Transitional Anabaptist churches

[ken_sylvania]

It makes sense Eastern would have the same rules for partnerships in non profits as they would with business ownership. I’m guessing Eastern doesn’t allow business partnerships with non-Eastern people.

About 10 years ago, the Eastern-owned company I worked for had a separate "office" division owned by a relative that was not Eastern. This division specifically owned the website and I believe it employed all the people who needed internet access in order to get around the "no internet" restriction. I don't believe this arrangement was unique to that company.

It's not at all hard to believe they didn't provide board members, but the supposed reason sounds far-fetched. I can even think of some possible reasons that might fall under the "unequal yoke" category that would seem more plausible than the fact that OOMs sit on the board. Not saying I know it didn't happen - just that I highly suspect there's some "telephone" going on.

It may not be outright said over the pulpit, but the implication is that working/relating together with other Mennonites is almost a greater threat than more "worldly" people, because it's hard to maintain "distinctness" and "separation" when the differences are not very great. People will support organizations like CAM on a family basis, but when there are negative remarks over the pulpit about aid organizations that mix together all kinds of Mennonites, we know who they are talking about.

The legacy of MCC lives on.

[Josh]

Holdemans don’t really allow partnerships with non church members, although if someone chooses to stop being a member, you have a few years to sort things out.

Participation in “ecu-Mennocal” (ecumenical Mennonite) organisations like MCC or CAM is discouraged. We tried doing some things with CAM a few years ago but it was not a spiritually wholesome environment for young people to be around other people who think they’re plain people but also think watching movies, following pro sports, etc. are good leisure activities.

Our people in Haiti used to try to participate with and tolerate CAM more, despite CAM’s frequent bumbling and treating the orphanage in PAP sort of like a tourist destination; the recent kidnapping is an example of how well that went.

Holdemans would actually do stuff more readily with less transitional people like organise a fundraiser with some Amish people, or volunteer at a homeless shelter operated by conventional evangelical sort of folks.

[cooper]

Again, I think EPMC can choose not to partner with other groups. Yet, I think it is interesting many Old Order folks can work with CAM and even MCC or MDS and don't see it as a threat. Fundamentalism makes churches very fragile.

[Josh]

Again, I think EPMC can choose not to partner with other groups. Yet, I think it is interesting many Old Order folks can work with CAM and even MCC or MDS and don't see it as a threat. Fundamentalism makes churches very fragile.

For what it's worth, OO groups are backing away from MCC and MDS. Wengers (Groffdale), for example, are forming their own disaster relief unit in lieu of working with MDS. A lot of OO groups got very turned off by MCC's rather blatant embrace of extreme liberalism (gay marriage etc.).

MCC, MDS, and MVS are also in a free fall in terms of participation. MVS in particular has hardly any units left. If there's a draft, I guess MC USA members would have to use some other denomination's voluntary service units. And whenever I tell people who shop at the MCC thrift the sort of things MCC donates its money to, they often express surprise and don't really want to go there anymore.

CAM and Anabaptist Financial, on the other hand, go out of their way to cater to OOs and make them feel comfortable so that they can get them to keep donating their money. (Anabaptist Financial refuses to make loans or otherwise work with Holdemans at all because of some of our doctrinal views, for example.)

You can be assured that CAM would stop working with Holdemans as well if I tried to go and volunteer with them... participation from someone such as myself and my family would not be tolerated.

[Marylander]

You can be assured that CAM would stop working with Holdemans as well if I tried to go and volunteer with them... participation from someone such as myself and my family would not be tolerated.

So sad when we're this tribal. No wonder you no longer feel comfortable with the Swiss Mennos

[Josh]

You can be assured that CAM would stop working with Holdemans as well if I tried to go and volunteer with them... participation from someone such as myself and my family would not be tolerated.

So sad when we're this tribal. No wonder you no longer feel comfortable with the Swiss Mennos

Holdemans have a different view on divorce & remarriage (basically the same one as Apostolic Christians, Reformed Mennonites have, and the same view all Mennonites had in the 1800s).

CAM’s constituents (and Anabaptist Financial’s) hold to the typical conservative Anabaptist view.

I would have more respect for CAM’s position against D&R except after the J. Mast debacle, I don’t.

[NedFlanders]

If a group accepts a form of sin and another group rejects it - the rejecting group may have no thought or impulse of tribalism but rather maybe seeking to agree with Truth over and above tribalism.

