What are holdeman standards?

[ShayCal]

Anyone have a standards booklet or list of holdeman standards that are practiced? Thank you

[JohnH]

Anyone have a standards booklet or list of holdeman standards that are practiced? Thank you

You could acquire the last few conference decision booklets, which would be in the church library of your nearest Holdeman church. Other than that, the “standards” aren’t really written down.

[ShayCal]

Interesting. Our church groups have a written standards booklet. So do things/rules generally change quite a bit after a conference and the constituency adjust accordingly? How often is the conference held? How do topics get selected for review or change?

[JohnH]

Interesting. Our church groups have a written standards booklet. So do things/rules generally change quite a bit after a conference and the constituency adjust accordingly? How often is the conference held? How do topics get selected for review or change?

General Conference is every 7-10 years and almost nothing ever changes.

Topics are selected by committees that form who look at what comes up in annual Ministers & Deacons meetings.

Generally speaking Holdemans don’t like to think of a “rule booklet” and don’t really accept the position the church can impose extra biblical rules, but rather, they try to discern what God and the Bible are speaking into various situations.

Two of the foundational principles believed to be taught in scripture are not charging interest to take advantage of the poor, and not engaging in photography that may break the second commandment. This distinguishes them from some other Anabaptists, although a few other groups maintain both these stances.

[Ernie]

It makes apparent that promoting specific aspects of plain dress is not enough to keep a people “plain”. There has to be something much deeper. Holdemans never adopted a plain identity, yet have remained plain and their missions and national churches are plain, although the clothing and covering styles are different.

One stark difference is that returning missionaries don’t sport the overseas covering style when they visit America. Other groups do this.

What I would challenge with this is what you actually mean by plain. The Holdemen I know are not plain by clothing or lifestyle choices. If you mean by doctrine, it’s very easy to dismiss the changes that have crept in and the same sliding is with your group that’s with any group.

Holdemans are 100% a plain Anabaptist group by any reasonable definition. (So are Apostolic Christians.) They do not however generally do things that have stereotypically been part of either the Amish or of 1950s Lancaster Conference Mennonite practices of plain dress.

An example is we still avoid red cars for various reasons, young men who get a Corvette will be probably be required to sell it, wear black shoes to church on Sunday, women don’t dye their hair, sew their own clothes, and all manner of other expressions of plain Anabaptist.

Holdemans have trouble understanding why other plainly dressed Anabaptists nonetheless take lots of photos and videos and have photo albums and musical recordings and so on, particularly since the Amish groups they came from don’t those things, so to them they view the direction is becoming “less plain”.

Just curious... Why do Holdeman women sew their own clothes or why don't they wear store bought dresses?

[JohnH]

Reasons include:

- Preferring the custom fit of clothes made a pattern that is just for you.
- Other women do it and a desire to conform to that.
- High cost of dresses ($70 plus for the cheapest ones and up from there)
- An ability to make new dresses the flatter / are not excessively tight as weight is gained.
- The rarity of maternity and nursing dresses, particularly that flatter and aren’t excessively tight in undesirable places.
- A general feeling that storebought clothes represents a lack of thrift, economy, and hard work. People who choose that are often perceived as lazy, and it’s made all the worse that many people who do this actually are lazy, keep a messy house or hoarding situation etc - so few to be perceived as that.
- Enjoyment of the hobby of sewing
- Enjoyment of serving others via ladies’ sewing days, including helping new converts make dresses, or just anyone (even in another church) that wants to wear more modest clothing.
- Getting to choose fabrics:
- including ones that are ethically sourced for people concerned about slavery
- ones that aren’t made of synthetics for people concerned about the environment
- or the effect on human health of wearing plastic
- choosing new prints and designs for people who like that,
- and warmth for people in cold climates who want wool (which is very expensive to buy pre-made in the store),
- or cool materials for people who live in tropical etc areas.
- sewing a wedding dress, as our styles can’t be found in wedding dress stores at all
- sewing church tie down coverings (“dokes”) and regular coverings (“kapps”)
- being able to repair and mend garments including men’s clothes and children’s clothes
- literal application of Proverbs 31 which speaks highly of women producing clothing

A mother often looks forward to having a daughter since she will some day teach her how to sew. It embodies ancient values of mothers teaching daughters craft labour.

