New Directions in North American Mennonite History

Once saturated by denominational histories and theological studies, North American Mennonite scholarship received a needed corrective in 1970s with arrival of social analysis to historiographical scene. Theron Schlabach, one of earliest and most successful practitioners of Mennonite social history, makes a renewed call for this approach in his plea for further study of women, racial and ethnic minorities, business and philanthropy, community formation, wealth, land distribution and politics. Recent trends in American historiography point to several additional directions in Mennonite historical studies: religion, environmental history and global history. These approaches will allow scholars to encounter experience and exotica of American Mennonite life--from prayer to powwowing to Paraguayan cornbread--through fresh and intriguing lenses. LIVED RELIGION The field of American religious history has been inundated in last decade by works on lived religion. This promising approach--which focuses more on behavior than on theology--has been sparked in large part by historian Robert Orsi's groundbreaking work on the smells, tastes, textures, sounds, and colors of Italian Catholic immigrant devotional cults. (1) Rapidly following Orsi's lead of highlighting religious habits and ritual have been a succession of fascinating studies on topics as diverse as Mormon underwear, Appalachian snake handling, evangelical prayer habits and quilt-making. This emphasis on what religion looks like, more than what religion says, promises to add much to Mennonite studies. Though Mennonites have perhaps acted less dramatically than Orsi's Catholic women, who dragged their tongues down aisle in acts of devotion before Madonna of 115st Street in New York City, they have nonetheless their faith in intriguing ways. Theron Schlabach, for instance, has demonstrated that nineteenth-century Mennonites nurtured a deep spirituality characterized by habits of humility and community. Mennonites have traditionally sung, made quilts and bread, built furniture and churches, worn veils, used lot to choose ministers, washed each other's feet, traveled long distances to work for Mennonite Central Committee or Mennonite Disaster Service, and worked in alternative military service camps. Mennonites have also perpetuated a host of insular ethnic traditions such as powwowing that are either unrecognized or deemed embarrassing by scholars. Following lead of Orsi, scholars of Mennonites have already begun to produce studies of Mennonite faith. (2) Much of it, however, is written by nonhistorians on contemporary topics. More needs to be done by historians to chart changes in Mennonite ritual over decades and centuries. The possibilities are myriad: rapid decline of ritualistic footwashing; evolution of Mennonite diet; and changes in devotional habits, selection of preachers and rituals of family life. Lived religion is particularly fertile ground to tell stories of minorities and women who have too often been excluded from institutional circles. They might not have written theological statements, but they a theology--often not official version! BEYOND MCs AND GCs To take religion seriously for Mennonite scholarship will likely entail more attention to Mennonites separated from three behemoths: Mennonite Church, General Conference and Old Order Amish. A wide swath of Mennonites--about whom we know comparatively little--occupy middle ground between Amish and Mennonite power brokers. The Conservative Mennonite Conference is one such hidden group, even though it alone is a full one-tenth size of Mennonite Church-USA. The conference and its educational institution, Rosedale Bible College, have provided numerous MC-USA leaders, among them Loren Swartzendruber, Howard Keim, Ervin Stutzman, Richard Showalter, John Sharp, Carolyn Schrock Shenk, J. …