May 30, 2020 GMTNEW HOLLAND, Pa. — For the first time in weeks, kids played in the church cemetery. Nearby, a group of men in their 20s reflected on what it meant to gather again during the pandemic.Their conservative order — one that shuns technology, cars and electricity — never missed Sunday services in more than 100 years, when the deadly 1918 flu pandemic interrupted worship.
Like others in his congregation, he was welcoming, but he didn’t want his last name to appear on the news because of religious views on modesty.Mennonites believe in pacifism, reserve baptism for adults and oppose military service. They belong to a Protestant denomination and trace their origins to the Anabaptists, a radical 16th-century sect of the Reformation originating in Switzerland. Their name comes from Menno Simons, a Dutch Roman Catholic priest who joined the Anabaptists.
The Old Order Stauffer Mennonite Church formed in 1845. Today, they number about 2,000 in Pennsylvania, 500 of them in Lancaster County, said Steven Nolt, senior scholar at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. The guidance said religious leaders were “encouraged to find alternatives to in-person gatherings and to avoid endangering their congregants.”
The conference call worship was launched with the help of Elvin Hoover. From his home office overlooking the Conestoga River, he receives faxes offering farm products, masks and other services. He then announces the news in Pennsylvania Dutch through a phone line that reaches hundreds in his community. Church service became so popular, he said, that on a Sunday, it jammed the local phone exchange.
They are gonna be in big trouble! Get em! GovernorTomWolf
So what. They can follow a 12 foot rule IN the church.
If God can't stop little virus then he doesn't deserve to be God.
No
Texas legislator quote: 'Some things are more important than living.'
Putting other lives at risk so you can worship is not indicative of spiritual health but rather of spiritual disease. But then again maybe the Mennonites, like Evangelicals, think God is all about taking care of number one.
Hilf dir selbst, so hilft dir Gott
I am a Telugu Christian from India living in Virginia. I loved this story. These folks so different from Evangelicals that support our unwholesome President. I understand many Mennonites not only against war like me but also help many Palestinian refugees there in Holy Land!
Free choice means you can make poor choices or contrary choices as long as you are informed of risk. That's your freedom of religion.
Whatever pulls you wagon I guess
The statement is true but unfortunately we always associate spiritual development with religion. Religion is just one of the tools for spiritual development.
Certainly, they say your mind controls your body...
Any church that is holding in-person services during a viral pandemic are doing it for the money and clout, not for the soul. Matthew 6:5
why can't they paint the back of their buggies orange so they're easier to see in bad weather
I read spiritual then you mentioned some Abrahamic religion.....they aren’t spiritual they are cults. Y’all think the politicians have you under control but don’t pause to think that your spirit has been deceived as well? 2000yearsofoppression
Yah...um...I’m pretty sure physical health is more important
They're in a bit of a rush to get to heaven.
Why is this discussion one or the other? Why cannt churches adapt?
Translation: They got bills to pay via that collection plate
Can’t be spiritual at home?
The bible does not tell people to be stupid and suicidal.
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