the Discovery Of an 1838 Letter

Concerning the Rebaptism of Mennonites

Who Wanted To Join an Amish Congregation

by Paton Yoder

On July 11, 1997, Old Order Amishman Samuel Detweiler, aged 90, of Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, sold some of his personal possessions at public auction. At this sale it seems that, inadvertently, an ancient deacon's almsbook was placed with the items to be sold. Most likely this almsbook was kept by Samuel's great grandfather, Deacon Christian Detweiler (1819-1869) and had remained in the family ever since. Sam Detweiler is a brother-in-law to sociologist and anthropologist John A. Hostetler, the well-known authority on Amish society. John is married to Sam's oldest sister.

Among the many attending this sale were Amos Hoover, Old Order Mennonite of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, a collector of rare books and documents, and John Sharp, Director of the Historical Committee and Archives of the Mennonite Church. Tucked inside the almsbook, Sharp detected a six-page letter written in German script, dated November 10, 1838. When he brought this to Hoover's attention, Hoover purchased the almsbook at considerable cost and with it the 1838 letter.

This document is a rare find. Written by several Amish laymen and ministers of the Wayne County (later Oak Grove) congregation, it relates to the well-known controversy of the 1820s and 1830s concerning the rebaptizing of Mennonites who wanted to become members of an Amish congregation. In that quarrel the Amish congregations of Somerset and Mifflin counties in Pennsylvania held out for rebaptism while their sister congregations in Wayne and adjoining counties in Ohio objected to such rebaptism.

What makes this letter a rare find is that it states the case for those who were opposed to the rebaptism of Mennonites. This seems to be the only extant letter representing this side of the dispute. It is also significant because it indicates that the controversy, which was to have been put to rest by a series of ministers' meetings--culminating October 1830 in Somerset County, and May 1831 in Wayne County--remained very much alive as late as 1838.

Finally, this newly-discovered letter of 1838 shows that the Wayne County congregation was not only deeply embroiled, but also deeply divided in the dispute. Although a part of that congregation submitted reluctantly to the ruling imposed by the Pennsylvania congregations, a large faction withdrew in 1831 and met as a separate congregation until 1838 or later.

It is now clear that from about 1820 until the time this letter was written, the continuing dialog between the two parties seems to have moved ahead not one whit. The advocates of rebaptism said, "Where in the Holy Scriptures can the basis be found that a man can administer baptism in our church who is not chosen and ordained in it, and with whom we do not break bread, nor he with us?"1 Those who opposed rebaptism replied (as recorded in this letter of 1838), "Where in the entire Holy Scripture is there a law, command, or example where a person, who at one time confessed that Jesus is God's Son, and on this confession of faith was baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, should be baptized again?"

This controversy disappeared from the screen of history in the decade of the 1840s. But one is led to conclude, on the basis of scanty evidence and some conjecture, that eventually those somewhat unruly frontier congregations in Ohio were gradually brought into line by the elders and ministers of the congregations in Somerset and Mifflin counties. A summary statement by Deacon (Tennessee) John Stoltzfus (1805-1887) in 1862 suggests that the question had eventually been shunted by Amish elders by simply counseling Mennonites who applied for membership in an Amish congregation "to hold to that belief [denomination] in which they had accepted their faith."2

It seems that Mennonites who had been admitted to an Amish congregation before such procedure became an issue were allowed to remain without rebaptism. But there remains the unanswered question of what was done with those Mennonites who had been admitted to an Amish congregation after that period of grace, i. e., after the Pennsylvania elders had raised their voices against such practice.

A translation of this 1838 letter, along with a revised account of the two-decade-long rebaptism controversy among the Amish, will appear in a forthcoming issue of the Mennonite Quarterly Review.

NOTES
1. Elder Christian Yoder, Sr's, account of the ministers' meeting held at the Glades, Pennsylvania, on October 3, 1830, as found in "Memoirs of an Amish Bishop," John Umble, trans. and ed., in the Mennonite Quarterly Review, 22 (Apr. 1948): 112.

2. John Stoltzfus, "Short Account of the Life, Doctrine, and Example of Our Old Ministers" in Tennessee John Stoltzfus: Amish Church-Related Documents and Family Letters (Lancaster, Pa.: Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society, 1987), p. 77

Mennonite Historical Bulletin, October 1998