The Amish Voice 12
Anabaptist Movement Thrives In North America
By Ann Rodgers, Pitsburgh Post-Gazete
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From horse-and-buggy Mennonites in Mexico
to Amish in Arkansas, a new study reveals the
variety of Anabaptst culture in North Ameri-
ca.
"The biggest surprise was that there was a
Mennonite group in the Bahamas," said Don-
ald Kraybill, senior fellow at Elizabethtown
College's Young Center for Anabaptst and
Pietst Studies, who did the research.
But that plain-dressing group isn't lounging
on the beach in bonnets and suspenders.
"They're doing evangelical mission work and
have two congregatons. But they also have
an industrial training school and are teaching
occupatonal skills to natve people there," he
said.
Dr. Kraybill, who published his fndings in the
new "Concise Encyclopedia of Amish, Breth-
ren, Huterites and Mennonites" from Johns
Hopkins University Press, found Anabaptst
groups in 17 of the 23 North American na-
tons. It is the frst study of all Anabaptst
groups. Anabaptsts descend from Swiss and
German radicals of the Protestant Refor-
maton who insisted on adult baptsm, reject-
ed state control of the church and practced
nonresistance despite brutal persecuton.
The study found 809,845 Anabaptst adults.
Children would raise the total to an estmat-
ed 1.3 million. More than two-thirds --
578,195 -- live in the United States, with the
next largest group of 144,000 in Canada.
Mennonites are the largest group with
509,150. The many Brethren groups are next
with 177,520. The Amish have 104,050 adult
members, mostly in the U.S., but with 2,450
in Canada. Huterites are by far the smallest
group, with 19,125 adults.
Mennonite lifestyles range from quasi-Amish
to fully-assimilated urban dwellers.
"There are Mennonite professors at Harvard
and Mennonites who operate sofware com-
panies. There is a vast spectrum in the Men-
nonite world, and also in the Brethren
world," Dr. Kraybill said.
One Mennonite group in Mexico is actually
more traditonal than the Amish, he said.
These German-speaking Old Colony Mennon-
ites migrated from Russia to Canada in the
1880s, then moved to Mexico in the 1920s
afer Canadian authorites required them to
teach in English rather than German. They
kept their schools as they were then, while
Amish teachers in the United States incorpo-
rated insights from research on childhood
development.
"In recent years Old Order Amish teachers
from the United States and Canada have
gone to Mexico to help upgrade the schools
of these Old Colony Mennonites," he said
Another new fnding was that about 256,000
Anabaptst children and adults speak the
Pennsylvania German dialect as their frst
language and for worship.
Huterites, who are just 2 percent of all Ana-
baptsts and live mostly in Canada, are litle-
known in the United States. They came from
Austria and Russia in the 19th century and
have about 500 colonies of about 100 people
each. Each colony owns 5,000 to 10,000 acres
of farmland.
"They have no private property, there are no
individual checking accounts. They are the
oldest Christan communal group, apart from
the monastc orders," Dr. Kraybill said.
"Their dress is somewhat similar to the
Amish, but they embrace high technology.
—Contnued inside back cover—