely to be secular and widespread rather than religious and marginal, now including service people (as seen in the 1991 War in the Persian Gulf) as well as conscription resisters. No account of civil-military relations or peace movements in advanced industrial countries is complete without reference to conscientious objection, and this book will be the standard text on the subject.

20 Most Asked Questions about the Amish and Mennonites

20 Most Asked Questions about the Amish and Mennonites
Author: Merle Good
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 120
Release: 2001-11-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 168099218X

Sensitively answers the most common inquiries about Amish and Mennonite peoples. Authoritative, sympathetic, and thorough. 20 Most Asked Questions looks at origins, dress, pacifism, education, weddings, funerals, and food, as well as many other facets of Amish and Mennonite life. This book has sold more than 200,000 copies. 1. What is the difference between the Amish and the Mennonites? 2. When and how did these people get started? 3. Are they a Christian group or do they represent a different religion? 4. Aren’t they a bit naive and backward? Why don’t they accept modern things? 5. Does anyone ever join them? Does anyone ever leave? 6. Why do they dress that way? 7. Is it true they don’t go to war? 8. Why are they against education? 9. Why are they such good farmers? 10. Why don’t they pay Social Security taxes? 11. Do any of the Amish or Mennonite groups believe in missions? 12. What are their weddings like? 13. How are their women and children treated? 14. Is food a part of their religion? 15. Do they go to doctors and hospitals? 16. What about burial? 17. Don’t they believe in having fun? 18. What are some of their problems? 19. Are they growing or dying in number? 20. What, in fact, holds them together?