Anabaptist Conscientious Objection in Toronto.

From CNW Group, an update on the Canadian case about conscientious objection:

Mennonite Central Committee Canada (MCCC) and Canadian Friends Service Committee (CFSC) (Quakers) express disappointment that the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) has rejected a request to intervene in an appeal by US war resister Jeremy Hinzman.Hinzman and family applied for permanent resident status in Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, but their application was rejected. An upcoming appeal to the FCA will focus on whether punishment for desertion from the military - if it was motivated by a "deeply held" objection to war - could amount to "undue hardship" for the purpose of a humanitarian and compassionate application.The FCA refused CFSC-MCCC's intervention stating that they weren't directly affected by the issue, wouldn't provide a "fresh perspective", and that the Hinzmans' legal counsel could raise relevant concerns.Jane Orion Smith, General Secretary of CFSC, said, "The Court's decision is profoundly disappointing. Quakers and Mennonites, the core base of historic peace churches, have a unique and influential role in establishing rights for conscientious objectors over several centuries in Canada and internationally. During conscription, most of our members sought exemption as conscientious objectors. Conscientious objection is an issue of the present, not just history. Jeremy Hinzman and his family are an active part of the Toronto Quaker Meeting. Despite this setback, we will continue to educate and advocate for the realization of this much misunderstood right which is protected in domestic and international law."CFSC and MCCC argued that because Jeremy Hinzman's conscientious objection is rooted in his freedom of religion (and conscience), there should be a different test for assessing his punishment for holding those beliefs. It should not have to amount to "undue or disproportionate" hardship. Any hardship for his beliefs could potentially breach his religious rights, and the immigration officer deciding his case had to consider his case in light of these rights.Tim Wichert of Jackman & Associates, counsel for CFSC and MCCC, says: "The Federal Court has specifically said that the issue of conscientious objection still raises a host of outstanding questions, begging for resolution. Because of their extensive experience with this issue, we argued that Quakers and Mennonites had a unique perspective to offer."For further information: Tim Wichert (counsel), (905) 932-8914 or (416) 653-9900 ext 228; Jane Orion Smith (CFSC), (416) 920-5213 or (416) 356-5213

Who's Amish Now?

I have a post up at KillingtheBuddha about Conservative's Amish-envy. Since folks like Michelle Malkin found out that the Amish and Mennonites are exempt from the health care mandate, there's been talk of conversion.

I show that such talk isn't just a denial of the country's founding principles but a profound lack of understanding of faithful conviction. Here's an excerpt:

From the stiff wooden pews of my grandmother’s Mennonite church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, I often heard a story that perfectly illustrates the Anabaptist approach to profession of faith. It’s a part of Anabaptist lore, told and retold from the simple pulpits of unadorned churches across the country. As it turns out, the story belongs to one Rufus P. Bucher as much as it does to the Amish and Mennonites I grew up surrounded by. Chris Armstrong recently retold it at his blog:

When Brethren evangelist Rufus P. Bucher was asked by a stranger in a railway station, “Brother, are you saved?” he replied that since he might be prejudiced on the question, his interrogator should go ask his wife, children, and neighbors. “I’ll be ready to let their answers stand as my own.”

There’s a reason why the Anabaptists believe in showing and not telling. For a couple of hundred years they were sought out, tortured and murdered for their faith. And not just by their neighbors, but by their state. Fleeing from Switzerland to escape the horrors of the Radical Reformation, Anabaptists, who ascribe to adult baptism and are comprised of Amish and Mennonite sects, headed first to Germany, then to Russia and the infant United States. They never looked back. The need to escape religious persecution at home became the need to find religious tolerance wherever it existed. Today Mennonite and Amish populations live on every continent, in every country that will allow them freedom to live their modest lifestyle, outside the strictures of modern society or government laws. You won’t find a group of believers more versed in the necessity for strict separation of church and state; the Anabaptists know better than most what happens when a nation’s ruler’s adopt theocratic laws: somebody’s bound to get killed.

Religious Tolerance and the Health Care Mandate.

