Vision, Doctrine, WarMennonite Identity and Organization in America, 1890 - 1930 The Mennonite Experience in America, Vol. 3 |
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This third volume in the Mennonite Experience in America series treats the story of the Mennonites and Amish in America from 1890 to 1930. It tells how the Mennonites responded to the challenge of war and doctrinal and cultural change.
In the four decades covered by this book, the American Mennonites and Amish nearly doubled in membership. Their encounters with Protestant revivalism, organizational techniques, modernism, and the First World War affected each group differently. This book is the story of those encounters and the changes that resulted from them.
Most American Mennonites around the turn of the century began to become involved in mission, service, and educational activities. This accelerated contacts with the outside world. They founded mission programs and built colleges and hospitals. They organized themselves along the patterns of American Protestant denominations. But following World War I, a conservative mood slowed the pace of social and religious change.
Mennonites were latecomers to the scene of American denominationalism. But they arrived on that scene with vigor and with distinctive purpose.