#menonites

Beautiful covered bridge

 I drive by a tiny place called  West Montrose when coming home from my mom’s. Just a mile or so off the highway is a cute covered bridge. It’s the only covered bridge left. While I was there a Mennonite man drove through it and I got a few great shots.

Many Mennonites live in this area

        The survival over time of millenarian movements typically depends on their ability to modify their outlook into an institutionalized revision of the traditions they challenge. Modern-day Christian millenarians, for instance, are found among the less institutionalized Protestant denominations. Anthropologist Kenelm Burridge presents a set of phases through which millenarian groups typically pass. If they reach the last phase, it signifies a higher likelihood of their survival. These phases can be summarized as such: “old rules” of a religious tradition are reconsidered, a millenarian movement with “no rules” emerges, and then “new rules” are implemented to regulate or institutionalize an ideology. According to Burridge, the first phase usually involves doubt and uncertainty in regard to relying on a stable tradition. This sparks the beginning of millenarian activities justified by the need for drastic measures to supplant the “old rules.” According to Burridge, “a millenarian movement is a new religion in the making. New assumptions are being ordered into what may become a new orthodoxy.”[1] The way these new assumptions of a tradition transform into a new religion is dependent on the prospects of stabilization.

The Anabaptists, for example, who were active in Europe during the 16th century Reformation, rejected the Catholic Church’s notion of infant baptism. Instead, they believed in rebaptism of an individual upon their conscious confession of faith. Because of their opposition to Catholic tradition, the Anabaptists, like many other Christian Reformist groups of that time, were heavily persecuted. As they entered into Burridge’s second phase, they developed militant tendencies based on a literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount.[2] This type of behavior did not provide means for the movement’s survival, but several present day religious communities such as the Mennonites later adopted the Anabaptists’ core beliefs, especially their views on baptismal practices.[3] The continued existence of the Mennonites owes primarily to their commitment to pacifism.

Millenarian movements are not always militant, however. For instance, the Millerite movement during the 19th century was primarily based on a calculated date of the Second Coming. According to the Baptist preacher William Miller’s interpretations of the prophecies, especially from Daniel 8:14, Jesus would return to earth in 1844, specifically October 22.[4] Thousands of followers were let down when Jesus did not appear, and the date became known as the Great Disappointment. Frantically, many Millerites attempted to calculate different dates and explain Christ’s absence, while others abandoned their beliefs and moved on to other denominations, hoping to find explanations elsewhere. A religion that successfully derived from Millerism is Seventh Day Adventism. Rather than obsessing over the end-times and being distracted by a specific date of Jesus’s return, Seventh Day Adventists believe that they should live in joyful anticipation. While technically still millenarian, they do not allow the Second Coming to distract them from their lives on Earth. This reworking of “no rules” into “new rules” has allowed an essence of Millerism to survive through Seventh Day Adventism.

NOTES

[1] In Burridge’s discussion of a quest for new ideals in these situations, he states, “…’periods of social unrest’ and the ‘weakening or disruption of the old social order’ refer to situations where the relevant assumptions about power are weakening and no longer enable individuals to perceive the truth of things. They cannot project  asatisfactory redemptive process. Hence the ‘new and often bizarre ideals’” (Burridge 1969, 8-9).

[2] “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20).

[3] Norman Cohn 1957, 280. 

La comunidad Menonita ayuda a los rarámuris.

Menonites in México help the Rarámuri people, setting up soup kitchens and diners, and by sharing their knowledge/experience on how to optimize the dry, hard land for agriculture.