The Mennonites In Indiana And Michigan

A comprehensive and sympathetic history of all branches of the Mennonites and Amish, including a portrayal of their doctrine, life, and piety. It attempts to present a true picture of the Christian bodies in Indiana and Michigan which are descended from the European Anabaptists of the sixteenth century.

In 1841, four Amish Mennonite families left their homes in southwestern Pennsylvania and traveled in horse-drawn wagons to Elkhart County, Indiana. Their journey was distinctly American, as they joined a wave of white settlers searching for new and cheaper lands where they could live, work, and worship. It was also distinctly Anabaptist, as they sought to live out complicated commitments to Christ, nonviolence, and community. In this lively narrative, historian and journalist Rich Preheim investigates the heritage and innovations of Indiana-Michigan Mennonite Conference, an area conference of Mennonite Church USA, that have profoundly shaped Mennonite faith and practice since the nineteenth century. Standing at the crossroads of tradition and change, Mennonites in Indiana and Michigan wrestle to pursue faithfulness to Christ in the twenty-first century.

No Strings Attached is the story of a Mennonite congregation in Indiana that existed for eighty-six years. The congregation began during the social and religious turmoil of the 1920s when some Mennonites in North America held to rigid doctrines and ethics implemented by central authority, and others operated with a congregational polity and became more assimilated into secular culture. The struggle between these two different understandings of faithfulness was most passionately played out in northern Indiana. Placing the narrative of this congregation within the context of 500 years of Mennonite history illustrates the grace and the tension that has both beset and empowered a unique group of people who began as radical reformers. Although "no strings attached" refers to the women's headwear during the 1920s, which had no strings, it could also be the story of the pastor eating lunch on the peak of the steep roof of the church building! Reflecting on stories of these Mennonite people is an invitation to move into the future with courageous hope. Believing and behaving differently has not prevented Middlebury Mennonites from treating each other respectfully, living in a community of love, joy, and peace, and offering God's healing and hope to each other and to the world.

This one hundred year story of the Amish church depicts the survival of the believers in the early part of the nineteenth century. Revealing the agony of the Great Schism of 1865 which fractured the Amish church, Yoder reveals the coming maturity of the Old Order Amish and the Amish Mennonites, who merged with the Mennonites early in the twentieth century. This book sheds light on the identity and heritage of faith and lifestyle of today's Amish and many Mennonites, and posits that although they hold in common the basic Christian faith, differences in their patterns of obedience remain.

No Strings Attached is the story of a Mennonite congregation in Indiana that existed for eighty-six years. The congregation began during the social and religious turmoil of the 1920s when some Mennonites in North America held to rigid doctrines and ethics implemented by central authority, and others operated with a congregational polity and became more assimilated into secular culture. The struggle between these two different understandings of faithfulness was most passionately played out in northern Indiana. Placing the narrative of this congregation within the context of 500 years of Mennonite history illustrates the grace and the tension that has both beset and empowered a unique group of people who began as radical reformers. Although no strings attached refers to the women's headwear during the 1920s, which had no strings, it could also be the story of the pastor eating lunch on the peak of the steep roof of the church building! Reflecting on stories of these Mennonite people is an invitation to move into the future with courageous hope. Believing and behaving differently has not prevented Middlebury Mennonites from treating each other respectfully, living in a community of love, joy, and peace, and offering God's healing and hope to each other and to the world.