California Mennonites Froese, Brian
Johns Hopkins University Press eBooks,
2015, 2014, 2015-02-19
eBook
Odprti dostop
How did California Mennonites confront the challenges and promises of modernity?Books about Mennonites have centered primarily on the East Coast and the Midwest, where the majority of Mennonite ...communities in the United States are located. But these narratives neglect the unique history of the multitude of Mennonites living on the West Coast. In California Mennonites, Brian Froese relies on archival church records to examine the Mennonite experience in the Golden State, from the nineteenth-century migrants who came in search of sunshine and fertile soil to the traditionally agrarian community that struggled with issues of urbanization, race, gender, education, and labor in the twentieth century to the evangelically oriented, partially assimilated Mennonites of today.Froese places Mennonite experiences against a backdrop of major historical events, including World War II and Vietnam, and social issues, from labor disputes to the evolution of mental health care. California Mennonites include people who embrace a range of ideologies: many are historically rooted in the sixteenth-century Reformation ideals of the early Anabaptists (pacifism, congregationalism, discipleship); some embrace twentieth-century American evangelicalism (missions, Billy Graham); and others are committed to a type of social justice that involves forging practical ties to secular government programs while maintaining a quiet connection to religion. Through their experiences of religious diversity, changing demographics, and war, California Mennonites have wrestled with complicated questions of what it means to be American, Mennonite, and modern. This book—the first of its kind—will appeal to historians and religious studies scholars alike.
In 2014, researcher John Eicher interviewed Marlin Miller as part of Royden Loewen's project to understand twentieth-century Mennonite farm communities. Miller, a member of the Beachy Amish ...congregation in Iowa, is a climate change denier who believes such matters are in "God's hands." However, he also emphasizes the importance of caring for the land and farming sustainably. Loewen's book explores the pressures faced by Mennonite farmers and the impact of these changes on their identity. To farm sustainably is seen as a deliberate effort to resist global-scale processes and practice faith in local forms of farm life. Loewen does not provide a clear definition of sustainability but suggests that it encompasses the environment's ability to sustain life, equitable production systems, and a religiously ordered community's connection to spirituality. A simple life is considered a central tenet of Mennonite faith and is seen as a requirement for a truly sustainable rural life. However, the concept of a truly sustainable rural life is questioned, as sustainability is seen as a process rather than a condition. The focus on living a simple life reflects the adaptability of the Mennonite farmer identity in response to external pressures.
In October 1990, Nick Dyck, a longtime head of the Mennonite Brethren (MB) Board of Church Extension (BOCE) in British Columbia wrote a brief history and accounting of how his denomination had ...experienced impressive church growth since the early 1970s. During the 1970s the number of MB churches in British Columbia (BC) increased by one per year on average and then it tripled in the 1980s. The changes brought about by people like Dyck and others were not only part of a decades-long history in BC but also part of a larger denominational emphasis on evangelism and church growth. Included in the open embrace of evangelical initiatives such as this were questions of Mennonite identity and a desire to end the idea of Mennonite ethnicity.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The church as brotherhood was based on voluntary membership upon "true conversion and involving a commitment to holy living and discipleship." ...adult baptism replaced pedobaptism as a sign of group ...membership and the concept of discipleship was expressed negatively in the mandate to remain separate from the worldly system and corrupt society. ...Davis argued, the major problems of the confessional nature of Anabaptist history following Bender are just that, the errors of his followers. According to Nyce, the Anabaptist Vision was also ill-equipped to deal with biblical texts that restricted the involvement of women in church and encoded discipleship for women with silence, submission, and appropriate clothing. ...the case is not made that the Anabaptist Vision should be equipped to handle such texts and such important issues half a century into the future.
