Bunny Trails

[ken_sylvania]

But perhaps you would like to explain - if "Mennonites can use electricity and drive cars" is not a valid statement because many Old Order Mennonites do not drive cars and a small percentage of Old Order Mennonites do not use electricity, how can it be valid to say

the ones[Amish] near me drive cars (and trucks).

? Do ALL of the Amish near you drive cars and trucks????

A statement like "Americans drive cars and trucks" doesn't mean all Americans drive cars and trucks. The Amish group nearest me seems to be adopting driving vehicles rather quickly, though (despite them not adopting things like e-bikes, or bicycles at all). Some people tell me that there is a division in the works between the car/truck-driving people vs the ones who don't want to start doing that.

I agree.

With that in mind, how can you conclude that "Mennonites can use electricity and drive cars" is an "obviously bogus claim" since it doesn't mean all Mennonites can use electricity and drive cars.

[Ernie]

Blanket statements about what Mennonites do or don't do are perilous. But "can use electricity and drive cars" covers a much larger portion of the Mennonite spectrum than "don't use electricity or drive cars" or "have LGBTQ+ pastors."

Can you define this further or what you are trying to say?

[JohnH]

But perhaps you would like to explain - if "Mennonites can use electricity and drive cars" is not a valid statement because many Old Order Mennonites do not drive cars and a small percentage of Old Order Mennonites do not use electricity, how can it be valid to say ? Do ALL of the Amish near you drive cars and trucks????

A statement like "Americans drive cars and trucks" doesn't mean all Americans drive cars and trucks. The Amish group nearest me seems to be adopting driving vehicles rather quickly, though (despite them not adopting things like e-bikes, or bicycles at all). Some people tell me that there is a division in the works between the car/truck-driving people vs the ones who don't want to start doing that.

I agree.

With that in mind, how can you conclude that "Mennonites can use electricity and drive cars" is an "obviously bogus claim" since it doesn't mean all Mennonites can use electricity and drive cars.

In that case, it’s just a misleading statement like “Mennonites can enlist in the military”. (I once went to a then-mc USA church and a young person there enlisted, and we had a blessing prayer during a service to send her off.)

[ken_sylvania]

A statement like "Americans drive cars and trucks" doesn't mean all Americans drive cars and trucks. The Amish group nearest me seems to be adopting driving vehicles rather quickly, though (despite them not adopting things like e-bikes, or bicycles at all). Some people tell me that there is a division in the works between the car/truck-driving people vs the ones who don't want to start doing that.

I agree.

With that in mind, how can you conclude that "Mennonites can use electricity and drive cars" is an "obviously bogus claim" since it doesn't mean all Mennonites can use electricity and drive cars.

In that case, it’s just a misleading statement like “Mennonites can enlist in the military”. (I once went to a then-mc USA church and a young person there enlisted, and we had a blessing prayer during a service to send her off.)

Using that standard, then, would you also classify your statement that "the ones[Amish] near me drive cars (and trucks)." as a misleading statement? Especially considering your subsequent admission that there is enough opposition to the driving of cars and trucks that a division may be in the works.

You seem to have one standard for other people, and another more forgiving standard for yourself.

[JayP]

Ken,


You seemed to misunderstand JohnH

It is always the other guys fault

As an aside, I wonder if more people who identify with the identity Mennonite at
Re against Or supportive of LGNTQ. Seriously, there are a lot more LMC types than Conservative, aren’t there?

[ohio jones]

Blanket statements about what Mennonites do or don't do are perilous. But "can use electricity and drive cars" covers a much larger portion of the Mennonite spectrum than "don't use electricity or drive cars" or "have LGBTQ+ pastors."

Can you define this further or what you are trying to say?

Looking at cars since that's easier to measure, restricting the discussion to North America, and recognizing that the numbers are somewhat out of date, Scott (1996) estimated 9,791 horse and buggy Mennonites, 4.767 car-driving OOMs, 30,694 conservative Mennonites, 10,513 Amish Mennonites, and 16,188 Holdeman Mennonites. In that same time frame (1997) there were 112,311 members in the Mennonite Church and 67,353 in the General Conference Mennonite Church, according to GAMEO. That's 241,826 "car" Mennonites and 251,617 total Mennonites.

If over 96% of Mennonites are not restricted by their church from driving cars, and some of those in non-car-driving groups can use electricity, I don't see what's wrong with saying "Mennonites can use electricity and drive cars" in a newspaper article. Perhaps in an academic publication (or evidently here on MN) some nuancing might be appropriate.

Blanket statements about what Mennonites do or don't do are perilous. But "can use electricity and drive cars" covers a much larger portion of the Mennonite spectrum (approx. 96%) than "don't use electricity or drive cars" (less than 4%) or "have LGBTQ+ pastors" (also a small percentage).

[ken_sylvania]

Looking at cars since that's easier to measure, restricting the discussion to North America, and recognizing that the numbers are somewhat out of date, Scott (1996) estimated 9,791 horse and buggy Mennonites, 4.767 car-driving OOMs, 30,694 conservative Mennonites, 10,513 Amish Mennonites, and 16,188 Holdeman Mennonites. In that same time frame (1997) there were 112,311 members in the Mennonite Church and 67,353 in the General Conference Mennonite Church, according to GAMEO. That's 241,826 "car" Mennonites and 251,617 total Mennonites.

If over 96% of Mennonites are not restricted by their church from driving cars, and some of those in non-car-driving groups can use electricity, I don't see what's wrong with saying "Mennonites can use electricity and drive cars" in a newspaper article. Perhaps in an academic publication (or evidently here on MN) some nuancing might be appropriate.

Is Scott's estimate of 4.767 car-driving OOMs referring to the European contingent? Or does it simply reflect the fact that one of the car-driving OOMs at the time was missing an arm and part of a leg?

[ohio jones]

Is Scott's estimate of 4.767 car-driving OOMs referring to the European contingent? Or does it simply reflect the fact that one of the car-driving OOMs at the time was missing an arm and part of a leg?

European delimiterization does sound better than a typo.

[Soloist]

Wife: I regularly have people around here in the southeast surprised I drive a car or ask if I’m Amish. Car/electricity comes up all the time.
Hypothetically, the article is written by a non Anabaptist to people who may be unfamiliar with Anabaptist nuances, so the author is, in layman terms, explaining that they aren’t horse and buggy people (and may not even know there are horse and buggy Mennonites). Feels like much ado about nothing

[JohnH]

Sometimes I wonder if the people who speak to me about such things realise that I am an "artist" and a "musician" myself. Instead, I often get treated like I'm just some kind of plain-person rube who grew up speaking Pennsylvania Dutch behind a woodstove and thought a trip to the Park City Center mall is a major life experience.

LOL... I grew up speaking Pennsylvania Dutch, we had a wood stove and I loved Park City. Plain-person rube here...and not ashamed of it.

Sorry off topic, just had to interject that. Carry on.

I can’t believe I nailed it so accurately. The point is, I’m very very far off from that background at all.

We did live in Lancaster when I was 7 or 8… at the Best Western hotel, that had Garfield’s restaurant in it. I really liked the items on the kids’ menu. You could spin a spinner and get a free item like a strawberry lemonade too. My parents normally only got us kids waters so that was special.

My dad was working there during the week to set up the computer systems for a new bank that was starting from scratch with a new computer system. (I believe it was Sterling Financial, which took Bank of Lancaster County and went big time. The computer operations were housed in East Petersburg I believe.)

Garfield’s died in 2020 from Covid, and the hotel is an Eden Resort & Suites now.