[Ernie]

In my view, “transitional” means it primarily gets its members from a more conservative or plain or strict group. As far as I know, Hornings (Weaverland) doesn’t do that. The fact a group is liberalising is a different topic.

According to this definition, the following groups are not transitional.

Many Old Order Amish
Many Old Order Mennonites [Staufer, Groffdale (Wenger), Weaverland (Horning), Markham/Waterloo, OH/IN Wislers]
Old Colony Mennonites
Ultra Conservatives Mennonites [Eastern, Appalachian, Washington/Franklin, Nationwide, York/Adams]
Apostolic Faith Churches
Many Hutterites
Old German Baptist Brethren
Old Order River Brethren
Church of God in Christ Mennonite [Holdeman]

[Josh]

In my view, “transitional” means it primarily gets its members from a more conservative or plain or strict group. As far as I know, Hornings (Weaverland) doesn’t do that. The fact a group is liberalising is a different topic.

According to this definition, the following groups are not transitional.

Many Old Order Amish
Many Old Order Mennonites [Staufer, Groffdale (Wenger), Weaverland (Horning), Markham/Waterloo, OH/IN Wislers]
Old Colony Mennonites
Ultra Conservatives Mennonites [Eastern, Appalachian, Washington/Franklin, Nationwide, York/Adams]
Apostolic Faith Churches
Many Hutterites
Old German Baptist Brethren
Old Order River Brethren
Church of God in Christ Mennonite [Holdeman]

The above list looks correct but a few notes:

#1. A consensus developed in this thread that Hornings (Weaverland) are transitional.

#2. Some Nationwide are transitional, sourcing members primarily from W/F.

#3. Holdemans may have been transitional on the “intake” side at one point, sourcing significant expansion from OO Amish and from Wengers. They didn’t ever have a culture settle of being transitional on the “outflow” side, which is part of what transitional means to me. See more notes below

#4. Apostolic Christian Church - Nazarean does not seem to be a transitional group at all. Apostolic Christian Church (the Swiss-origin branch) is minimally transitional, having sourced many OO Amish a long time ago but very little of that happening today.

#5. OO Amish are becoming a transitional group. They often source groups from the Danner/“Dan g’me’” church (Andy Weavers) and other strict shunning groups like the Tobe church. On the other side, OO Amish frequently leave for less strict churches.

#6. New Order Amish (non-e-bike group) have become non-transitional. OO Amish don’t join them since rules are stricter, so the “inflow” is no longer there, and they no longer try to make it easy for people from other backgrounds to join, but set a rather high spiritual and lifestyle bar.

Further notes on the Holdemans:

Holdemans had a massive influx of people from “pure church” type of groups in the 60s-70s. At some congregations these people are the majority of the population. Examples would be the Muddy Pond group, which almost entirely went either Holdeman, Charity, with the horse and buggy fraction remaining going to Believers in Christ or to the Hoover Mennonites; the Finger TN group; the Berkeley Springs group which eventually mostly ended up in Kidron and Homeworth, Ohio. It is hard to say if this is transitional, as the “pure church” groups like Believers in Christ, Amish Christian Church, Hoovers and so on often had many bizarre and new doctrines and lifestyle practices. For example the Berkeley Springs group had a prohibition on eating sweets for a while.

Most of these people have remained in Holdeman churches but they do lose more of their young people than the “average” family, in my observation, particularly if two people from a “pure church” background got married to each other. It is a unique and somewhat foreign culture. Peter Hoover’s paper describes it well as does Frederick Schrock’s “The Amish Christian Church”.

[NedFlanders]

In my view, “transitional” means it primarily gets its members from a more conservative or plain or strict group. As far as I know, Hornings (Weaverland) doesn’t do that. The fact a group is liberalising is a different topic.

According to this definition, the following groups are not transitional.

Many Old Order Amish
Many Old Order Mennonites [Staufer, Groffdale (Wenger), Weaverland (Horning), Markham/Waterloo, OH/IN Wislers]
Old Colony Mennonites
Ultra Conservatives Mennonites [Eastern, Appalachian, Washington/Franklin, Nationwide, York/Adams]
Apostolic Faith Churches
Many Hutterites
Old German Baptist Brethren
Old Order River Brethren
Church of God in Christ Mennonite [Holdeman]

A valuable observation for every seeker!