The Hutterites in North America

CHAPTER 5. Beliefs and Practices

g฀฀chapter 5฀฀G Beliefs and Practices Gelassenheit is the name of the refining fire that proves whether what looked like faith was only a delusion. —Andreas Ehrenpreis, church elder, 1650 Community of Goods C ommunity of goods, the central identifying characteristic of the Hutterites, is based on particular interpretations of the Bible that are supported by Hutterite sermons and hymns. Arising from these sources, Hutterite practices are backed up by the Ordnungen and by a serious commitment to church discipline. Each Hutterite colony operates like a small, well-functioning village, with a strong sense of communal responsibility. Individuals willingly give up personal desires for the good of the brotherhood-sisterhood, as expressed in a Hutterite sermon on 1 Corinthians: “Just as wine is made of many grapes, pressed, crushed, joined and merged together in one pure liquid, so also we have been called together from many peoples with many opinions.”1 Although communitarian ideals are frequently emphasized in Hutterite sermons, they are rarely discussed. Instead they are lived out through work, worship, and social interaction. “Specific actions are judged by whether they are communal or self-serving,”2 says Hutterite Patrick Murphy. In the Hutterite view, everything that happens at the colony is part of a divinely structured plan; all things have their proper place. Property is ฀ g฀beliefs and practices G฀ 77 shared; lives are lived in submission to others. The colony is the “gathered community of saints,” and every person, regardless of personal idiosyncrasies , is valued and respected.3 Hutterites believe they are engaged in a constant battle between good and evil, between the carnal (individualistic ) and spiritual (communal) sides of men and women. The only way individualism may be overcome, the only way to experience a bit of heaven on earth, is to live communally. Hutterites remind each other that Jesus said to pray “Our Father,” not “My Father.” Communal life is supported by the Ordnungen, which reflect organically the will of God at a particular time and place for a specific group of people. The Ordnungen preserve the proto-utopian plan even as they deal with apparently mundane matters. Hutterites believe that religious faith is a lifelong journey and adventure, essentially related to the community. Donald Kraybill asks a Hutterite whether he is “saved.” He responds, “Ask my wife and some of the brothers.”4 God is the ultimate judge, but it is the community that decides whether to accept a person into the church, and the church holds the “keys” to the kingdom of heaven as God’s representative on earth. Kraybill and Bowman note that Old Order faith is practical, gentle, humble, constant, and all-inclusive. Communal living goes a step further, demandingandexhibitingunitymorethananyothersocioeconomicstructure . Jacob Hutter wrote, “He led us together to serve Him in unity and to show that God himself is one and undivided.”5 The words “Community in Unity,” emblazoned on a sign at the entrance to a colony in South Dakota , appropriately characterize the Hutterite way of life. Hutterites call non-Hutterites Weltleut (worldly people), outsiders, or “English.” They hold an ethnocentric worldview that is infused with spiritual meaning and is similar to that found in many traditional societies throughout the world. In the United States and Canada it is an increasingly outdated notion, because of multicultural commitments and relativistic perspectives as well as widespread cross-ethnic marriage. But the Hutterites continue to view the world in culturally dualistic terms. The Lehren Of the many singular traditions the Hutterites have developed over the years, one of the most important is the practice of holding daily worship 78฀ g฀the hutterites in north america G฀ services. The focus of these meetings is to read the Lehren (sermons), which help Hutterites interpret the Bible and provide spiritual guidance. In the Hutterite view, Christian community of goods is founded on the Bible, and the Bible is best interpreted by sacred works like the Lehren. Most of the four hundred sermons were drafted by Hutterite ministers in Slovakia between 1629 and 1665. Excerpts from the twenty-six sermons that are found in the second Chronicle (the Kleingeshichtsbuch) were written between 1652 and 1659, primarily at the Kesselsdorf community , which served as an unofficial seminary for Hutterite ministers. With a few exceptions, the Hutterite sermon canon was closed after the seventeenthcentury .MostoftheLehrenwerethuswrittenrightafterthephysical and psychological devastation of the Thirty Years War, a time when the Hutterite population decreased from forty thousand to two thousand...