Celebrating 500 Years of the Anabaptist Movement – Part 2

Time for a shout-out to Anabaptism, a Protestant wing of the church marking its 500^th year anniversary this January, 2025. The marker traces to the time in 1525 when Geoge Blaurock, a Catholic priest, was baptized (re-baptized, actually) by Conrad Grebel in the home of Felix Manz in Zurich, Switzerland.

This did not go down well to the religious (and political) authorities of the day.

Manz was martyred (intentionally drowned) and others expelled and persecuted. But the convictions about believers’ baptism, about living by the Sermon on the Mount, about intentional community, about loyalty to God above all other loyalties, about willingness to suffer for the faith, and about a doctrine of the church in which purity is more important even than unity, persisted, and are much alive even today, 500 years later. This is so not only among groups like Hutterites, Amish, and Mennonites, but also for groups like Quakers, Baptists, the Church of Christ, Brethren and others with what we might call a sectarian understanding of the church.

My own interest grows out of my mother, who was Mennonite in her heart even when her name was on the Methodist books, my Mennonite relatives, and the fact that I grew up and have lived among Amish and Mennonites most of my life. This is covered in part l of this article. My education was not out of books, but through learned experience.

I grew up primarily in LaGrange County, IN, the third largest concentration of Amish-Mennonite people in the states. One summer in the mid-1950s, I got a summer job working for the Agricultural Stabilization Committee (ASC), a government agency dealing with food, farms and farmers. It seems that after World War II, instead of a food shortage, there was a glut of food, and especially in crops like corn and soybeans. One of the reasons why (I did my own research on this), was not only because of hybrids which produced better yields, but because ammonium nitrate (leftover bomb chemicals) was revolutionizing fertilizer, especially nitrogen. Suddenly, instead of corn producing 40 bushels to the acre (the average from Civil War times through WWII), farmers were producing 60 and then 80 (today it is more like 220) bushels of corn to the acre. Naturally the price of corn went down, the farmers weren’t making as much money and so the “government” was called upon to fix the problem.

The solution: if farmers planted fewer acres of corn the price would go up. To encourage farmers to grow less corn, the government devised a program which would guarantee a price of $2.50 a bushel to all who bought into the ASC program and marketed their corn. So the word went out before planting season and farmers signed up. My summer job (a college student at the time), was to visit every farmer in two townships and certify who had signed up and who had not. Farmers could still enroll in the program but would have to till under any corn planted that exceeded the quota.

Enrolled in the program or not, we were also interested in how many acres of corn had been planted. When I had gathered information about how much corn was planted, I would ask the landowner to sign a paper saying I had indeed visited the farm. For my efforts I would receive $2 per farm.

My two townships in eastern LaGrange County were in the center of the Amish community in our county. I must have visited maybe 200 homes, a vast majority of which were Amish. I did not keep notes at the time, so most of this account comes from memory in the years following. While I was not greatly affected at the time, upon later reflection I believe the experience of visiting so many Amish homes while representing government policy was about as good an education in Anabaptism as one could have.

I met and interacted with Amish families, with fathers and mothers and children, in the homes, in the barns, in the fields, and in the gardens. I was told before by ASC folk that almost none of the Amish would be interested in the program (out of maybe 150 Amish homes, none were). I was also warned that some of the families would not sign the form saying I had visited. Most of the calls followed a pattern. Were they aware of this program? They were, although I did explain it more thoroughly to some. Did they sign up or were they interested? No. Would they tell me how much corn they did have planted?  This was a personal and intrusive question not conducive to better relationships, so after a time or two I didn’t even ask this question. This was because I had been supplied with aerial photos of each farm which identified all of the fields and since the farms were small, I could answer the question simply by observing the fields.

The more interesting visits were those involving more conversation. Why were we doing this? I usually offered a brief answer involving the economics of agriculture. A less satisfactory answer was that it was for their own good (another answer not conducive for good relationships). But then on a number of occasions I was asked if there were not hungry people in the world and why not just give some of the abundance of food away. Or, a comment might be made to the effect that if food were inexpensive would not more people be able to afford it? Then I got some comments about whether or not God, if concerned about too much corn, could take care of this himself (a theological question).