Anabaptists have long eschewed public insurance policies for their own collective address of medical emergencies. Home owner's insurance and other plans designed to prevent catastrophic loss are seen by the more conservative members of the Anabaptist sect as intrusions. While car insurance was never much of a problem - if you own a car the chances are you're "worldly" enough to buy into insurance needs.

In fact, family story has it that my Mennonite grandparents left a more traditional church in Lancaster County when the pastor there criticized my grandmother's short bonnet strings (long ones were oh so much more pious) and my grandfather's insurance policies.

While the Amish and conservative Mennonite communities are now forced to provide their employees with workmen's compensation, they have stayed far away from health insurance, coming together to care for a broken arm or a dire prognosis like they would to build a barn.

The health care bill has many wary critics among these conservative Anabaptist sects, most hoping they will be able to receive exemption from the new mandated fees. David Mekeel writes:

UNLIKE MOST Americans, James B. Weaver has never really given much thought to health insurance.

An Old Order Mennonite living in Maxatawny Township, Weaver, 56, doesn’t subscribe to the idea of buying insurance of any kind.

He opts to rely on his community when it comes to handling the bur den of sickness.

“We sort of like to try to pull our own weight, and we’re very staunch believers that there is no free lunch, Weaver said of the Plain communi ties in Berks and elsewhere. “We take care of our own sick and infi rm.”

The same is true for the few Amish households in Berks County, which are mostly in the far western part of the county.

But the debate about a new na tional health care bill has forced the insurance topic to the forefront for many Amish and Old Order Men nonites.

Both the U.S. House and the Sen ate have passed health care reform bills, and the lawmakers are expect ed to work out the details of a fi nal bill early this year.

Each bill includes requirements that would force nearly every Amer ican to carry health insurance and make businesses provide it for employees.

Those who don’t have insurance would face fi nes.

Weaver suspects most members of Plain communities would balk at the idea of buying health insurance. But he said some younger members may not be as steadfastly against the idea.

“I think there’s going to be a lot of talk, a lot of dialogue in our circles about how we are going to deal with this,” Weaver said. “Unfortunately, I think quite a lot of our younger people might not be opposed to some form of it.

“The older generation, though, will probably try to work something out where they get exemptions.”

An unwelcome intrusion

In Plain communities, health insurance requirements are viewed as an unwelcome government intrusion.

“It’s basically a religious reason,” said Don Kraybill, professor of Anabaptist studies at Elizabethtown College in Lancaster County. “They feel the members of the church are responsible by their Christian faith to help each other and take care of people.

“They feel they shouldn’t be paying outside commercial entities to be taking care of them. That’s the responsibility of members inside the community.”

My People: Notes On Lancaster County Amish and Mennonites.

Grateful to the Dead's Chris Armstrong has a nice "fun facts" list on my people, the Anabaptists.

For clarity concerning the use of "Pennsylvania Dutch": "Deutsch" is German for, uh, German.

On why/how Lancaster County? Many Lancaster County Amish and Mennonites (I grew up in Lancaster, my grandparents were Mennonite) are from the Swiss-German-speaking area of Switzerland (Canton Bern) but spent a subsequent few generation in Germany after fleeing prosecution in their homeland. Prosecution had led them to live outside towns and cities as farmers, self-reliant. William Penn caught up with them in Germany and, needing settlers for his new state, promised religious freedom in fledgling Pennsylvania. Germantown was the first primary settlement in the state. My flock chose to go west to Lancaster, then the outskirts of the new settlement.

Separation of Church and State: Despite self-schooling and what in modern times look like "backwards" ways, ask any Amish or Mennonite why the separation of church and state is so important. They'll tell you to read Martyrs' Mirror, the book Armstrong mentions below, a harrowing tome of the tortures suffered by Anabaptists under state laws from the time of Christ until 1660.

That doubt about the Establishment clause exists among other Fundamentalist or some Evangelical groups in the US today is, according to the Baptists who paid with the blood of their members for centuries, protection from and by the state is tantamount to religious freedom. Every Anabaptist is taught their history, one that remembers the horrors of Theocracy. Now once removed from the church, I still strongly resent efforts to debunk the importance of separation of church and state.

