Anabaptist Anarchy , Over 300 years of Success
The Amish Say - "Kiss this, Government"
The Town Mouse and The Country Mouse
A Town Mouse once visited a relative who lived in the country. For lunch the Country Mouse served… Read More
Las Vegas For the Amish - Pinecraft Florida 2020
Anabaptist Anarchy, No Masks, No Rules
Go away guvment , Not wanted Here
Mennonite World Conference
Dear Anabaptist sisters and brothers:
This letter is a call for the church around the world to join in prayer for Christians and other minority groups who are harassed and threatened in India, especially in rural areas. With tacit support from government officials, anti-Christian and anti-Muslim groups seek to close churches and mosques… Read More
Anabaptist World – Mennonite News, Inspiring Stories
Why the Amish Population Is Exploding (2012)
The number of Amish people in the U.S. has doubled in the last 20 years, and the sect is spreading across the United States. Read More
Watership Down , Richard Adams 1972
Review – The Bible often equates people to sheep, and is full of stories and legends, which convey some wisdom or truth. Adams book is similar. It is a story about rabbits, true, but it is also clearly a great model for the way humans express fear and faith in the stressful circumstances of life. Most notable are the great lapine legends and the language used to express those stories and ideas and motivate the characters. We do this as humans, finding comfort and courage in such stories.
The basic ideals of a free society are found in this book. This great assumption that rabbits/people are created by a divine creator and guided by said creator and given the parameters of free will; and that within those parameters we choose virtuous or ignoble paths for ourselves is implicit and pervasive throughout.
Every young adult should be required to read this book in the compulsory school system, if you want them to understand some basic principals of western, free civilizations, from whence spring the greatest innovations, aspirations, and hopes of mankind. If you read this story and don’t feel for these rabbits as if they were people you knew, well then you have surely missed something.
Murder Mystery Noir , David Bergman
Unpardonable Sins
John Reimer, a Mennonite preacher in Lakeview, Chicago, might be on the downslope of his ministerial career. At least that's how he feels most days. Then one morning in March a hungover waitress at the Melrose diner tells him to look into the murder of a bike messenger at North Pond--and begs him to keep the cops out of it. Before too long Reimer is making tracks through Chicago, asking a lot of questions, and leaving many people uncomfortable.
"A gripping narrative that intertwines Chicago history and weather, politics and police, with Mennonite potlucks, church politics, and Karl Barth. Unpardonable Sins . . . undercuts simplistic explanations of why and how human beings live and find meaning. This mystery novel by an astute observer of Chicago street life and a master wordsmith will introduce you to a Mennonite pastor you will not soon forget."
Jesus was an anarchist (and a stonemason)
- Mark Van Steenwyk interview excerpts
Was there a time in your life when the word “anarchism” would have been jarring for you? How did that change?
Certainly. But even after embracing what I now know to be anarchist views, I would have reacted to the word. When someone said “anarchist,” my brain envisioned someone dressed in black angrily throwing bricks through windows. And there are anarchists who do that.
That changed as I read radical history. The first Anabaptists were, in many ways, revolutionaries. Most were nonviolent, but some were violent. The same is true for the liberation movements around the world. Anarchists are as complex and diverse as the early Anabaptists. And one of the fathers of anarchism, Peter Kropotkin, wrote that anarchism has its roots in the Anabaptist movement.
How do you see Mennonite faith connected to anarchism?
Jesus’ vision of the kingdom of God has anti-domination, anarchic implications; it also assumes that only by nurturing practices centered on the presence of the living Christ can we move from domination to nondomination, from death to life, from oppression to liberation and from alienation to love.
Mennonites have a rich history of creating small communities that do the “Jesus stuff” directly without outsourcing it. I am a Christian and an anarchist because I believe Christianity can teach anarchists about love, spirituality, forgiveness and grace. And because anarchists can remind Christians of the radical political and economic implications of the way of Jesus.
If we care about homelessness, then rather than simply voting for a progressive candidate or complaining against the wealthy, we should offer someone our guest room or couch. We should become friends with folks who are homeless.
What gifts do you think the Mennonite tradition has to offer Christians today?
In a society grappling with economic fallout and inhospitality, Mennonites can teach about our practices of mutual aid and hospitality. Mennonites have theology and history that can help other Christians who are questioning the war machine and social injustices but lack the theology or the ecclesiology to go deeper. We have to share our success and our failures and find a way to support others engaging in a similar struggle.
Folks are emerging into convictions that are similar to Anabaptism. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, and we have an obligation to help them embrace the call of Jesus Christ to live more fully into the kingdom of God. And we should do that without trying to absorb them into our particular Mennonite story.
Anabaptist Education - Best Videos selected by K-anon
5 Things you can start doing "AMISH" as our world is in Turmoil * Lessons from the Amish
Meeting The Amish - First Impressions 🇺🇸
