c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) On the highways of American life, one might expect the “horse-and-buggy” Mennonites to be left in the dust.

But this conservative Christian sect, whose members eschew the indulgences of modern life _ including computers, cell phones and cars _ is quietly thriving, according to a new in-depth study.

The Old Order Mennonites, also known as “horse-and-buggy” or “Wenger” Mennonites after former Bishop Joseph Wenger, included about 200 families in 1927 when they split from other Mennonites who wanted to allow the use of automobiles.

Now, the Wenger Mennonites have grown to 18,000 in nine states, with most living in rural areas such as the Finger Lakes region of New York and parts of Lancaster County, Pa., according to research compiled by sociology professors Donald B. Kraybill and James P. Hurd.

For a religious community that prizes humility over aggression, sacrifice over individual achievement, and God’s grace over material goods, the rapid growth has taken some by surprise.

The majority of U.S. Mennonites have embraced modern life and become assimilated into the “whirlpool of worldliness,” Kraybill and Hurd write in their new book, “Horse-and-Buggy Mennonites.” The Wenger Mennonites originally split from “mainstream” Mennonites in 1893 over the introduction of Sunday school and English-language church services.

Like their theological cousins, the Amish, Old Order Mennonites are rooted in the 16th century European radical reformers, who preached personal piety and separation from the entanglements of institutional governments and churches. Because they baptized adults at a time when civil and religious authorities baptized almost exclusively infants, they were called Anabaptists, or “re-baptizers,” and punished severely for the offense.

The Wenger Mennonites carry traces of those punishments in their cultural DNA and continue to keep their distance from society at large, according to Kraybill and Hurd.

They may appear more progressive than the closely related Amish because they wear less distinctive clothing (women wear bonnets but men do not wear beards) and use electricity and tractors, but Wenger Mennonites are more socially conservative, according to Kraybill. Some Wenger Mennonites even refer to the Amish as “hickory sticks” for their willingness to bend their own rules.

That conservatism, along with some of the highest fertility rates in the U.S., helps explain why the Wenger Mennonite population has been doubling every 18 years, said Kraybill, who teaches at Elizabethtown College in Lancaster County.

Alta Hoover, 68, a Wenger Mennonite who lives in Lancaster, raised seven children. “That’s a small family,” she said in a telephone interview.

By her community’s standards, she’s right. The average Wenger Mennonite family has 8.3 children, according to the research of Kraybill and Hurd, a professor at Bethel University in St. Paul, Minn.

Wenger Mennonites have also been remarkably successful at retaining their youth, with 90 percent agreeing to be baptized into the church when they are young adults.

The community’s age-old rules are updated by a semiannual ministers’ conference and read to congregations each year. The penalty for breaking the rules is a restriction from receiving Holy Communion and possibly excommunication.

But Hoover said the community’s values are “better caught than taught.”

“If we live our basic beliefs, our children will catch it,” she said.

Children are taught that the community they were born into is the one in which they will be happiest, Hoover said, and the lack of outside influences, like television, radio and the Internet, keeps the youth from straying.

“It’s a protection for us, actually, to stay away from the many temptations of the world,” Hoover said.

Parochial schools whose lessons end at the eighth grade, family-run businesses and the use of a Pennsylvania German dialect draw fences between Wenger Mennonites and outsiders.

Those boundaries serve dual purposes: They keep the community together and force them to live simply, in a way they believe is pleasing to God, Wenger Mennonites say.

For instance, their reliance on the horse and buggy keeps families together by restricting long-range travel, said Mary Shirk, 54, a Wenger Mennonite from Lancaster.

“If you have a horse and buggy, you cannot quite as readily go and do just anything and everything you wish. You can only run the horse so far,” Shirk said.

Still, economic pressures are scattering Wenger Mennonites, as young families must move farther afield to find affordable farmland. To travel great distances for family gatherings, Wenger Mennonites will often rent a van and a driver.

“If we need to spread out, then that’s what we need to do,” said Hoover. “The world is pretty small nowadays.”

KRE/PH END BURKE

Editors: To obtain photos of Kraybill and Wenger Mennonite schoolchildren, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.