For a short piece of mine on religious tolerance, click here.

Chris Armstrong:

Continuing this week’s Anabaptist theme, here are the surprising and interesting factoids that made it into the front page of Christian History & Biography’s issue 94: Pilgrims & Exiles, about America’s Anabaptist groups:

Pilgrims and Exiles: Did You Know?
Interesting and unusual facts about America’s Anabaptists
Friday, October 1, 2004

You may be more Mennonite than you think

Many American Christians simply assume that the state has no business dictating church beliefs or practices, that a church should be a gathered body of believers rather than a net that scoops up everyone within the area of a parish, and that baptism is a step of obedience upon profession of faith. What most do not know is that Mennonites were the first (surviving) group of Christians to insist on these things, and that they died by the thousands for doing so.

“Are you saved?” … “Ask my neighbors”

The early Brethren (Dunkers)—a cousin movement to the Mennonites and Amish—practiced a lively evangelistic outreach. But the typical Anabaptist emphasis on showing, not just telling, one’s faith remained strong. When Brethren evangelist Rufus P. Bucher was asked by a stranger in a railway station, “Brother, are you saved?” he replied that since he might be prejudiced on the question, his interrogator should go ask his wife, children, and neighbors. “I’ll be ready to let their answers stand as my own.”

Trail of blood

The Martyrs Mirror (1660), an Anabaptist martyrology, has as its full title “The Bloody Theater or Martyrs Mirror of the Defenseless Christians Who Baptized Only Upon Confession of Faith, and Who Suffered and Died for the Testimony of Jesus, Their Saviour, From the Time of Christ to the Year A.D. 1660.”

A-Fording them a higher profile

By the 1980s, annual visitors to Lancaster County’s “Amish country” numbered above 4 million. The 1985 Harrison Ford film “Witness” increased the flood even further (though not doubling it as predicted).

Plain dress not so simple

To the outsider, the Anabaptists’ plain dress looks oppressively uniform. But really study plain dress, and you’ll find a dizzying array of differences. In his book Why Do They Dress That Way? Brethren scholar Stephen Scott charts out these differences. Amish women may wear a straight or a crossed cape, a Midwest, Lancaster, or “Nebraska” back, and a rectangular or triangular shawl. Amish men may sport hats with a plain, creased, depressed, or flat crown; and wear X-type, H-type, Y-type, or single strap suspenders. Mennonite women choose between Reformed, Wenger, or Victoria bonnets—all with chin straps—or wear a bonnet without a strap, called a “beanie” bonnet. And Mennonite and Brethren men wear either a frock or sack coat.

Just another farming group

Public fascination with the Lancaster County Amish began early in the 20th century with romanticized images of Amish life on WPA posters and in theatrical treatments like the 1955 musical Plain and Fancy. But throughout most of the 19th century, the Amish numbered fewer than 5,000, and the nation had not progressed in technology and culture to the point where they stood out. The press and public generally tended to ignore them.

Give us this day our daily bread

All Brethren celebrate the “love feast” twice each year. But the Old Order River Brethren (so named because upon joining they were baptized in the Susquehanna River, Pennsylvania) reserve a special role for their women in preparing for the feast. Breadmaking—mixing, kneading, and baking unleavened bread used for communion—is part of the ceremony itself. At long trestle tables in the main meeting room, the sisters (baptized women) work the dough, while the brothers stand by and preach a spiritual interpretation of the act. Preparing the bread together in this way reinforces the unity of Christ’s body; leaving leaven out of the bread is akin to getting rid of any kind of pride or spiritual impurity.

Going—and staying—”Dutch”

Pennsylvania German, or Pennsylvania Dutch (Pennsilfaani-Deitsch), is a High German language spoken by 150,000 to 250,000 people in North America. (“Dutch” is an archaic English term meaning “German.”) Only Amish and Old Order Mennonites are passing the language along to their children in the current generation, although they were originally minority groups within the Pennsylvania German-speaking population. In these cultures, the language is a sign of Demut or humility, and the language serves as a barrier against the outside world. With the high birth rate in Amish communities, the possibility is great that the language will survive at least in the short term.