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Dan Z wrote:

ABC123 wrote:My experience has been they are very interested in saving the lost, but they have a hard time differentiating between "Biblical" and "cultural" application.

I agree...however...

Can "cultural"application be built on "biblical" principles as the community of faith discerns together how to live out their faith in changing times?

Sure - but they'll need to hold regular Dutch classes.

Josh wrote:

Dan Z wrote:

ABC123 wrote:My experience has been they are very interested in saving the lost, but they have a hard time differentiating between "Biblical" and "cultural" application.

I agree...however...

Can "cultural"application be built on "biblical" principles as the community of faith discerns together how to live out their faith in changing times?

Sure - but they'll need to hold regular Dutch classes.

However your mileage may vary. I was in a Beachy church for a New Year's Eve service/fellowship. If I blinked, I could just as well have been in my own church, which is more or less moderate conservative. Not a word of "Dutch" was heard. There were two or three visitor families, not including us. Enjoyed it immensely!!!

It appears these churches differ one to another.

J.M.

Judas Maccabeus wrote:

Josh wrote:

Dan Z wrote:
I agree...however...

Can "cultural"application be built on "biblical" principles as the community of faith discerns together how to live out their faith in changing times?

Sure - but they'll need to hold regular Dutch classes.

However your mileage may vary. I was in a Beachy church for a New Year's Eve service/fellowship. If I blinked, I could just as well have been in my own church, which is more or less moderate conservative. Not a word of "Dutch" was heard. There were two or three visitor families, not including us. Enjoyed it immensely!!!

It appears these churches differ one to another.

J.M.

It isn't during the church services that the language is an issue.

ABC 123 wrote:

Judas Maccabeus wrote:

Josh wrote:
Sure - but they'll need to hold regular Dutch classes.

However your mileage may vary. I was in a Beachy church for a New Year's Eve service/fellowship. If I blinked, I could just as well have been in my own church, which is more or less moderate conservative. Not a word of "Dutch" was heard. There were two or three visitor families, not including us. Enjoyed it immensely!!!

It appears these churches differ one to another.

J.M.

It isn't during the church services that the language is an issue.

This was a like 3 hour fellowship and game time, I was enjoying the food and fellowship.

As I said, your mileage may vary.

J.M.

I spent 4 years of my life (a member for most of that) there.

Beachy's are not a conference and are very opposed to becoming a conference. That is why there is so much variation.
They operate as a fellowship with no central government. There is a bishop board that gives recommendations but the board has no authority other than that which they earn from certain parts of the constituency.

At both ends of the spectrum, congregations are continually leaving the fellowship to affiliate with folks more like themselves, leaving the moderates to basically steer the fellowship.

As a whole, the Beachy Amish-Mennonite fellowship is slowly working its way towards assimilation into the surrounding host culture. As a whole, they tend to resist making too many specific applications. If they change their written church standards it is almost always in the direction of becoming more relevant with the other Moderates and Fundamental conservatives they fellowship with and rarely if ever do they add a standard that would pull back on some things that have been a spiritual detriment to their congregation.

They tend to tolerate things for a long, long time until they deal decisively with it.
One pastor from the conservative end of the spectrum, who left some years ago, made this comment to me once. "A Beachy will never get to the Judgment and claim that he was not given enough time to repent."
This was a generalization of course.

It has been typical for Beachy bishops to see something that needs addressed and pray about the matter and do a little coaxing for a decade or so hoping the problem will go away on its own.
I saw a natural illustration of this with one bishop who raised some cattle. His cows would sometimes get an eye infection that could have been easily treated, but he left it go, hoping it would go away, and hoping he would not need to deal with it. Eventually the infection would get so bad that the one half of the cow's head was completely enlarged and swollen with infection and its eyesight completely gone. After about a year or so the cow would die as the infection spread through its body.
"Then I saw, and considered it well: I looked upon it, and received instruction. Yet a little spiritual sleep, a little looking the other way, a little writhing of the hands with no action: So shall thy church go the way of general Christendom."

We are not Beachy but still see too much of the same thing. "We can't make a decision on this issue because there is too much difference of opinion."

I understand that one group we used to know as Beachy, no longer are but rather consider themselves an Amish Mennonite Fellowship, holding to more traditional ways than many Beachy.

Hats Off wrote:We are not Beachy but still see too much of the same thing. "We can't make a decision on this issue because there is too much difference of opinion."

I understand that one group we used to know as Beachy, no longer are but rather consider themselves an Amish Mennonite Fellowship, holding to more traditional ways than many Beachy.

This is interesting info. As I'm understanding this, the Beachy are less traditional than the New Order Amish? Or is there a more complex relationship than this?

I would think there is a car driving Amish Mennonite Fellowship that is between the New Order (horse and buggy) and athe Beachy.

MaxPC wrote:This is interesting info. As I'm understanding this, the Beachy are less traditional than the New Order Amish? Or is there a more complex relationship than this?

Beachys and New Order Amish both arose from the original Amish. Both of them basically embraced evangelical theology and also embraced more assimilation with the outside world. But since they are both independent movements, they have each assimilated to the outside world in a different order.

Beachys and New Order people generally don't intermingle, other than highly progressive New Order groups (e.g. the ones that have cars), at least in Holmes County. As times goes on, some of the New Order groups are more restrictive than the Old Order groups in their same area, and tend to have a strong discipline. (For exampe, where I am, some New Order groups are adding restrictions against smartphones. Old Orders in this area have given up ever trying to get that horse back in the barn.)

The distinctive mark of both Beachy and New Order groups is the embrace of evangelical soteriology and then a strong push to evangelise Old Order Amish and embrace the view that they aren't "born again" because they have the wrong beliefs about salvation and works.