12.

The Crisis Years of 1915-1930

It is impossible to understand the problems of the two conferences between 1915 and 1930 without an awareness of the struggle which the Mennonite denomination was facing in nearly all of its institutions and programs. The struggle was not a unique one for the Mennonites, as anyone can see who studies the social and intellectual impact of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Rural religious groups in America were undergoing vast changes which brought them more and more into the mainstream of American life. The decades immediately following 1890 are considered by many as the watershed of America's social, religious, and political institutions.

As noted above, the Mennonite and Amish churches had a spiritual awakening in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that led to the establishment of missionary, charitable, publishing, and educational institutions. These various institutions came to be controlled by relatively few persons in what was actually a small denomination. Considerable overlapping of personnel existed in the controlling bodies of the church institutions and conferences. This "establishment" was a dedicated group of leaders committed to an unfolding mission of the church but also committed to certain separatistic values and patterns which they deemed necessary for the ongoing life of the Mennonite and Amish churches. The formation of a Mennonite General Conference in 1897 was one corporate expression of these ideals. Both the Mennonite and Amish conferences united with the Mennonite General Conference.

Ventures into missions, relief, publication, and education soon posed problems for the church. With the founding of the early educational institutions (Elkhart Institute in 1893, which became Goshen College in 1903, and Hesston College founded in

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