She’s over a decade old, but stills gets good mileage and is reliable. She’s got an LEV (Low Emissions Vehicle) tag on the window over her left wheel. I named her Uhura.
Why am I showing you my car? Because usually when people first hear that you’re a Mennonite one of four things will happen:
(1) they will know what a Mennonite is and not care (though this is really rare)
(2) they have no idea what that means (this is the most common)
(3) they will think you actually said “Meta Knight,” which is confusing as it’s a character from the video game “Kirby” (this has happened once)
(4) they will think to themselves that you are somehow Amish, and questions concerning buggies and electricity will ensue (this is the reason why I showed you all my car.)
I will say this once and be clear about it: Mennonites are NOT Amish. The Amish were Mennonites who couldn’t handle the party. They split off and claim to be having their own “fun” now. Not very likely, because their concept of “fun” probably involves playing dominos and hunting mushrooms. That’s right, psht. (One of these upcoming weeks will be dedicated to the Amish and those that stalk them. So all you amophiles, be on standby.)
It is true that some Mennonites may have a similar appearance to the Amish, in that they wear “plain” clothes and might not have cars. These Mennonites are “conservative” or “old order.” I am a LIBERAL MENNONITE. This means that I am indiscernible from mainstream culture in terms of my dress and actions. Theoretically.
So, what is a Mennonite? The short answer: an Anabaptist christian denomination born during the Reformation. For the remainder of this post I’m going to give you all a short, semi-historical lesson of how and why the European Mennonites came into existence. (Bear with me, I’m not a historian. If you want a factually precise account, try the book “Stories” by John Roth.)
Once upon the early 1500s, during the time of the Reformation, there were small groups of people that thought that infant baptism shouldn’t be practiced. I believe their method of reasoning fell somewhere along the lines of:
1) Babies can’t consent to being baptized and
2) they just swell up and cry when you put water on their heads.
These folks were called Anabaptists. Anabaptist means “re-baptizer.” The term was originally created to make fun of adults getting baptized, because in those days everyone had already been baptized in infancy. Yeah, I guess at one time that was considered pretty hilarious. (Remember, this was before the world had such comedic gems as “Beavis and Butthead.”)
Unfortunately, a couple of the earliest “Anabaptist” movements were run by folks that could best be described as batshit crazy. I believe nudity and violence came into play in at least one instance. I’m pretty sure I didn’t just make that up.
Then, thank goodness, some sensible folks came along with their electric guitars and started their own Anabaptist rock party for peace. One of these more sensible folks was Menno Simons, a former Catholic priest. (Menno, Mennonites, need I say more.) Menno was big on what he interpreted to be the message of pacifism or nonresistance in the New Testament. These beliefs are the most important to keep in mind because a lot of the general dickery towards Mennonites and other peaceful Anabaptists that has gone on throughout the centuries was on account of these beliefs. The concept of plain living was also important to the early Mennonites and other peaceful Anabaptists. As a result, some groups of conservative or Old Order Mennonites today still wear plain clothes and live in ways that could appear to be similar to the Amish, so that is where a lot of confusion happens. But don’t be fooled, Amish people are way more boring.
Looking back, those early Mennonites didn’t want much. Just to choose church membership for themselves, not be asked to kill anyone, and wear dated, funny-looking clothes. And despite these relatively harmless beliefs, the Roman Catholic church didn’t like Mennonites. They didn’t really like any of the religious dissenters of the day, to be fair. Luckily for those particular Catholics, everybody loves to burn a heretic.
So Mennonites were tortured and burned along with the other “heretics” during the Reformation. Much to the modern Mennonite scholar’s delight, these early Mennonites were OCD enough to keep note of all these incidences. Today you can read all about them in “The Martyr’s Mirror.” It’s an obnoxiously large book that attempts to put every known instance of martyrdom in early Christian and Anabaptist history together.
Wow. Now that I say it, it sounds kind of like a middle-schooler that writes about everything their parents do that piss them off. (“Just you wait, one day you’ll see how mean you were to me!” he declares.)
At some point the Roman Catholic church stopped having a crazy amount of control in Europe, and that should have been good news for the Mennonites. But it wasn’t. It’s important to realize that the Mennonites, and EVERY OTHER Christian group that sprung up during the Reformation, lived with the deep conviction that their system of beliefs and practices were just a little “more right” than everyone else’s. They didn’t exactly flaunt this idea, but certain things like evading taxes for the military and refusing conscription were routinely practiced by Mennonites and considered REAL ANNOYING OMG! to everyone else. As a result, most of the story of Mennonites in Central and Eastern Europe has been one of forced removal and, in many cases, getting killed.
Combating this issue the only way they knew how, the Mennonites mated like rabbits and many eventually made it to places in North America, where persecution was generally less of a problem. They also came one step closer to realizing their dream of pissing off EVERY COUNTRY IN THE ENTIRE WORLD when they still refused to fight in wars.
Today, many of the descendants of the original European Mennonites live in various locations in Canada and the United States. I’m the unfortunate product of these people. These crazy, crazy people.
Of course, it could be worse.
At least I’m not Amish.
The Mennonite Table 