Preservings $20 Issue No. 26, 2006 - Home at Plett Foundation

Old Order Mennonites
move to Manitoba
John J. Friesen
During the summer of 2006, a group of Old
Order Mennonites (not Amish as reported by
the Winnipeg Free Press and repeated by The
Mennonite Historian) bought land in Manitoba
with the intention to set up a permanent community.
They bought 11 quarter sections of land
north of Gladstone, about 100 kilometers west of
Winnipeg. When their settlement is completed
it will include about 200 people.
The Old Order Mennonites are moving from
a community about 35 kilometres west of Walkerton
in southern Ontario. They investigated
settlement possibilities in Manitoba because
land in their area had become too expensive to
allow for expansion.
Old Order Mennonites, like Old Order
Amish whom they resemble in many respects,
strive to live faithfully according to the teachings
of the Bible. They take seriously texts that deal
with community, peace, and being separate from
the world. They reject modern conveniences
like motor vehicles because they fear they will
threaten community and make them dependent
upon the world. They dress and live simply,
rejecting the fashions and consumerism of the
world. They don’t vote in elections because they
do not want to participate in the war-making
decisions of the government.
When the Old Order Mennonites had selected
their land, a small group came to Manitoba to
begin to construct the necessary buildings. They
came by bus to Portage la Prairie, and were met
by one of the members from the Baker Hutterite
colony south of Bagot. Baker hosted them,
helped them make connections, and transported
some materials to their construction sites.
Old Order Mennonites formed in Ontario in
the 1880s. In the preceding decades, the Mennonite
community had been facing influences
from modernity and evangelical renewals. Not
nearly all Mennonites were in favour of the
changes these movements inspired. Tensions
in the Mennonite community finally came to a
head, and despite repeated meetings, the differences
could not be resolved.
The church divided, and one group decided
to follow faithfully the old ways, and became the
Old Order Mennonites. The other group decided
to accept some of the modern ways, and became
the Mennonite Conference of Ontario. Recently,
after a number of name changes, this group became
part of Mennonite Church Canada.
The Winnipeg Free Press article indicated
that the arrival of Old Order Mennonites will
have an influence on the Gladstone community.
Horses and buggies will travel on the roads, including
the Yellowhead Highway. The town has
put in place a hitching post for the horses. The
newcomers are planning to open a furniture store
and are already looking for suitable local birch,
oak and ash trees to use in making furniture.
The Old Order Mennonites returned to Ontario
in the fall with plans to return in Spring.
continued from page 3
evangelical revival movement that began around
1800, and is also called the Second Great
Awakening, thoroughly embodied the new spirit
of modernity. It was an English language revival
movement that swept across the American
frontier as it rolled west. It rejected traditional
forms of religion and theology, and expressed
a simplified theology that emphasized personal
conversions, direct relationship with Jesus, and
a personal morality.
Emphasis on the individual’s personal
conversion dovetailed well with the individual
rights enshrined in the American constitution.
Use of the English language shaped a uniquely
American revivalist theology that played a
powerful role in the melding of European
immigrants into American society. European
languages, customs, and semi-communal
economic patterns were viewed as old fashioned,
traditional, un-American and negative.
Although many church groups initially resisted
this pressure of modernity, most could not withstand
it, since it was closely tied to nationalism,
and to values of good and evil.
The twin forces of evangelicalism and modernity
influenced Mennonites strongly during
the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
creating divisions within Mennonite groups.
Among Swiss Mennonites and the Amish, divisions
happened during the 1870s and 1880s,
resulting in the formation of both the Old
Órder Amish and the Old Order Mennonites.
Among the Russian Mennonite immigrants to
Western Canada and the USA, the rift came in
the decade following World War I, and resulted
in thousands of Mennonites from Manitoba and
Saskatchewan, and a few from Kansas, moving
to Mexico to form Old Colony churches.
They rejected modernity, evangelicalism, and
economic capitalism in favour of traditional
forms of faith, church, life-styles, and economic
organizations.
During the past number of decades, critiques
have been leveled at modernity from
the perspective known as post-modernism. It
has been pointed out that modernity, despite its
promises, did not really deliver the good life.
It promised progress, but at the expense of the
wisdom of the past. It emphasized individual
rights and created a host of new freedoms, but
often destroyed community. It celebrated rational
and scientific solutions, but failed to give
heed to matters of the heart, spirit and soul, as
well as of the envirnment. Modernity failed in
many respects.
It is within this context of examining modernity
that a more positive evaluation of the
conservatives’ rejection of modernity may be
in place. Studying the conservatives is not an
exercise in nostalgia, nor the idealization of a
peculiar group, but a serious look at an alternative
to modernity. Theirs was an alternative
seeking to be faithful to scripture, rooted in
community, and tested over time. It may have
something to say to all of us, even those who
are not conservatives.
John J. Friesen Co-editor
Contributors
Preservings 2006
Marjan Blok, Herent, Belgium
Will Braun, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Robert Broesky, West Bank, British Columbia
Joan Chittister, St. Louis, Missouri
Michael Driedger, St. Catharines, Ontario
John Dyck †
Peter Enns, Cuauhtemoc, Mexico
Allan Friesen, Laird Saskatchewan
J. John Friesen †
John J. Friesen, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Mary Friesen, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Jacob G. Guenther, Warman, Saskatchewan
Ed Hoeppner, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Irvin B. Horst †
Bill Janzen, Ottawa, Ontario
Henry Kasper, Steinbach, Manitoba
Walter Klaassen, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Glen R. Klassen, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Peter J. Klassen, Fresno, California
Jennifer Kleinsasser, Glenway Hutterite
Colony, Dominion City, Manitoba
Lawrence Klippenstein, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Karl Koop, Winnipeg, Manitoba
W. Merle Loewen, Ellinwood, Kansas
Royden K. Loewen, Steinbach, Manitoba
Dora Maendel, Fairholme Hutterite Colony,
Portage la Prairie, Manitoba
Linda Maendel, Elm River Hutterite Colony,
Newton Siding
Peter Penner, Calgary, Alberta
Roger Penner, Medicine Hat, Alberta
Ken Reddig, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Roland Sawatzky, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Henry Schapansky, New Westminster, British
Columbia
John F. Schmidt †
Conrad Stoesz, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Jack Thiessen, New Bothwell, Manitoba
Henry Unger, Winkler, Manitoba
Pauline Unger Penner, Blumenort, Manitoba
N. van der Zijpp †
Gary Waltner, Weierhof, Germany
Hans Werner, Winnipeg, Manitoba
96 - Preservings No. 26, 2006