Lana Kauffman makes tea at Miller's Bread-Basket in Blackville, S.C. The restaurant's menu includes desserts, such as German chocolate pieand cheesecake, and draws hundreds of hungry diners each week. RON COCKERILLE/STAFF

Simple life, simple faith

Members of area Mennonite sects hold firm to a tradition that shuns the allure of the world

Web posted September 4, 1999

 Mennonite history

By Virginia Norton
Staff Writer

``Men on the right, women on the left'' -- a seniors group from Myrtle Beach, S.C., cheerily passed the word as fellow travelers entered the small picturesque church in Blackville, S.C., where Mennonites have worshipped for 35 years.

Other tourists, the curious and writers for publications such as Southern Living have made the same trek to visit a people who hold the world at a distance.

Mennonite Ray Miller moved down the aisle of Calvary Fellowship to welcome the sightseers. ``There'll be a few more on the sisters' side, so some of you ladies can sit over here'' on the men's aisle, he said.

Calvary Fellowship, a Beachy Mennonite congregation, avoids sticking rigidly to rules, said Mr. Miller, who was reared on an Amish farm in Indiana.

Both Amish and Mennonite churches, called ``plain churches,'' stem from the Anabaptist tradition, a Protestant movement in 16th-century Europe. They are similar in doctrine -- both embrace pacifism, for example -- but Mennonites allow some modern conveniences that the Amish shun, Mr. Miller said.

Conservative Mennonites, however, still draw a line between traditional and worldly ways to maintain the wholesome, family-oriented life they prize.

Debbie Gleaton serves customers at Miller's Bread-Basket in Blackville, S.C. The menu includes desserts, such as German chocolate pie and cheesecake, and draws hundreds of hungry diners every week. RON COCKERILLE/STAFF

Instead of Amish black, Mr. Miller wears a white shirt and khakis. His gray beard is neatly blocked. Beards are standard -- though optional -- among Calvary men, but few sport mustaches. Those were considered status symbols during the Civil War, said Mr. Miller.

Besides the church, sightseeing tours often include a stop at Miller's Bread-Basket, the restaurant that he and his wife, ``Miss Susie,'' opened 13 years ago in Blackville. Their Dutch menu and luscious desserts, such as German chocolate pie and cheesecake, draw hundreds every week, as does another Mennonite restaurant in Wrens, Ga., the L'il Dutch House. Both are about 40 minutes from Augusta.

The Dutch House passed its ninth anniversary in June. It serves fried chicken, roast beef and a best-selling broccoli-rice casserole, said owner Larry Peters. It's ``like the old Sunday dinners you used to be able to get at Grandma's but you can get it here most any day.''

He and his wife, Wanda Peters, are members of another conservative group, the Church of God in Christ Mennonites, based in Moundridge, Kan. She is a distant relative of John Holdeman, who founded the sect in Ohio in 1859.

The group, a spinoff of the Old Mennonites, is more conservative doctrinally in some ways than Beachy Mennonites, said Stephen Scott of Lancaster, Pa., author of

An Introduction to Old Order and Conservative Mennonite Groups.

Beachy Mennonites, also called Beachy Amish, were named for Moses Beachy, an Amish leader in Somerset County, Pa., during the 1920s. They are ``born-again'' Christians but also retained the German dialect, said Mr. Scott, as the Amish have.

There are about 8,400 Beachy Mennonites in 138 congregations across the United States, but there is no headquarters.

No information is available on the total number of Mennonites in Georgia and South Carolina.

Some independent Mennonite groups, such as the Barnwell Mennonite Church and the Burkeland Mennonite Church in Waynesville, Ga., also want to keep the old ways, though most of the Mennonite family -- some 1 million worldwide -- abandoned those traditions in the 1960s, said Mr. Scott. ``Most live and dress like anyone else.''

Dress reflects belief, and Beachy Mennonite children grow up with the traditional garb, said Mrs. Miller. ``They get used to it and know that this is part of what we believe, that we think a woman should be covered,'' according to an interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11.

Women make their own dresses from a century-old pattern, though the style goes back hundreds of years, said Mr. Scott. Each sect is distinctive. Fabrics may be solid or print, depending on the sect.

Some, including those in Mrs. Miller's group, wear the cape, an extra panel across the bosom. Women also wear white or black caps or veils, called prayer coverings, on the back of their heads.

Tresses are wound into a bun, pinned to the back of the head, then covered with the caps. Women do not cut their hair, though they may thin it, said Mrs. Peters, whose mother's hair reached below her knees.

Men wear store-bought clothes. Trousers are time-consuming and hard to make and the store-bought clothes ``make the load easier on the ladies,'' Mr. Miller said.

Mennonites wear no jewelry -- not even wedding bands. Perfumes and creams are permitted, but no makeup, said Mrs. Miller, who still has a trace of the German dialect she learned growing up in Sugar Creek, Ohio.

Black-clothed Amish do without automobiles and electricity, while conservative Mennonites, such as the Millers and the Peterses, have adopted modern conveniences such as cars and telephones.

Some conservative Mennonites, such as the Peters' son Craig, who runs the L'll Dutch House Bakery, use computers, but none have radios or television. Baseball and other team sports are popular, but Mennonites pass up spectator-sports events and movies.

The baker and his wife, Lucy, and their three children will be leaving Wrens around the first of the year to serve as missionaries. They will learn their destination and assignment after the denomination's mission board meets in November, he said.

Half the world's Mennonites live outside North America. That growth elsewhere is expected to be even greater after the turn of the century, when more than half of the membership will be outside North America.

Mennonites maintain their own schools and separate themselves from worldly ways, that is, whatever they believe would lead them away from God. If people do not desire God's way or have his peace in their heart ``that draws a line right there, and that to me would be the world. (But) I love these people -- it's not that I'm good and these people are not,'' said Mr. Peters.

Mrs. Miller said that most of the people who visit their restaurant, which is featured in the September issue of Southern Living magazine, are ``Christian and very nice people.'' They may be more worldly, but not necessarily evil, she said. ``The world that is evil is immodest.''

Mennonites try not to attract attention to themselves, but simplicity is not a guaranteed antidote to worldliness, she said. ``You could just be covering it up with a simple lifestyle and plain garb.''

Mennonite history

The Mennonites are older than the Amish, but both have their start in the Anabaptist movement in 16th-century Europe.

Anabaptists held that only adult believers could be baptized. Their practice of rebaptizing Christians brought persecution from Catholics and Protestants.

In 1536, Menno Simons, a Catholic priest from Holland, joined the Anabaptists and united many Anabaptist groups. His followers were called Mennonites.

A Mennonite breakaway group led by a Swiss bishop, Jacob Amman, was the forerunner of the Amish, who number 16,000 to 18,000 today. They are settled in 22 states and Ontario, Canada.

Both denominations, known as ``Plain Churches,'' share many beliefs, including views on baptism and pacifism, biblical interpretation and the importance of maintaining a simple life.

Change comes, though slowly and deliberately, among Plain People. Each community determines what adaptations it will accept. While Amish drive horse-drawn buggies, do not use electricity and limit formal education to the eighth grade, Mennonites accept some modern conveniences and have established colleges.

Both denominations settled in Pennsylvania in the early 1700s and are known as Pennsylvania Dutch, although not all Pennsylvania Dutch are Amish or Mennonite.

Virginia Norton covers religion for The Augusta Chronicle. She can be reached at (706) 823-3336 or vanorton@augustachronicle.com.