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Plain People and the Refinement of America
(Continued from the previous page)
Who are the “Plain People”?
But if the story and definition of simplicity is far from simple, making sense of the groups which lay claim to its title can be equally complicated. There is tremendous variety even within the Northern Indiana-Southern Michigan region popularly called “Michiana.” Using the Mennonite Yearbook, Mennonite Church Information, Mennonite Directory, Brethren Encyclopedia, and Amish directories to generate a list of these groups yields more than 200 congregations in 1999.13 (See chart below)
Beachy Amish Mennonite 8 congregations Bethel Conservative Mennonite Fellowship 1 congregation Brethren in Christ 3 congregations Central District (General Conf. Mennonite Church) 6 congregations Church of the Brethren 28 congregations Conservative Mennonite Conference 8 congregations Dually-affiliated GCMC/MC 3 congregations Dually-affiliated MC/COB 1 congregation Dunkard Brethren 1 congregation Indiana-Michigan Mennonite Conference (MC) 42 congregations Mennonite Biblical Alliance 1 congregation Mid-West Mennonite Fellowship 4 congregations Nationwide Fellowship Churches (Mennonite) 1 congregation Ohio-Indiana Mennonite. Conf. (“Wisler” Mennonites) 2 congregations Old Brethren 1 congregation Old German Baptist Brethren 1 congregation Old Order Amish (Elkhart-LaGrange) approx. 103 districts Old Order Amish (Nappanee) 35 districts Old Order Mennonite—Groffdale Conference 3 meetinghouses Old Order Mennonite (Weaver group) 1 congregation unaffiliated conservative Mennonites 3 congregations
(These groups are drawn from the following addresses: Benton, Bremen, Bristol, Burr Oak, Cassopolis, Centerville, Colon, Constantine, Dowagiac, Elkhart, Foraker, Goshen, LaGrange, Middlebury, Milford, Millersburg, Nappanee, New Paris, North Liberty, Nottawa, Osceola, Shipshewana, South Bend, Sturgis, Syracuse, Three Rivers, Topeka, Wakarusa, and White Pigeon.)
Each of these groups has its own history and within each group there are very different stories. For example, current members of the Beachy Amish Fellowship, such as Woodlawn and Fair Haven, emerged for different reasons and affiliated with the Beachy movement at different times. Similarly, congregations of the General Conference Mennonite Central District include those which were once Central Conference Mennonites (e.g., Silverwood and Eighth Street), a congregation that was always General Conference (Hively Avenue) and one which was Old Mennonite and then General Conference, but never Central Conference (First/West Market Street, Nappanee).Some readers might want to add to this list denominations which have historic ties to these groups, such as the Missionary Church or the Brethren Church (Ashland).
While one could go through this list and discuss the unique story of each, that might only add to the confusion that many feel when faced with such an enumeration.14 Instead, I would like to suggest one way of thinking about these groups and their relationships to one another. This is admittedly my own mental picture, but I have found it a helpful way of making sense of the diversity and organizing my thinking.
First, we should note that the most common way observers think about these groups is to line them up on a continuum using some sort of conservative-to-progressive gradation. There is some reason for thinking this way—Old Order folks, for example, often talk about “higher” or “lower” groups, suggesting a sort of linear arrangement. People who have switched churches tend to talk about moving from a more conservative to a more liberal group, or vice versa. Even the Mennonite Encyclopedia, vol. 5, uses this basic approach in a spectrum chart to describe Conservative Amish and Mennonite groups of Swiss origin. This is still essentially a linear way of organizing them.15
I find such continua a confusing way of thinking about the “Plain churches.” Such models contain an assumed understanding of what is traditional and what is progressive. When I try to make those assumptions more explicit, I find that they contain elements of different sorts. Some have to do with how one thinks about church, and others have to do with uses of technology or the nature of interaction with larger society. These things are related in some cases, but they are, in the end, different.
In thinking about Anabaptist groups, I begin by looking at the major rupture in church life in the second half of the nineteenth century and the emergence of Old Order churches. While many Mennonites, Amish, and Brethren sought renewal through the modes and methods of denominationalism (the roots of which go to the late eighteenth century, but caught up with many Anabaptist groups only later), others sought to attend to “the old order of things.”
Denominationalism meant constructed identity in institutional terms and codified legal authority (constitutions and minutes). More formalized means of gaining converts (revival meetings, organized mission work) and Christian education (Sunday schools, higher education, publications) were also part of this, and so were more evangelical approaches to worship (meetinghouses, musical instruments in some cases, and money solicitation). In short, this type of renewal meant imitating wider American patterns of religious life built on organization-building and activity.Old Order proponents, in contrast, advocated renewal by looking to local community life and discipline as regulated and managed by practical inherited custom and what they perceived to be the natural order of life. “Order,” or Ordnung in this broad sense, is not "progressive" in assuming that human insight is always and necessarily improving over time. Ordnung draws on the accumulated wisdom and authority of tradition. Ordnung is learned through living it. Bureaucracy, distant authority, and abstracted notions of community are incompatible with a life measured by Ordnung. Attention to Ordnung means that community and family relations are of primary importance, and maintaining them is of highest priority. Change and innovation always bears the burden of proof, and rarely does it convince Old Orders that it will enhance community and family life.
