Horse-and-Buggy Mennonites
Hoofbeats of Humility in a Postmodern World
376 pages | 51 illustrations | 6 x 9 | 2006
ISBN 978-0-271-02865-1 | cloth: $44.00 sh
ISBN 978-0-271-02866-8 | paper: $22.95 tr
Pennsylvania German History and Culture Series Co-published with Pennsylvania German Society
Winner of the 2007 AAUP Book Jacket and Journal Show, Jacket and Covers
“Until now there has not beena comprehensive work on Old OrderMennonite life and culture. With this bookKraybill and Hurd provide not only thefirst such study, but a first-rate one.Authoritative and accessible, Horse-and-BuggyMennonites offers rich detail and illuminatingcomparative analysis. Especially insightful isthe authors’ exploration of the connections between mobility and identity.” —Steven M. Nolt, Goshen College
On Easter Sunday of 1927, progress and tradition collidedat the Groffdale Old Order Mennonite Church in easternPennsylvania when half the congregation shunned the cupof wine offered by Bishop Moses Horning. The boycott ofthis holiest of Mennonite customs was in direct responseto Horning’s decision to endorse the automobile after yearsof debate within the church. The resulting schism overopposing views of technology produced the group knownas the Wenger Mennonites. In the nearly eighty years sincethe establishment of this church, the initial group of fiftydissenters has grown to a community of 16,000 WengerMennonites. They have large families and typically retain95 percent or more of their youth. For many years theirmain community was based in Lancaster County, but inrecent decades they have expanded into eight other states,with new communities most recently established in Iowaand Michigan. Despite their continued rejection of moderntechnology, the Wengers—popularly known as horse-andbuggyMennonites—continue to thrive on their own terms.
In this first-of-its-kind study of the Wenger Mennonites,Kraybill and Hurd—a sociologist and an anthropologist—use cultural analysis to interpret the Wengers in both Pennsylvaniaand Wisconsin. They systematically compare theWengers with other Mennonite groups as well as with theAmish, showing how relationships with these other groupshave had a powerful impact on shaping the identity of theWenger Mennonites in the Anabaptist world. As Kraybilland Hurd show, the Wengers have learned that it is impossible to maintain a truly static culture, and so examining theways in which the Wengers cautiously and incrementallyadapt to the ever-changing world around them is an invaluablecase study of the gradual evolution of religious ritual inthe face of modernity.
Donald B. Kraybill is Distinguished Professor and Senior Fellow at Elizabethtown College’s Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies. He is a nationally recognized scholar on Anabaptist groups and has written or edited more than eighteen books, including The Riddle of Amish Culture (1989; rev. ed. 2001) and Amish Enterprise: From Plows to Profits (1995; rev. ed. 2004).
James P. Hurd is Chair of the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at Bethel University. An anthropologist by training, he has done fieldwork in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and rural Pennsylvania.
Contents
List of Tables and Diagrams
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 Who Are the Wenger Mennonites?
2 The Fabric of Faith and Culture
3 Mobility and Identity
4 The Architecture of Community
5 The Rhythm of Sacred Ritual
6 Passages from Birth to Death
7 Making a Living Together
8 Technology and Social Change
9 Pilgrims in a Postmodern World
Appendixes
Notes
Selected References
Index
Photo Credits