A Peculiar People: Iowa's Old Order Amish

CHAPTER TWO. Origin and Growth

CHAPTER TWO Origin and Growth Iowa's Old Order Amish Mennonites have a long and often tumultuous history. While the of the Mennonite Church are in the Swiss Anabaptist movement of the early 1500s, the group known as Amish began in the late 1600s. A strong difference of opinion existed among Mennonite groups regarding the practice of shunning or avoidance of excommunicated members. Some individuals like Jakob Ammann believed in total avoidance of sinful members, while others advocated a more moderate approach. The controversy eventually split the European Mennonite congregations into two groups and those that agreed with Ammann came to be known as Amish. In the early 1700s small numbers of Amish began to migrate to the American colonies, and a century later they had all either left Europe or had reunited with European Mennonite churches. Since settlement in the United States, they have ex.perienced a number of schisms in their own society. Because of these numerous splits it is necessary when "''Titing of the Amish to distinguish between the Old Order, the Conservative group, and more recently, the Beachy Amish. EARLY SWISS ANABAPTISTS Iowa's Old Order Amish trace their ongms to the Swiss Anabaptists that originated in Switzerland during the time of the Protestant Reformation. Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli was prominently involved in development of the group. Born in the Swiss canton of St. Gall in 1484, Zwingli trained for the priesthood and then served in Glarus and Einsiedeln before moving to Zurich. During that 9 10 CHAPTER TWO time he began to embrace the humanistic, reformist teachings of Erasmus, although remaining in the Roman Catholic Church and hoping fervently for internal reform. In 1519 he was appointed head pastor of Zurich. Later. when Zwingli learned of Martin Luther's excommunication , he realized the futility of reform from within the Church. In 1522 he left the priesthood but was reemployed as an evangelical pastor by the Zurich City Council.1 During this period of religious uncertainty, Zwingli had gathered around himself a number of young humanists and clergy who shared his religious thinking. This small band would later form the nucleus for the Swiss Anabaptist movement. After 1522 these followers became increasingly disillusioned with Zwingli as they were unable to persuade him to instigate several major religious reforms. Believing that their leader had given in to the conservatism of the Zurich authorities. the unhappy group called for the immediate abolition of the Mass because they believed it was not biblical. Zwingli rejected this demand as well as repudiating their thinking on the need for adult baptism based on the personal confession of faith. His followers still held with many of his earlier views, nevertheless. and began traveling from community to community holding Bible meetings. They attracted large audiences. and in some areas regular meetings were held. These steady participants began to call each other brother. marking the origin of the name Swiss Brethren.2 However, ultimately a split did ensue between Zwingli and many of his disaffected followers-among them Conrad Grebel. Simon Stumpf, and Felix Manz because of differences over the slowness and insufficiency of reform, infant baptism, a fre~ church of voluntary believers. and the need for church discipline.:I In January 1525 Zwingli publicly debated with a number of his exfollowers on the topic of infant baptism. The Zurich City Council refused to accept his opponents' arguments and decreed instead that all infants must be baptized; furthermore, they ruled that Grebel and his associates should hold no more meetings. A few days later, however, the first Swiss Brethren congregation of the Reformation days was formed when Grebel's Zurich group organized a church and baptized fifteen people, thus beginning the Anabaptist movement. Following this action, members experienced severe persecution and some leaders were imprisoned. In March 1526 Zurich officials pronounced the death sentence for anyone who had been rebaptized. 4 The term" Anabaptist," a Greek word meaning' 'rebaptizer," was introduced and used by enemies of the Swiss Brethren because of the criminal connotation of the word. The enemies of Anabaptism were no doubt basing their actions on the fact that from Justinian's time (A.D. ORIGIN AND GROWTH 11 529) the imperial law code labeled rebaptism a heresy punishable by death. The totally evil meaning of the name made these people at once subject to condemnation and execution. The persecuted group rejected the name Anabaptist claiming that infant baptism was...