I recently moved from one Chicago suburb to another, and as part of my new drive to and from work I go past a Mennonite church. My assumptions must have been wrong, as I believed Mennonites to be like the Amish? I can attest after most of a lifetime in Chicago’s suburbs I’ve yet to see a horse and buggy going down the 290 expressway (although that may explain the traffic). So what gives, is there a hidden enclave of amish in Schaumburg Illinois or do I miss the point on the Mennonite thing?
They are related sects, but have very different customs, especially concerning modernity.
Mennonites drive, for example.
Yes, Mennonites drive and use other modern conveniences. I lived in Western PA, where there are large Mennonite and Amish communities, and it was common for local Mennonites to serve as a sort of informal shuttle service for Amish friends, who can’t drive but can ride along. Walmart was a popular destination.
Obviously some Mennonites are more traditional than others. I noticed this post-hurricane story a few days ago:
My parents lived for a time north of Dayton, Ohio where there is an interesting mix of “horse & buggy” traditional folks and people who dress traditionally but drive cars and use electricity. I think most of the car driving traditionals in that area are German Baptist Brethren.
I grew up in a town that has the largest Mennonite congregation west of the Mississippi. They have their own junior high and high school here in town, and there is a Mennonite university in Fresno (Fresno Pacific College). No drinking, no dancing, no rock music, very discouraging of dating/marrying outside of the church - that sort of thing. Many of them are still farmers, although that has changed greatly over the last 30 years or so. There is a charitable arm of the church called the Mennonite Central Committee which does a ton of work all over the world. Many of the older women still do a lot of traditional crafts - there is a quilting center in my hometown where they gather every day to make and sell them. Interestingly enough, when they originally left Germany many of them went to South America, Central America, and Mexico before coming to America, so it is not uncommon to find Mennonites who speak Brasilian Portugese, Spanish, German (I think the dialect is Platt Deutsch), and English. Interesting people.
Growing up in west KY we had a Mennonite community in Livingston County (and surrounding counties); turns out I am distantly related to some of them.
Anyhow, the ones around there were like Amish Lite. They had cars and used electricity in their homes. They didn’t own TVs, though, or any other electronic gadgets like computers. (I’m not sure if they had phones or not.)
You could identify them out and about by the way the women dressed. Almost all women and girls would wear white bonnets and long-ish dresses. The men sometimes wore hats (think Abe Lincoln) but their dress was more varied, although I don’t think I ever saw a Mennonite man without a beard.
They’re friendly people; they probably won’t come up to you and start talking but if you talk to them they won’t try to run and get away from the worldly sinner or anything like that. In western KY they make beautiful wooden gazebos, apple butter (and other baked goodies) and quilts that are works of art.
In Murray, KY a bunch of them own a restaurant called the Dutch Essenhaus. Most people think it’s an Amish place, though. It’s sort of like a Cracker Barrell only with better food.
As noted by fiddlesticks, some Mennonites are more traditional than others. There are some branches of Mennonites that still dispute whether it is permissible to use rubber tires on their buggies. There are other branches that cheerfully use every bit of technology they desire. Some do follow the ‘no dancing, no rock music, no drinking’ way of things. Others drink, dance, and listen to whatever tickles their fancy. The unifying characteristics are theologicial: believers baptism and pacifism. Here is a brief history. So in answer to the OP, while it’s possible that the members of the church you drive past are rather conservative (socially speaking) in some respects, it’s entirely likely that they have nothing more in common with the Amish than you do.
And no, I didn’t grow up in a town with a Mennonite high school, or in a town with a Mennonite congregation. I grew up a Mennonite. One of the car-driving rock music-listening kind, but Mennonite all the same. Evil ol’ me lapsed into atheism, but I can tell you right now that if anyone says something to the effect that Mennonites all behave in manner X with regards to modernity, they’re guaranteed not to know much about Mennonites, except perhaps for a specific group in their acquaintance.
Wow, thanks Gorsnak. To be honest I didn’t expect an actual mennonite to be anywhere on the board, haha!
Thanks for clearing all that up for me, but I have another question then. Now that my curiosity has been piqued, how would they take to a drop in visit to see first hand what the services are like? I’ve done this at a few different places, as I’m facinated with different religious practices.
If you think on-line Mennonites are unexpected – did you know there are Amish websites?
Try it on Google.
And Amish cigars.
This may be a separate issue, but aren’t the “Amish” basically a conservative subset of Mennonites?
There are pleny of Mennonites in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. The ones I see are dairy farmers, and use ‘modern’ equpment (well maybe not by U.S. standards, but comparable to other rural Mexicans). While they do use trucks and have electricity, but are very plain in dress and aren’t big on creature comforts. Ypu see quite a few of them selling cheeses on the street.
Also, some have become mixed up in crime, such as growing marijuana and smuggling.