After a while I began to question myself whether the government really knew what it was doing. Would this program in the long haul be successful?  (I have no idea what the answer is.) But I also began to appreciate the Amish (Anabaptist) perspective. Much of what the government and big business offered was not that helpful to the Amish. In later years I had examples. One Amish man was discouraged after some official informed him he was not allowed to dump his trash in his woods. The board of health (or some agency) declared that the cider presses did not meet health standards. Amish farms could not sell eggs because of the standards of their chicken coops. They could not sell raw milk. Amish women were not to sell their pies at roadside stands since they were not baked in approved kitchens. The Amish had to apply the proper reflective tapes on the back of their buggies.

But the biggest problem, at least in Indiana, related to schools. The truancy rate for Amish attendance was unacceptable, especially around planting season when Amish children stayed home to work. Furthermore, children were being taught things that were foreign to their way of life. And, they did not wish to pledge allegiance to the flag. From the Anabaptist perspective only God, not the state nor the labor union, nor for that matter, any other club would receive allegiance. In some schools dominated by “English” (non-Amish), Amish children were made fun of. All Amish children dropped out of school either after the eighth grade or when they reached the age of 16. They would intentionally fail rather than go to high school.

Then persons sympathetic to Amish convictions were able to pass legislation in Indiana that exempted Amish from laws that set educational standards. If Amish were to have their own schools, their teachers would not need college credentials to teach; the schools could be eight-month instead of nine-month schools; they would not need to be taught state-authorized subjects. In return the Amish would make sure their children attended school. This began the establishment of Amish and Mennonite schools, of which today in LaGrange County there are 32.

About this same time I heard among the non-Amish (like Methodists) in our county that the present generation (in the 1950s) was probably the last generation of Amish. Amish children wanted cars and TV and electricity and other modern conveniences. At the time there were about 5,000 Amish in my county. Our modern society greatly underestimates the security of religious community, the importance of the home, and the sense of purpose that obedience to Scripture can bring. Today LaGrange County, though rural, is growing in population with 40,000 residents reported in the last census. Of that number 43 percent, or about 18,000, are Amish.

Land prices are expensive because the Amish want land. More interestingly, the Amish, along with the Mennonites, along with their community activities, are now tourist attractions. Amish cooking and Amish craftsmanship and Amish auctions have spawned the Shipshewana Flea Market, now the largest flea market in the Midwest with 700 vendors on 40 acres. There are auctions and quilt shows and furniture shows. The Amish sponsor Habitat for Humanity activities and Poor Relief Auctions. Bus tours from as far off as Canada are organized to visit Shipshewana.

At one time, statistics placed LaGrange County per capita income as among the lowest in the state. This was in large part because the Amish had many children and had the kind of income not reportable. At the same time the county had among the lowest percentage of persons on food stamps in the state. No longer. Stories are told of Amish paying cash for farm land. A couple of times a year my sisters and sometimes cousins spend several days in Shipshewana. We never come away unblessed.

What is the take-away of all this for the Church of today?

The government cannot solve all of our problems. There is talk today about Christian nationalism and about Making America Great Again. If the history of Christianity as expressed through Anabaptist communities has taught us anything, it is the importance of the separation of church and state. Governments, even those who claim to be Christian governments, must exist by laws and policies and coercion, but Christian behavior includes grace, and that goes beyond justice. I have, for a number of years, made an effort to observe whether American flags are displayed in sectarian churches—Quakers, Mennonites, Brethren, German Baptists, Amish. In a few cases they are but these would be the exception. While I believe in infant baptism I also respect the view that one is not born a Christian, nor is Christian faith chosen by parents, but one makes a personal commitment to be a Christian. In a sense this is evangelical faith which has been strongly influenced by the Anabaptists.

Fulfilled life comes in large part through family and traditional values and the church as the gathered community. There are matters more important in life other than wealth and fashion and politics and the entertainment industry.  This will be addressed more fully in part 3 of this longer essay, but for the moment let it be stated that our Anabaptist-inspired Christian culture reflects values that make life worthwhile.