Berea Amish-Mennonite Church?

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KingdomBuilder
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Affiliation: church of Christ

Berea Amish-Mennonite Church?

Post by KingdomBuilder »

What exactly is the difference between Amish-Mennonites and Beachy Amish? I see on their website that the Amish-Mennonites use the "Beachy Amish" title, but if they're one and the same they surely wouldn't have their own title/ fellowship, right?

What characterizes the Amish-Mennonites? Anyone have any experience with them?
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Ernie
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Re: Berea Amish-Mennonite Church?

Post by Ernie »

Amish-Mennonites were originally those who fellowshipped with Jacob Amman after the schism between Amman and the rest of the Mennonites.

Over the next two centuries, the Amish-Mennonites differed from their Mennonite counterparts in that they were much more traditional, more Plain, and more counter cultural.

This continued until the last half of the 19th century whenever the more traditional Amish-Mennonites began parting ways with the more progressive Amish-Mennonites. The traditionals became known as Old Order Amish or simply Amish. The progressives eventually amalgamated into the Mennonite stream.

In the twentieth century, groups who separated from the Amish and took on the new Fundamentalist theology of the Mennonites (re: soteriology, church structure, more modern inventions, etc.) referred to themselves as Amish-Mennonites.
They got some new doctrine and new ways of doing church services, but they often kept their beards, their solid colored clothing, their congregational style church government, etc, at least for awhile. This pattern continues until the present.

The Berea Amish-Mennonites function much like Old Order Amish and dress very plainly, but they drive cars and do other things that are forbidden by Old Order Amish. They were considered Beachy Amish-Mennonite until they separated and formed their own fellowship in 2007. Some of these people may still refer to themselves as Beachy.
(The terms Beachy, Beachy Mennonite, and Beachy Amish-Mennonite are simply different terms for the same group of people.)

You can see these groups and patterns on this chart.
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