Someone who sports skirts and T-shirts is viewed as very much “on the edge”. I believe I have met one, maybe two girls in their 20s who did this. It’s analogous to men wearing athletic Nike style pants for no good reason.

[Judas Maccabeus]

Reasons include:

- Preferring the custom fit of clothes made a pattern that is just for you.
- Other women do it and a desire to conform to that.
- High cost of dresses ($70 plus for the cheapest ones and up from there)
- An ability to make new dresses the flatter / are not excessively tight as weight is gained.
- The rarity of maternity and nursing dresses, particularly that flatter and aren’t excessively tight in undesirable places.
- A general feeling that storebought clothes represents a lack of thrift, economy, and hard work. People who choose that are often perceived as lazy, and it’s made all the worse that many people who do this actually are lazy, keep a messy house or hoarding situation etc - so few to be perceived as that.
- Enjoyment of the hobby of sewing
- Enjoyment of serving others via ladies’ sewing days, including helping new converts make dresses, or just anyone (even in another church) that wants to wear more modest clothing.
- Getting to choose fabrics:
- including ones that are ethically sourced for people concerned about slavery
- ones that aren’t made of synthetics for people concerned about the environment
- or the effect on human health of wearing plastic
- choosing new prints and designs for people who like that,
- and warmth for people in cold climates who want wool (which is very expensive to buy pre-made in the store),
- or cool materials for people who live in tropical etc areas.
- sewing a wedding dress, as our styles can’t be found in wedding dress stores at all
- sewing church tie down coverings (“dokes”) and regular coverings (“kapps”)
- being able to repair and mend garments including men’s clothes and children’s clothes
- literal application of Proverbs 31 which speaks highly of women producing clothing

A mother often looks forward to having a daughter since she will some day teach her how to sew. It embodies ancient values of mothers teaching daughters craft labour.

Someone who sports skirts and T-shirts is viewed as very much “on the edge”. I believe I have met one, maybe two girls in their 20s who did this. It’s analogous to men wearing athletic Nike style pants for no good reason.

THese reasons all are good. Took my wife about a year and a half to learn how to sew, so it is not "easy" but worth the effort. BTW in our fair city, my wife sometimes sources fabric from a shop that caters to Orthodox Jews. Go figure.

[JohnH]

The Holdeman fabric suppliers supply a lot of fabric stores, including in ones I assume are Orthodox Jews, Amish, and so forth. One of them at the level where the owner goes to China and orders an entire factory’s output.

[Ernie]

The Holdeman fabric suppliers supply a lot of fabric stores, including in ones I assume are Orthodox Jews, Amish, and so forth. One of them at the level where the owner goes to China and orders an entire factory’s output.

Non-synthetics?

[JohnH]

The Holdeman fabric suppliers supply a lot of fabric stores, including in ones I assume are Orthodox Jews, Amish, and so forth. One of them at the level where the owner goes to China and orders an entire factory’s output.

Non-synthetics?

Extremely synthetic.

In the last 2-3 years natural fibres have become popular with fashionable people. Some people who want to imitate that are buying blends of plastic and natural fibres. Of course those of us who pioneered the natural fibre trend look down on this.

Depending on how fast trends travel to your circles, you will eventually see loose, linen-based dresses with shorter hemlines that typically are not ironed-pressed, and later on you’ll see wool based dresses for wintertime wear (unless that trend dies out, but I don’t think it will even though it’s more expensive).

These trends usually start amongst Canadian Holdemans, show up with Michigan Holdemans a year later, and are conference wide 2 years later. Then the trend matriculates to moderate conservatives, Charity, Beachys etc 2-5 years later. I’m not sure how long it will take ultras to pick up on it. But they and the Amish will eventually adopt it, just like they did “knits” (synthetics).