To be sure, Old Order writers also commented on things such as the worldly spirit of pride exhibited in dress, fairs, house furnishings, and the like. But other Mennonite, Brethren, and Amish writers also commented on such matters. If the Old Orders drew the line at a different place or made connections between pride of dress and pride of being elected Sunday school superintendent who offered competitive prizes to students, Old Orders were generally in agreement with their non-old order coreligionists in opposing pride, espousing humility, arguing for the simple life, and standing for nonconformity and nonresistance. What set the Old Orders apart was their completely different appraisal of the institutional changes in church life and structure. (See chart 1)
Chart 1 16
<- Tradition Progressivism ->
Renewal through denominationalism
Amish Mennonite Conferences
Central Conference Mennonites
(Old) Mennonites
Church of the Brethren
Renewal through the Old Order
Old Order Amish (c.1865)
Old Order Mennonites (1872)
Old German Baptist Brethren (1881)
Central to Old Order identity was a particular approach to church life and religious experience, not necessarily dissent from technological change or innovation. Indeed, the formation of the Old Orders occurred at a time before many household, communication, and transportation technological innovations emerged as practical. However, given their resistance to institutional change in church life and their understanding of community which did not rely on bureaucracy, codified authority, or organizational programming and planning, it is not surprising that Old Orders were often very cautious about adopting new forms of technology that might weaken family and congregational life or undercut local economics and face-to-face communication
Yet, how Old Order folks sorted out their response to technology and community and family life was uneven. For some it was clear that the sort of Old Order church life they espoused was linked to a way of life threatened by rapid technological change, individual mobility, and mainstream consumer spending habits. For others, the link was less certain and they took a more practical approach to change. These Old Orders rejected the theoretical rationalization of higher education, church bureaucracy, and religious experience that separated the self from the community, but found some technological change or modification in church discipline necessary and useful in the practical matter of making a living and getting along in life.17
The place of technology in all this and its relationship to group identity and community is somewhat complex. Technology—whether mechanized agriculture or mass communication—does more than simply perform tasks. It also creates significantly new social patterns of interaction or ways of going about life. Often cited are the automobile, public utility electricity, telephones, or tractor farming. Some groups stemming from Old Order roots use these items, while others do not. Moreover, usage or non-usage is not necessarily predictive across technologies. For example, horse-drawn transportation does not imply that in-home telephone use is taboo. In-home telephone use is out of bounds for Old Order Amish, but not for horse-and-buggy-driving Groffdale Old Order Mennonites (who in Indiana have had in-home telephones since 1973 if lay members, and 1993 among the ordained leaders).
Over the course of the twentieth century these sorts of differences have separated groups in the Old Order tradition. (See chart 2)
Chart 2
Renewal through denominationalism
Amish Mennonite Conferences
Central Conference of Mennonites
(Old) Mennonites
Church of the Brethren
Old Order Amish
Old Order Mennonites
Old Brethren German Baptists (1939)
Old Brethren (1913)Beachy Amish (1947)
Wisler Mennonites (1907)
Old German Baptist Brethren (1881)
Note that despite their differences on questions of technology, clothing, and related topics, all of the groups stemming form the Old Order tradition maintain worship styles, approaches to Christian education, and attitudes toward denominationalism and church institutions very much like those that dominated in early nineteenth-century Mennonite, Amish, and Brethren communities. For example, an Old Order Mennonite and Wisler Mennonite church services remain quite similar in format and logic despite the fact that worshipers dress differently, arrived by different means of transportation, and vary in their facility of German. For their part, Old German Baptist Brethren may use a home computer or fly in airplanes, but they refuse to have Sunday schools, organized mission work, or speak of assurance of salvation—all things which suggest a structure and strategy to being church which they see as modern and unnecessary innovations.Meanwhile, a somewhat similar sorting out process occurred in this century among the heirs of the nineteenth-century Anabaptist denomination-builders. Just as the Old Orders later faced the implications of what remaining in the “old order” really meant for life outside of specifically church matters, so too did mainline Anabaptists have to deal with the implications of their choices in a changing twentieth century. Their quest for renewal had involved borrowing and adapting insight and models from larger society. In the twentieth century they faced the question of how far such borrowing and adapting would go.
Throughout the 1900s some Mennonites and Brethren have believed that change was occurring too rapidly in their groups, or that imitation of what they saw as “worldly” patterns and practices had gone too far. These groups were not Old Order in their orientation; they had no qualms about denominationalism, and were staunch supporter of Sunday schools, publishing efforts, and formal mission programs. But they were concerned with the way such activities were carried out.
