Filtering

[Neto]

Bathroom addition, with a place for a ringer washer, and a water pressure tank. (A tub in the house!)

Yes, but did the well system have a filter?

If it didn’t… then it’s seriously off topic and we need to apply the ban(bleach) rigorously!

There was no well involved, only a cistern. But in addition to hauling water in from the water works in town, we caught water off of the roof. And there WAS in fact, a filter in that system. (Whew! I barely escaped the miting.)

No bleach necessary, except perhaps the time when my dad pushed the cistern lid aside to check the water level, and the cat came running to see what was in there, and leaped right down into the cistern. Fortunately there wasn't much water in there at that point, because we then had to pump it all out to waste, and clean out the cistern before hauling in more water. (In case the PITA people are snooping here in MennoNet, the cat survived its bath. Hopefully it learned a lesson about unbridled curiosity. But as far as I know, you cannot teach a cat anything other than to come for food when you yell "Here, kitty, kitty".)

(In case anyone wants to go back to the top of the original list here - 'basic living', 'off-grid' - the filter was an old chest type freezer box, with a divider in the middle, and involved layers of sand, charcoal, and I think gravel. Okies are hardy folks, and we never had any problems with water-borne diseases.)

[JohnH]

But they used to not have cell phones and internet at all. If the previous generations didn't have them, why does the current generation need them? Why is something the world offered in the last 30 years being accepted by the church?

Holdemans have never had a position against telephones, mobile or otherwise. Neither have most other Old Order Mennonites; the ones I can think of that did would be the Hoover type groups.

Mobile telephones have been around for over a century, although they used to be rare/expensive. During the World War II era there was one called the "S-Phone".

[JohnH]

Transitions in my own life:

No indoor plumbing (other than a pump under the kitchen sink, to pump water out of the cistern)
No telephone
No clothes washer
single car
portable record player

Bathroom addition, with a place for a ringer washer, and a water pressure tank. (A tub in the house!)
crank telephone that went only to my grandparent's home, 1/4 mile away
2 cars (and mom got a driver's license)
Stereo Hi-Fi with a record player and an AM-FM radio. (I think FM was a brand new thing at that time.)

New house with a telephone connected to the telephone grid (party line)
single car garage on the house
a bathroom, and a rudimentary shower in a small space in the utility room with a second toilet

etc.

(The ringer washer remained the thing until well after I moved away, got married, and moved to Brazil.)

What I am questioning is people who think that in order to become more spiritual, one most transition to more worldly things. I don't think that is the case. Generally speaking, the moderate-conservative world does.

[nett]

Every single group follows this pattern and justifies it as okay.

Not every group...

[GaryK]

But they used to not have cell phones and internet at all. If the previous generations didn't have them, why does the current generation need them? Why is something the world offered in the last 30 years being accepted by the church?

Holdemans have never had a position against telephones, mobile or otherwise. Neither have most other Old Order Mennonites; the ones I can think of that did would be the Hoover type groups.

Mobile telephones have been around for over a century, although they used to be rare/expensive. During the World War II era there was one called the "S-Phone".

That's fine but that's not the point I was making. Previous generations of Holdemans didn't have cell phones or the internet but they do now. So it appears Holdemans are following the same pattern as everyone else in adopting new things that previous generations didn't have. In other words a transition happened that involves newer ways of doing things. I don't think it's somehow more dangerous to have had a position against the internet and cell phones and then to allow them than it is to never have had a position against them and to now have them.

[Soloist]

Every single group follows this pattern and justifies it as okay.

Not every group...

Yeah… I meant every single group I had seen… sorry

[JohnH]

That's fine but that's not the point I was making. Previous generations of Holdemans didn't have cell phones or the internet but they do now. So it appears Holdemans are following the same pattern as everyone else in adopting new things that previous generations didn't have. In other words a transition happened that involves newer ways of doing things.

GaryK, transitional Anabaptism is specifically about movements within conservative Anabaptism that consist of a membership composed of many people who come from churches with stricter standards, and who attribute becoming more spiritual with why they needed to change churches in order to go to one with less-strict standards.

It has nothing at all to do with a specific congregation or denomination that simply doesn't ban something that was never banned. It is more about the movement of specific people and families.

I don't think it's somehow more dangerous to have had a position against the internet and cell phones and then to allow them than it is to never have had a position against them and to now have them.

What is quite harmful is to be in a church with a position against things like that, then up and decide to switch churches in order to find one that allows or promotes such things, paired with a feeling of now being more "spiritual". This is a serious problem that afflicts many groups (not all) within Anabaptist circles.