Ryan, I expect you’d be very welcome if you wanted to drop in for a service.
The Amish are sort of a subset of Mennonites, providing you’re willing to allow for 300+ years of seperate history. The Amish split off from the Mennonites in the 17th century. It’s perhaps worth mentioning that in the early days (mid-16th century) the Anabaptist movement was centred in two areas - northern Germany/Low Countries, and southern Germany/Switzerland. Nearly all Mennonites who hold to extreme conservatism (I’m talking about buggies and no electronics here) come from the southern branch, and it was from the southern branch that the Amish split (The connection between the Amish and “Pennsylvania Dutch” is potentially misleading, as ‘Dutch’ in that case is a corruption of ‘Deutsch’, and has nothing to do with the Netherlands.) The northern branch died out for the most part in the low countries, but a large contingent migrated first to Prussia, around Danzig (Gdansk), and then to the Ukraine at the invitation of Catherine the Great, and finally to North America, though I believe there are a few communities left in the Ukraine that survived Soviet rule. It’s the latter bunch I’m from, and of these folk you’ll find very few who avoid technology, though there are certainly some who frown on sinful things like dancing. Those mentioned by syncrolecyne would be of the nothern branch. They moved to Mexico out of concerns over losing the language (God’s language, naturally 
- High German for worship, and Plattdietsch, one of the myriad German dialects, this one with heavy Dutch influence, for everyday use).
Gorsnak, are you from a community with lots of Wiebes, Thiessens, Warmerdams, Toews, Friesens, and Issac(k)s? Those are, by far, the most common surnames in my hometown.
Make that two… Gorsnak reading your posts causes me to remember the forgotten lore I learned in Mennonite history in high school. I went to a private christian high school before abandoning my faith and also becoming an evil atheist 
If I may paint with a fairly broad brush (I do come from a fairly “Menno” area) I would have to say that the most zealous atheists and Christians I know are Mennonites. It may mean that I need to get out more, but that is my experience.
Not much to add to what Gorsnak said, except that the conservative Mennonites who do the horse-and-buggy thing are sometimes referred to as “old order Mennonites”.
My sister goes to a Mennonite church (in suburban Chicago, no less!). The services are pretty much like a normal Protestant service. Sometimes they have dancing during the service!
:eek:
Never heard the name Warmerdam, but the others are all familiar. My maternal grandmother was a Thiessen, actually. Add to the list Dyck, Epp, Ens, Froese, Harder, Janzen, Klassen, Martens, Penner, Regier, and numerous others.
If you’re dealing with Swiss Mennonites, on the other hand, you get names like Yoder, Zook, and Schwartzentruber.
I think it’s amazing how they’ve kept up their language (both Hochdeutsch for church, and Plattdeutsch for everyday use). After all, it’s not as if they ever fly back to the old country and keep up their ties with it…Or do they? If I’m wrong about that, please enlighten me.
I lived in Germany for a year, during college, and became fairly fluent. Later, when I saw the move Witness, I was surprised by the scene in the train station, where the small boy asks, Darf ich aufs Klo? (Can I go to the bathroom?), and his mother answers in English, It’s over there. This is interesting for two reasons. First, I didn’t know that they carry on conversations in English and German at the same time. Secondly, I didn’t know that the term Klo had made it into the Amish lexicon. IIRC, Klo, short for Klosett as in W.C., is a colloquial term for the plumbing fixture itself, or the room it’s in, like “john” or “head”.
Just outta curiousity …
If I were to go to Amish country up in Pennsylvania, how much could I expect to pay for a quilt?
A good quilt, the kind that you pass on to your great-grandkids.
Another Mennonite here. Grew up near Waldheim Sask, a veritable sea of Penners, Dycks, Ratzlaffs, Glieges, Penners, Rempels, Harders, Epps, etc.
My Great Grandmother was a Rempel. Her mother was named Bahnmann, and they emigrated from Prussia in a great Mennonite migration that started around then.
None of the members of my family shunned technology - even t he Bahnmanns in the early 1900’s had one of the first tractors in the region. I had a great time learning to drive pickups and cars on the farm, and we had a 27" color TV in the family room in the 1970’s.
In fact, from my perspective it was hard to tell the average Mennonite from any other Christians, other than that we had a bit of a regional accent. There were some old order Mennonites living in the area - I remember visiting them as a little kid and being a bit creeped out by the lack of shiny things, no technology, yellow teeth on the old people, etc.
My friend grew up on a farm in Kansas, and he told about going to a farmer’s expo, which some Mennonite guys attended. One of the vendors showed a video of the equipment in action, and to be cute, at some point ran it much faster than normal time. Everyone else just watched it, having seen that so many times before, but the Mennonite guys (presumably the non-tv-having types) just fell out. They thought it was the funniest thing that week.