An Introduction to Old Order: and Conservative Mennonite Groups
"Never before has there been such an inside account of these people and their lives. Stephen Scott spent years conferring and interviewing members of the various groups and has succeeded brilliantly in portraying their history and their story in a fair, comprehensive, and accurate manner." - The Midwest Book Review "Conservative and Old Order audiences will presumably greet this book as a straightforward historical portrait, and that it is. Readers from the mainstream Mennonite groups may additionally find that it contains revelation and challenge.       "To the reader outside the Old Order or Conservative family, the book's information is revelatory because we know so little about these groups.       "Intriguing discoveries occur throughout: that some Mennonites drive buggies (so much for the progressives' efforts to remove that cliche); that Old Order Mennonites wedding couples serve wine and cookies to their guests (a nod to the biblical wedding at Cana); that the founder of Hershey Chocolate was a son of Reformed Mennonites; and that the Conservative Mennonite descendants of the non-proselytizing Amish have spread missions from Flint, Mich., to Luxembourg to Guatemala.       "Reading Scott's book brings the realization that we generally do not know one another.       "This book also gives mainstream Mennonites the overdue experience of being observed as outside the norm. It is a strange and bracing sensation to flip from a modern photo of a plain garbed Old Order couple plowing behind horses to a 1990 shot of a crowd signing at Mennonite World Conference-baggy T-shirts, surfer shorts, mohawk hairdos, and permanent waves dotting the audience-whose caption concludes that 'many North American Mennonite have blended quite thoroughly into the larger society.'       "We are accustomed in Mennonite history to reading about progressives leaving behind those unprepared to change. This book, by contrast, shows conservatives staying a faithful course as the progressives impatiently romp off the path.       "Learning more about the Old Order and Conservative groups might lead progressive Mennonites to think harder about issues such as conscientiousness, faithfulness, the role of Scripture and nonconformity-the supposed habits of our denomination. Increased contact, beyond reading about one another, might yield common ground and shared insight.       "I was stimulated by Scott's chronicle yet abashed that so much of it came to me as news. For it contains, as surely as our mainstream histories, the perennial tensions of Mennonite identity." - Mennonite Weekly Review "The descendants of the Anabaptists who have received the least attention by scholars are the Old Order Mennonites. This book provides a helpful introduction to the history, doctrines, organization, and material culture of the Old Order groups-the Reformed Mennonites and their conservative Mennonite cousins in the United States and Canada that have emerged since the late nineteenth century. Stephen Scott provides a great deal of descriptive material about a wide variety of subjects, including modes of dress, transportation, content of worship services, weddings, funerals, family life, and the issues that have been divisive among the Old Order and conservatives." - Mennonite Quarterly Review "While it is very readable, attractively arranged, and loaded with photographs, it is also carefully written, well-documented and quite informative. Moreover, the book includes historical and sociological data about many conservative splinter groups which are simply not yet available anywhere else. I am especially impressed that Scott has included information on the numerous conservative congregations that are unaffiliated with any larger fellowship and whose histories and practices are normally forgotten in any systematic accounting of Mennonite life." - Journal of Mennonite Studies