It is very, very hard for me to find much fellowship with a person who explains to me how his salvation experience includes realising it's OK for him to start watching sports games, etc. and how a church shouldn't have taught him against doing that when I am over here where my salvation experience was no longer going to pro sports games, for example.

[ken_sylvania]

It is very, very hard for me to find much fellowship with a person who explains to me how his salvation experience includes realising it's OK for him to start watching sports games, etc. and how a church shouldn't have taught him against doing that when I am over here where my salvation experience was no longer going to pro sports games, for example.

And yet, when a group of people recognizes the damage caused to their spiritual lives by interest in professional sports and agrees together to move away from that influence, you are "shocked" and act like a jerk toward them.

[GaryK]

That's fine but that's not the point I was making. Previous generations of Holdemans didn't have cell phones or the internet but they do now. So it appears Holdemans are following the same pattern as everyone else in adopting new things that previous generations didn't have. In other words a transition happened that involves newer ways of doing things.

GaryK, transitional Anabaptism is specifically about movements within conservative Anabaptism that consist of a membership composed of many people who come from churches with stricter standards, and who attribute becoming more spiritual with why they needed to change churches in order to go to one with less-strict standards.

It has nothing at all to do with a specific congregation or denomination that simply doesn't ban something that was never banned. It is more about the movement of specific people and families.

And yet you had this to say about nearly all moderate conservatives.

I consider moderate-conservatives to be an utterly lost cause, as they are nearly all transitional. (Fundamental-conservatives I actually have a bit more hope for.)

As a seeker, I can never hope in a million years to fit in or be part of a transitional setting where the culture is defined by "we are less plain than our parents, who in turn were less plain than our grandparents". That is one of the reasons I consider it a lost cause.

Do the older generations of Holdemans feel the current generation is less plain than they were when they see them watching 5 minutes of video on a smart phone, or having the internet?

I don't think it's somehow more dangerous to have had a position against the internet and cell phones and then to allow them than it is to never have had a position against them and to now have them.

What is quite harmful is to be in a church with a position against things like that, then up and decide to switch churches in order to find one that allows or promotes such things, paired with a feeling of now being more "spiritual". This is a serious problem that afflicts many groups (not all) within Anabaptist circles.

So somehow it's okay for Holdemans to make a switch to something the previous generations didn't have but it's quite harmful for moderate-conservatives to make a switch to something the previous generations didn't have? The only difference being that there may or may not have been a position against it.

[JohnH]

And yet you had this to say about nearly all moderate conservatives.

I consider moderate-conservatives to be an utterly lost cause, as they are nearly all transitional. (Fundamental-conservatives I actually have a bit more hope for.)

As a seeker, I can never hope in a million years to fit in or be part of a transitional setting where the culture is defined by "we are less plain than our parents, who in turn were less plain than our grandparents". That is one of the reasons I consider it a lost cause.

Yes, Gary, I think the movement as a whole is a negative thing that leads people away from Christ.

A large part of my experience is being part of a church that was moderate-conservative that nowadays no longer exists and realising that is the bitter end of the movement.

Do the older generations of Holdemans feel the current generation is less plain than they were when they see them watching 5 minutes of video on a smart phone, or having the internet?

It seems to be the older generation that pushes hard on these things the most, and often gets up at revival times to confess to watching too much Fox News on their phone and so forth. In my experience much of the push for more worldliness is coming from the age 60+ crowd.

In any case, the Holdeman church is not one that follows this pattern:

1. Our membership is primarily composed of people from from a more conservative church, or whose parents were, e.g., a church that didn't allow the Internet at all.
2. Then our present membership uses the Internet with some filters, etc., but:
3. We lose a lot of our membership to people leaving for another church that is fine with Internet without filters at all.

That was the pattern of the moderate-conservative churches I used to be a part of.

So somehow it's okay for Holdemans to make a switch to something the previous generations didn't have but it's quite harmful for moderate-conservatives to make a switch to something the previous generations didn't have? The only difference being that there may or may not have been a position against it.

It might be bad for both groups to do it. As I said earlier, the problem with moderate conservatives is the transitional nature of (some) of them, where they have a steady stream in the front door of people from more-conservative backgrounds (and a steady stream out the back door of people heading for even more worldly places).

If this doesn't apply to you or your congregation (which as I understand it, it doesn't), then I'm quite happy to hear that and none of my criticism applies to you.