The Weaverland Mennonite Schools and the Negotiation of an Old Order Identity

Abstract: In 1977, a group of parents from Mennonite Conference (Horning Mennonites) in Lancaster Country, Pennsylvania, purchased an old public school building and started Farmersville Mennonite School, first of what would become Mennonite Schools. Although not formally administered by weaverland Mennonite Mennonite schools are dedicated to providing an education that instills in Horning Mennonite children values and beliefs of Mennonite Conference. Drawing on archival research, observations in Mennonite Schools and interviews with Horning parents, teachers, and educators, this article asserts that, through Mennonite Schools, Conference Mennonite actively construct an identity as Mennonites that reinforces historical and everyday links to their horse-and-buggy brethren while, at same time, accommodating a more technologically modern lifestyle. ********** In 1893, Lancaster Conference of Mennonites schismed as Bishop Jonas Martin led those who were unhappy with such worldly innovations as Sunday school into a new organization, Conference of Mennonites. Only thirty-four years later, in 1927, Conference itself divided, again over innovations that some saw as worldly, particularly decision of Conference to sanction automobile ownership. The more conservative faction took name Groffdale but today members of this group are commonly known as Wenger Mennonites, after their leader at time of schism, Bishop Joseph Wenger. The more progressive faction retained name Weaverland Conference, but members are popularly known as Horning Mennonites, after their leader Bishop Moses Horning;. In years since schism, Conference has hardly conformed to world. As Stephen Scott notes, debates leading to 1927 division were over issues of daily life, particularly adoption of new technology, rather than worship practices. (1) Despite its use of English for religious observances, Conference has continued to govern its member churches, conduct worship services, ordain ministers and hold communion in much same way as Groffdale Conference. (2) Moreover, unlike conservative Mennonite groups, such as Eastern Pennsylvania Conference or Mid-Atlantic which have made similar lifestyle changes, (3) Horning Mennonites decline to proselytize and have continued to reject Sunday schools--which churches have historically associated with practices of mainstream Protestantism (4)--thus maintaining practices characteristic of Groffdale Conference and other horse-and-buggy groups. (5) In both scholarly writing on Anabaptist groups and in popular understanding of different church-communities, Old Order is a contested identity. For example, in his discussion of Amish continuum, John A. Hostetler noted that the congregations that favored retaining old traditions unchanged as much as possible became known as Alt Amish or and, in following discussion, contrasts Amish with more progressive groups of Amish ancestry that have made changes in lifestyle and religious practice, including Beachy Amish, which, like Horning Mennonites, have adopted English and automobiles. (6) Donald Kraybill and Carl Bowman, on other hand, prefer to see Orderliness across a spectrum but suggest that groups are marked by the preservation of traditional ritual, use of a special dialect for worship, plain clothing, selective use of technology, and downplaying of personal experience and individual choice. (7) Although Scott includes several car-driving Mennonite conferences in his discussion of Mennonites, other scholars generally use Old Order to refer to groups that use horse and buggy for transportation and retain a dialect of German for religious observances, and, thus, they have often excluded Conference churches. …