Journal of Mennonite Studies 15 (1997) 236-238.
Stephen Scott, Introduction to Old Order and Conservative Mennonite Groups (Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 1996); 252 pp. Paperback, $8.95 U.S.
For too long scholars paid little attention to the rather uneven and confusing religious terrain of old order and conservative Mennonite communities in North America, the remainders of over a century of Mennonite denomination building and consolidation. Recently Steven Nolt reminded us that these neglected Mennonite groups were poised to eclipse the Mennonite "mainstream" due to the non-stop old order baby boom. Now Stephen Scott has provided us with a long overdue encyclopedic treatment of one family of old orders and conservatives: those left behind by the "old" Mennonite Church during two centuries of conflict and transformation. These "old" Mennonite splinter groups are located mainly in the eastern and midwestern United States and in Ontario.
Scott has already written numerous books on the habits and practices of old order groups, most of them published by Good Books, and most of them designed to interpret these communities for visitors, not academics. This new book, however, will be appealing to both tourists and scholars. 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 is simply not yet available any where 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.
While giving attention to the complicated details associated with the multitude of these distinctive Mennonite groups, the author has not neglected the larger picture. Quite compellingly, he tells the story of (old) Mennonite modernization and acculturation and of old order and conservative resistance to these trends. While this narrative often tends to frame historical changes in (old) Mennonite Church polity rather simplistically as a struggle between conservative keepers of tradition and liberal advocates of change, it does capture quite effectively and sympathetically the old order and conservative views of changes in the Mennonite Church. In this sense, the book provides the beginnings of an alternative North American Mennonite historical narrative, one that both supplements and demonstrates the limits of such mainstream histories as the Mennonite Experience in America series.
Following a cursory introduction to Mennonites in general, the book is divided into two sections, one of which deals with the old order groups that broke away from old Mennonite conferences in the late nineteenth century and the other of which focuses on the conservative movements away from Mennonite Church conferences (including the Conservative Mennonite Conference) in the mid to late twentieth century. The book provides detailed descriptions of the conflicts that led to schisms and includes plenty of charts and tables to help the reader keep track of the churches involved and issues at stake.
The most daunting task taken up by Scott is categorizing and defining the post World War II conservative Mennonite movements. The origins, motivations, and identities of these groups vary a great deal and to my knowledge no one has ever sought to provide an accurate road map of these movements. Scott manages to consolidate the conservatives into five different categories: the ultra-conservatives, the intermediate conservatives, the moderate conservatives, the fundamental conservatives, and the theological conservatives. While these five categories provide a useful heuristic device, they don’t adequately capture or explain the more fundamental divide between the first three groups who emphasize cultural uniformity on the one hand and the remaining two groups who are mainly concerned with doctrinal orthodoxy on the other hand. This divide constitutes two dramatically different understandings of the label "conservative." What possible definitional connection there remains (other than common identification with the word "conservative") between contemporary Conservative Mennonite Conference congregations and Conservative Mennonite Fellowship congregations remains unclear. In fact, I can imagine that some congregations in the conservative districts of the Mennonite Church’s Lancaster Conference (say Juniata or Martindale) are closer in cultural and spiritual identity to ultra to moderate conservative groups than are many of the more culturally liberal congregations in Conservative Conference. Of course, most any categorization scheme will be unable to account for the many exceptions and vagaries arising from "uneven development" in many of the cultural and religious trends that led congregations and fellowships to go their own way. Yet future scholarship will need to give close attention to the variety of different rhetorical functions of the word "conservative" in establishing movements that challenged mainline Mennonitism.
Scott has captured quite correctly the spirit and sentiment of the old order and conservative Mennonite movements. In his conclusion to the section on conservative Mennonites, Scott remarks: "Conservative Mennonites tend to be very thorough people. Many of the congregations and groups meticulously and articulately address every conceivable area of doctrine and practice in their effort to follow the full counsel of God. Their aim is complete Christian consistency" (199). My own experience of growing up in a Conservative Mennonite Fellowship church confirms this statement’s accuracy. There is among ultra to moderate conservatives a rather profound commitment to "getting it right," a commitment that leads conservatives to investigate the meaning of Christian obedience in every single aspect of life. This commitment also leads to much disagreement and conflict, of course, and thus to much schism, separation, and reorganization. Ironically, conservatives’ concern for being in "right fellowship" has led them toward a congregationalism that exceeds that of many (old) Mennonite conferences. This area of church and fellowship organization among conservatives is not given much attention in Scott’s book, but will hopefully be taken up by other scholars more directly. In fact, one important strength of this book lies in such previously uncharted waters of research to which it shows the way.
Finally, this book reminds us that moves toward organizational unity are always based on certain exclusions and that there is always a remainder to any consensus. Old order and conservative Mennonite groups constitute a clearly visible "outside" that haunts (and threatens to eclipse) all expressions of "mainline" Mennonite normativity. In studying them, Mennonite scholars will not only learn more about the contested character of North American Mennonite identity, they will also become aware of the particularity and historicity of any narrative that seeks to speak for Mennonites in general.
Gerald J. Biesecker-Mast
Bluffton College