Mennonite Weekly Review · June 23, 2008 · 86th Year, No. 25
A tale of two churches: One has organized softball teams with uniforms and shows DVD movies at youth activities. Another disallows youth activities altogether, uses German in services and takes a stand against posing for photographs, even for driver’s licenses.
Both congregations are Beachy Amish Mennonite.
Numerous Beachy congregations fall somewhere between these two — sometimes all in one settlement.
“What really makes a Beachy a Beachy?” asks Jim Yoder, bishop of a moderate-conservative church near Leitchfield, Ky. “There is such a huge gap, and that gap is getting wider.”
Bishop emeritus John U. Lapp of Weavertown Amish Mennonite, a mainstream- progressive Beachy church in Lancaster County, Pa., concurs.
“There’s definitely many different stripes of churches,” he said.
Decisions in Beachy churches are made locally. There are no constituency-wide codes to decide what’s a Beachy church and what’s not.
Several moderate-conservative Beachy churches have recently developed minimal guidelines for three closer-knit fellowships within Beachy circles: the Maranatha Amish Mennonites, the Berea Amish Mennonites, and the newest group, which Yoder was instrumental in starting, the Ambassadors Amish Mennonites.
Congregations in these fellowships are as dispersed as the Beachy church, from Maine to Arkansas, from Kansas to Virginia, as well as in most major historic Anabaptist settlements.
In addition, other Beachys maintain informal fellowship in unnamed groups, including the most conservative and the most mainstream churches.
Drawing fellowship lines is not a simple process. It has caused shifts in relations that weigh heavy on the hearts of those in every church setting.
Yet this diversity is understandable, for the beginning of the Beachy movement was a marriage of convenience.
From the 1910s through the 1940s, unrest overtook numerous Old Order Amish settlements. One or both of the following were issues: restrictions on technology and enforcement of shunning.
Conflict among the Somerset County, Pa., Amish was the main catalyst for a new Amish Mennonite movement. Bishop Moses M. Beachy, for whom the Beachy church is named, believed it was wrong to shun anyone whose only offense was transferring membership to the Conservative Amish Mennonite Conference (predecessor of today’s Conservative Mennonite Conference).
His co-ministers disagreed. They also believed Beachy sympathized with those who wanted technological advances.
A division occurred in 1927, and Beachy helped establish churches among dissatisfied Amish in other settlements. Congregations continued sprouting even after Beachy’s death in 1946.
In the 1950s, Mennonite revivalism attracted more Amish to Beachy’s progressive movement. Many Amish were drawn to an evangelical fervor spurred by the revivals of evangelist George Brunk II.
Consequently, another wave of Amish joined the Beachys. Also in this era, they started missions, voluntary service units, including two homes for the mentally handicapped and three retirement homes, youth programs, such as a post-secondary Bible institute and annual youth fellowship meetings, and publishing ventures.
Some wanted to remain Amish, but with cars. Some wanted to evangelize non-Anabaptists, and some wanted to evangelize the Amish. Some wanted to provide a conservative environment for their children. Some just needed to be part of a wider fellowship of churches.
The Beachy movement filled a gap in the Anabaptist picture. It was the only Amish Mennonite constituency of its time. It was the rebirth of a movement born in the late 1800s, when the Old Orders withdrew from the progressive Amish Mennonites. By this time, the original Amish Mennonite conferences had merged with the Mennonites, and the Conservative Amish Mennonite Conference was too far from Amish for many.
“Beachy” had become the new “Amish Mennonite.”
Beachy Amish facts Name: Beachy Amish Mennonite Church Origin: emerged from Amish in Salisbury, Pa., 1927 2008 adherents: 11,000 (approximate) U.S. and Canadian congregations: 144 Leading states, with 17 to 23 congregations each: Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania Global congregations: 50 Global presence: Australia, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ireland, Kenya, Nicaragua, Romania and Ukraine; exploratory/relief efforts in numerous African, Middle Eastern and Asian counties, including India, Iraq, Israel and Liberia, among others
Amish Mennonite Aid (missions in developing countries) Missions Interest Committee (missions in developed countries) Faith Mission Home (Va.), mentally handicapped children’s home Hillcrest Home (Ark.), retirement facility Mountain View Nursing Home (Va.), retirement facility Calvary Bible School (Ark.), post-secondary Bible institute Calvary Messenger, primary periodical
Infallible inspiration of Scripture Ministers ordained by lot Automobile use Sunday school Women’s head covering (various styles) No television No alcohol or tobacco Prohibition on remarriage while former spouse lives Non-involvement in government politics
As early as the 1950s, Beachy churches were drawing lines of fellowship. The earliest case was the controversial acceptance into the Beachy constituency of a progressive congregation in Virginia. This faction had withdrawn from a conservative Beachy congregation but was reinstated into the Beachy church by sympathetic Beachys.
Such an arrangement has been the story of many churches since. Yoder sees this as a key struggle.
“Suppose there’s church problems,” he said. “There are differences, which are common. So a segment says, ‘We want this differently, so let’s get some bishops to help us get started next door.’ That to me . . .”
He stops. And then starts again.
“I would have an interest in knowing how many of our Beachy churches have had their roots in that type of beginning,” he said.
Lapp agrees.
“Our greatest difficulty stems from the fact that we don’t think alike,” he said. “But why don’t we look at the fact that God made us all different, with the intention that we blend together in our difference, and we find a common ground in a brotherhood?”
Both Yoder and Lapp recognize diversity as a blessing and a challenge. Both are active in dispute resolution within other churches. Yet Lapp and Yoder are in very different settings. And both settings are growing rapidly.
“We have the notion that if you are conservative, you are legalistic,” Yoder said. “A spiritual group that has a conservative emphasis is going to be attractive. That’s what we would like to strive to maintain.”
Lapp is sympathetic with the concerns of the Maranatha, Berea and Ambassadors groups, but he said: “Every time a group has to split away from another one on something less than doctrine, they sow seeds for another split in the next generation. I would have no difficulty in joining with the Maranatha group or the other groups, but I would have difficulty in having to break away from where God placed me.”
Yoder recognizes the potential to sow seeds of division. Members in his congregation are from diverse backgrounds and have differing views.
While he and leaders in Maranatha and Berea have expressed concerns openly about the direction of the Beachy church, Yoder does not hesitate to laud the achievements and faithfulness of many Beachy members in the broader constituency.
Yet, he still sees potential in the closer, like-minded fellowship of Ambassadors and the unifying standards the group has drawn up — even if this movement, like Maranatha and Berea, is a move away from the Beachy nucleus.
“Surely we can have a minimal standard to keep us together,” Yoder said. “Whether it will work long term, we don’t know. I expect every generation faces that.”
Originally published in two parts at mennoweekly.org (BEACHY.html and BEACHY2.html), now offline. Reassembled from the author’s saved copies of both pages.