Anabaptist and Evangelicals

[Julian]

Hello everyone, I wrote this article on Hutterites and evangelicals and would be interested to hear your thoughts and feedback:

https://coffeewithkierkgaard.home.blog/ ... -critique/

Here is a quote:

My fundamental worry about evangelicalism is that it is a deeply modern form of religion. It is impossible to imagine evangelicalism outside the context of an American individualist, technological, consumer society. In deep ways, evangelicalism is the carrier of American individualist values and the “homeless self.”

[mike]

Hello everyone, I wrote this article on Hutterites and evangelicals and would be interested to hear your thoughts and feedback:

https://coffeewithkierkgaard.home.blog/ ... -critique/

Here is a quote:

My fundamental worry about evangelicalism is that it is a deeply modern form of religion. It is impossible to imagine evangelicalism outside the context of an American individualist, technological, consumer society. In deep ways, evangelicalism is the carrier of American individualist values and the “homeless self.”

I think I learned to know some of these 'evangelical Hutterites' at Charity Bible school in the 90s. Your article looks very interesting. I'll try to read it soon.

[Ernie]

Hello everyone, I wrote this article on Hutterites and evangelicals and would be interested to hear your thoughts and feedback:

https://coffeewithkierkgaard.home.blog/ ... -critique/

Here is a quote:

My fundamental worry about evangelicalism is that it is a deeply modern form of religion. It is impossible to imagine evangelicalism outside the context of an American individualist, technological, consumer society. In deep ways, evangelicalism is the carrier of American individualist values and the “homeless self.”

Well done! May I share this article on messaging groups used by Old Orders and Conservative Anabaptists, who do not have online access to things like this?

[barnhart]

Hello everyone, I wrote this article on Hutterites and evangelicals and would be interested to hear your thoughts and feedback.”

I think your analysis is accurate but I don't have many clear cut answers to the questions it raises. My group of Anabaptists went through a period around the end of the 19th century that mirrors the rapid social changes you document. That was when technologies of industrialization, transportation and communication collided in ways they could not ignore. In 60 years they had re- organized into three rough groupings, each emblematic of a different response and each with challenges and blessings.

The most compelling question you raise for me is what does a redeemed Hutterite (or any other close ethnic group) community look like and who has the authority to answer this question.

Here is my favorite quote:

My deepest worry about evangelicalism is that it will replace a deeply rooted, embedded, communal sense of self with a uprooted, ‘mobile’ self; I am worried that evangelicalism will destroy our ‘thick’ communities of mutual aid and self-sacrifice, only to replace them with ‘thin’, voluntary associations between people; I am worried that evangelicalism replaces the practices and rhythms that make Hutterites a faithful witness with ideology and activism.

[Julian]

Ernie I’d be delighted to have you share with those groups, but please implore them to send me some comments! (Would my email address work for them or a physical mailing address?)

Hello everyone, I wrote this article on Hutterites and evangelicals and would be interested to hear your thoughts and feedback:

https://coffeewithkierkgaard.home.blog/ ... -critique/

Here is a quote:

My fundamental worry about evangelicalism is that it is a deeply modern form of religion. It is impossible to imagine evangelicalism outside the context of an American individualist, technological, consumer society. In deep ways, evangelicalism is the carrier of American individualist values and the “homeless self.”

Well done! May I share this article on messaging groups used by Old Orders and Conservative Anabaptists, who do not have online access to things like this?

[JohnH]

Are the “evangelical Hutterites” the Altona/Elmendorf/Grand River/Fort Pitt communities, or are there others?

[Julian]

They would be Hutterite evengelicals that have clearly chosen that path and are not part of our conference because of it. I’m talking about large movements in our conference in a similar direction.

Are the “evangelical Hutterites” the Altona/Elmendorf/Grand River/Fort Pitt communities, or are there others?

[JohnH]

They would be Hutterite evengelicals that have clearly chosen that path and are not part of our conference because of it. I’m talking about large movements in our conference in a similar direction.

Are the “evangelical Hutterites” the Altona/Elmendorf/Grand River/Fort Pitt communities, or are there others?

Interesting. Who are the significant influences on this movement? Are there outside “evangelists” trying to conduct meetings, etc.?

[Bootstrap]

Excellent article with a lot of depth. I also appreciated your 15 Theses for Hutterite Renewal (https://coffeewithkierkgaard.home.blog/ ... e-renewal/).

I was part of an intentional Christian community for 8 years, but not an Anabaptist one. In that community, I really had very little chance of changing much or influencing the leadership to change. What is that like in your communities?

Any thoughts on what we non-Hutterites can learn from all of this? It's hard to construct intentional community where there is none, and most of those attempts fail. It's also hard to really see what an existing community is like from the outside. We do have a lot of mutual aid in our church, real practical love, and community in Bible study and worship and the Word, but not the level of community you desxribe.

[Julian]

Hello everyone, I wrote this article on Hutterites and evangelicals and would be interested to hear your thoughts and feedback.”

I think your analysis is accurate but I don't have many clear cut answers to the questions it raises. My group of Anabaptists went through a period around the end of the 19th century that mirrors the rapid social changes you document. That was when technologies of industrialization, transportation and communication collided in ways they could not ignore. In 60 years they had re- organized into three rough groupings, each emblematic of a different response and each with challenges and blessings.

The most compelling question you raise for me is what does a redeemed Hutterite (or any other close ethnic group) community look like and who has the authority to answer this question.

Here is my favorite quote:

My deepest worry about evangelicalism is that it will replace a deeply rooted, embedded, communal sense of self with a uprooted, ‘mobile’ self; I am worried that evangelicalism will destroy our ‘thick’ communities of mutual aid and self-sacrifice, only to replace them with ‘thin’, voluntary associations between people; I am worried that evangelicalism replaces the practices and rhythms that make Hutterites a faithful witness with ideology and activism.

On this quote, I think it’s also more complex. The contrast I make is between the “homeless” self and the “embedded” self. The homeless self is produced by the forces of industrialization, capitalism, and modern ideas of freedom—basically modern Western life. I think that in the context of traditional communities in the West (like Hutterites, the Amish, or traditional Mennonites) the inroads of evangelicalism carry that modern vision of self, freedom, and community. So in our communities, evangelicalism is a force of modernization. That said, I was talking with scholar of evangelicalism, Bruce Hindmarsh about whether evangelicalism is a carrier of modernization. His view was that it’s better to see it as a response to the breakdown of communal and traditional life that modernity engenders. Under the conditions of “homeless” modernity, evangelicalism creates new, modern forms of community that allow people to be together in modern ways. I think that’s true. So I think in traditional communities, part of what draws people to evangelicalism is the sense that traditional life no longer works. This could be because, as evangelical converts often say, because the community fails the standards of the gospel. OR, because the “pull” of modern life makes the tradition and the traditional faith just not make sense to young people and they cannot inhabit it like their parents could.