AndersonD wrote: ↑Sun Sep 03, 2023 5:46 pmThey had some horrible experiences with non-Hutterites at Elmendorf. So I don't blame them for shutting the door.
I honestly don’t blame them either.
Dean could have tried joining the main Hutterites.
Instead he tried joining a Hutter/ Charity colony that's in flux.
Well, other Hutterites aren’t really interested in accepting outsiders either. I agree that any place with Charity influences should be avoided - but one cannot blame a seeker family like the Taylors for not knowing this. (They aren’t in a Charity type of situation anymore, for what it’s worth.)
All transitional Anabaptist church members and leaders ought to be ashamed of their conduct and how it leads to these kind of situations.
I am aware it's difficult but I don't believe it's impossible.
And I second your last paragraph. It's depressing but I don't know what to do about it.
I don't think Dean ever tried joining. He helped out with some outreach when he was invited but never lived on the colony I don't think or sold out and tried joining. He lived a town nearby I believe...
Excellent thread topic, I must say. Regarding Dean Taylor, I did find where he was a guest speaker at the Fort Pitt Christian Community (neo-Hutterian colony). I am having trouble locating the exact URL on their website but I did see his name there.
1 x
Max (Plain Catholic)
Mt 24:35 Proverbs 18:2 A fool does not delight in understanding but only in revealing his own mind.
1 Corinthians 3:19 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God
AndersonD wrote: ↑Sun Sep 03, 2023 5:46 pmThey had some horrible experiences with non-Hutterites at Elmendorf. So I don't blame them for shutting the door.
I honestly don’t blame them either.
Dean could have tried joining the main Hutterites.
Instead he tried joining a Hutter/ Charity colony that's in flux.
Well, other Hutterites aren’t really interested in accepting outsiders either. I agree that any place with Charity influences should be avoided - but one cannot blame a seeker family like the Taylors for not knowing this. (They aren’t in a Charity type of situation anymore, for what it’s worth.)
All transitional Anabaptist church members and leaders ought to be ashamed of their conduct and how it leads to these kind of situations.
I am aware it's difficult but I don't believe it's impossible.
And I second your last paragraph. It's depressing but I don't know what to do about it.
Could either you or Josh explain what you mean by the "Transitional Anabaptists being to blame for this situation"? What situation and how do transitional Anabaptists cause it?
3 x
Affiliation: Lancaster Mennonite Conference & Honduran Mennonite Evangelical Church
Well, other Hutterites aren’t really interested in accepting outsiders either. I agree that any place with Charity influences should be avoided - but one cannot blame a seeker family like the Taylors for not knowing this. (They aren’t in a Charity type of situation anymore, for what it’s worth.)
All transitional Anabaptist church members and leaders ought to be ashamed of their conduct and how it leads to these kind of situations.
I am aware it's difficult but I don't believe it's impossible.
And I second your last paragraph. It's depressing but I don't know what to do about it.
Could either you or Josh explain what you mean by the "Transitional Anabaptists being to blame for this situation"? What situation and how do transitional Anabaptists cause it?
Places like Charity and moderates are typically made up of members who came from more conservative groups. More conservative being more restrictive. Moving to a looser congregation is typically not what seekers are looking for. They are looking for the narrow Way - not a more self expressive, not looser - but more strait(the word actually has the idea of restrictive). While Charity might be more biblical in practice than where the seeker is coming from, early on the seeker just doesn't have a clear enough vision to realize that they are in fact travelling in opposite direction to the church they are now attending. This causes huge disillusionment eventually in the seeker looking to throw all in and grow in forsaking self while the transitional person is looking to get to decide what they want to do more personally.
This creates a huge mess and many misunderstandings.
1 x
Psalms 119:2 Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.
Well, other Hutterites aren’t really interested in accepting outsiders either. I agree that any place with Charity influences should be avoided - but one cannot blame a seeker family like the Taylors for not knowing this. (They aren’t in a Charity type of situation anymore, for what it’s worth.)
All transitional Anabaptist church members and leaders ought to be ashamed of their conduct and how it leads to these kind of situations.
I am aware it's difficult but I don't believe it's impossible.
And I second your last paragraph. It's depressing but I don't know what to do about it.
Could either you or Josh explain what you mean by the "Transitional Anabaptists being to blame for this situation"? What situation and how do transitional Anabaptists cause it?
I'm not going to place blame necessarily but a group heading downstream is often inoculated against simple, plain living and when a non Mennonite joins they often face scrutiny for not traveling downstream also.
I am friends with a family from non-Menno background who joined a congregation comprised of members from a plainer conference. The family has a wide range of friends in the plainer conference but receive push back for befriending people in a "legalistic" conference. So the family has to sort things out which is wearisome.
joshuabgood wrote: ↑Mon Sep 04, 2023 10:08 am
I don't think Dean ever tried joining. He helped out with some outreach when he was invited but never lived on the colony I don't think or sold out and tried joining. He lived a town nearby I believe...
That’s strange because most my interactions with Mr Taylor were at his house in Altona.
joshuabgood wrote: ↑Mon Sep 04, 2023 10:08 am
I don't think Dean ever tried joining. He helped out with some outreach when he was invited but never lived on the colony I don't think or sold out and tried joining. He lived a town nearby I believe...
That’s strange because most my interactions with Mr Taylor were at his house in Altona.
I don't think he ever was all in with regard to communal ownership....but was helping out at their invitation. I know of one person from the community that confirmed that was their understanding. Dean for example retained his property ephrata.
Soloist wrote: ↑Mon Sep 04, 2023 8:36 am
The two he was with do not have the same financial commitment that Hutterites have.
Edit: Dean had described it to me as communal charity living. This was after he had already left.
Do they practice a common purse, or are they just congregations of believers who are ethnic Hutterites?
Yes, they practice a common purse.
Are there other distinctives of Hutterits besides their community of goods that makes them a "Hutterite" church? If they do practice a common purse/community of goods, is there a system of buying in and selling out?
One does not “cash out” when one leaves a common purse Christian community (although the community may decide to give a departing family gifts, etc.)
So few seekers join Hutterites that there isn’t a procedure, really, to “buy in”. The evangelical Hutterite communities handled it on a case by case basis and generally speaking didn’t expect a seeker family to liquidate everything.
Praxis+Theodicy wrote: ↑Mon Sep 04, 2023 8:24 am
Do Hutterites practice a lifetime commitment to the church? I thought they did.
In practice, yes, with basically an expectation of avoidance / excommunication when people leave. In theory if someone left for an equivalently godly lifestyle and church that wouldn’t happen.
My only in-depth experience is with the Bruderhof, who have enough stark dissimilarities that they broke off from the Hutterite church; but I assumed the lifetime membership that the Bhof practices is from the Hutterites. Most communal situations really struggle without a lifetime membership commitment.
Bruderhof hold a one true church doctrine where anyone that leaves their fellowship is believed to have forfeited their salvation. Oddly enough they believe otherwise in universal salvation - so hell is only populated with ex-Bruderhof. (I have heard this doctrine might be changing in the post-Arnold ere.)
I don't know how Dean was able to so easily jump in and then out of a Hutterite colony unless they don't have lifetime commitment similar to the Amish.
Evangelical Hutterites adopted Charity / conservative Mennonite views that any individual should be free to leave a fellowship and go to a different one.
