temporal1 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 29, 2021 12:18 pmTo clarify, my interest in Groffdales in this thread is how they relate, or not, to the OP video on the Amish (and The Reformation).
As i viewed the video, i was looking for mention of 1600’s Hans Graf, Switzerland, there was none in the OP video.
(If i understand, today there are OO Groffdales, and MCUSA Groffdales.) That’s not the topic here.
i realize not everyone will view the OP video. No problem.
I watched part of it.
I think your confusion might be due to the fact that Groffdale is a
place in Lancaster County that became the name for both the Groffdale Conference of Old Order Mennonites who formed there, and other more mainstream Mennonite churches that simply use the name Groffdale because that is where they are located. The name comes from the Hans Graf who founded the town based on a land grant from William Penn. But the different church groups using that name came 150+ years later.
So here is the mainstream Groffdale Mennonite Church located in Groffdale
http://www.groffdale.com/ It is an ordinary mainstream Mennonite church and not "plain", you can see the drumset in the background on the web site, and people dressed modern. But it is not MCUSA. It is part of the Lancaster Conference which split off from MCUSA.
And here is the original old order Groffdale Mennonite church two blocks away:
https://goo.gl/maps/1z2piP4vym6SrJM3A which I think is now a Weaverland Conference church (not Groffdale Conference) based on the 1927 split. At least according to google. Someone from the area could clarify.
The Mennonite church went through a series of big splits in the later half of the 18th century which formed the Old Order churches that remained ultra-conservative and the more mainstream Mennonite churches that became more modern.
The ultra conservative Old Order branch has subsequently split into at least a half a dozen different groupings since then. The Groffdales split with the Weaverland old order groups over the use of cars. And then other groups have since split off of the Groffdales over other issues.
Meanwhile the more mainstream branch of the church has also split into various groups (MCUSA, CMC, Lancaster Conference, etc.) and MCUSA itself was formed by the union of the mainstream Swiss/German origin Mennonite Church and the Russian-origin General Conference Mennonite Church, so the two most liberal branches united to form MCUSA about 2 decades ago, from which more conservative groups have subsequently split.
frankly, my family “reeks” of Anabaptism, but not consciously that i’m aware.