Chart 3
Conservative Menn. Conf. (1910)
Mennonite Biblical Alliance (1999)
"Sharing Concerns" [Salem Menn.
Church, etc.] (1981)
Dunkard Brethren (1927)
Mid-West Menn. Fellowship (1977)
Bethel Cons. Menn. Fellowship (1983)
Nationwide Menn. Fellowship (c.1960)Mennonite Church
General Conference Mennonite Church
Church of the Brethren
Old Order Amish
Old Order Mennonites
Old Brethren German Baptists (1939)
Old
Beachy Amish (1947)
Wisler Mennonites (1907)
Old German Baptist Brethren (1881)
Brethren (1913)
The conservative Mennonite and Brethren groups or congregations which have formed in past decades (e.g., Midwest Mennonite Fellowship, Salem Mennonite Church or Dunkard Brethren) have accepted the nineteenth-century denominational innovations which the Old Orders rejected, but remained very cautious about their degree of interaction with the dominant society, mass media technology, and patterns of thinking and education which privilege an individual’s search for and construction of meaning over the collective wisdom of the group. From the standpoint of technology, social habits, and often dress, they may tend to resemble the Old Orders, but in terms of church life and structure they do not.18For example, members of both the Wisler Mennonite Church and Nationwide Mennonite Fellowship drive cars, dress similarly, only occasionally go to high school, reject television and radio, have telephones in their homes, and share many other similarities. Yet Nationwide Fellowship is not rooted in the Old Order tradition and the Wisler folks are. Nationwide Fellowship has an organized, active, and systematic foreign and domestic mission program, publishing arm, and Sunday school system. Its approach to worship includes four-part congregational singing led by a standing song leader, pass-the-plate offering, and annual revival meetings. The Wisler Mennonites have none of these things. The difference between the groups lies not so much in technology or lifestyle as in their approach to religious life.
There is overlap and continuity, to be sure, but it exists on two different axes, not a single continuum. From one perspective, the Wisler Mennonites would have more in common with the Nationwide Fellowship or Midwest Fellowship churches than with the Old Order horse-and-buggy Mennonites. But from another angle they are much closer to the horse-driving group than to the Nationwide Fellowship churches. (In 1973 many of the Wisler Mennonites in Ohio began to switch affiliation to the Eastern Pennsylvania Mennonite Church—a group not present in Michiana, but similar to Nationwide Fellowship or Midwest Fellowship—and adopted the EPMC church institutions and worship practices. For these one-time Wislers, it was a very definite switch from one sort of identity to another even though their mode of dress, entertainment and recreation habits, and use of technology did not really change.)
Similarly, in the Brethren tradition, the Old German Baptist Brethren—despite their car-driving and even very occasional college-attendance—in one sense have more in common with the horse-and-buggy Old Brethren German Baptists of Carroll County, Indiana than they do with Brethren conservatives such as the Dunkard Brethren. Like the horse-and-buggy group, the Old German Baptist reject Sunday schools, revival meetings, paid ministry, missionary boards, and modification of rituals such as single-mode foot washing which the Dunkard Brethren feel are essential components of their witness to the world.
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Notes
13. The number of groups isn’t the only set with fuzzy boundaries; one could well ask where the borders of “Michiana” are, as well. According to records at the Northern Indiana Center for History in South Bend the term “Michiana” was coined in 1935 as part of a Depression-era contest sponsored by South Bend merchants looking for ways to lure Michigan consumers and their spending dollars south of the border. The person who suggested the term “Michiana” received first prize of a new Studebaker car. So much for that term which has migrated out of the consumer world and into the title of the Michiana Anabaptist Historians! See South Bend Tribune, 3 January 1935.
14. One might also ask about the meaning and usefulness of parsing Anabaptists into discrete categories when in some cases, at least, there is greater diversity within a given group than between several groups. Each group would have its own explanation for the importance of its being a distinct group and the weight it places on such identification.
15. “Conservative Mennonites (Swiss-high German, Pennsylvania), Mennonite Encyclopedia, v. 5, 200.
16. This chart is purposefully not drawn on a continuum with denominationalism at one end and old order at another. Continua are useful devices for comparing bipolar characteristics in which the quality or quantity of each term decreased proportionately along the continuum and the midpoint occupies a liminal space. However, not all comparisons are bipolar. The differences charted here are differences of kind that do not coexist in a common worldview. They are, to use a popular academic term, two different “paradigms.” There are places where continua comparisons are useful, as will be shown, below, in thinking about how one goes about maintaining an Old Order world view or how one goes about renewal via denominationalism.
17. Goshen College sociologist Tom Meyers has called this distinction the difference between theoretical and practical rationalization.
18. For details on the conservative Mennonite groups, see Scott, Introduction to Old Order and Conservative Mennonite Groups, 121-232. On the Dunkard Brethren, see entries in Brethren Encyclopedia, vols. 1-3 (1983).
Mennonite Historical Bulletin, October, 1999