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Welcome to Amish, Mennonites, and Other Separated Communities
Welcome to Amish, Mennonites, and Other Separated Communities.
Some religious communities choose to live apart. They drive horses instead of cars, speak old languages at home, school their children themselves, hold property in common, or refuse to eat with outsiders. They do this not from ignorance but from conviction: they believe faithfulness to God requires a people set apart from the world. Many Americans know them only as tourist attractions or television characters. This course introduces them as they understand themselves, and as their critics and former members describe them.
Most of the course is about the Anabaptists, the radical reformers of the 1500s whose spiritual descendants include the Amish, the Mennonites, and the Hutterites. You will follow them from the martyrs’ fires of sixteenth-century Europe to the farms of Pennsylvania and Ohio, the Hutterite colonies of the northern plains, and the Old Colony Mennonites who left Canada by train in 1922 for Mexico and later spread to Belize, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina. The last two modules introduce other separated communities: Russian Old Believers, Hasidic Jews, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Exclusive Brethren, and the Bruderhof.
Throughout, you will look closely at how each community treats women, children, and those who leave, and at how a minister can serve separated neighbors, patients, and former members with respect.
How This Course Works
| Topic | Details |
|---|---|
| Recommended preparation | None. This is a 100-level course, open to every student. Christianity (102) and New Religious Movements (118) are helpful background. |
| Pace | Self-paced. Most students finish in four to six weeks, studying about four hours a week. There are no deadlines. |
| Structure | Eight modules. Each module has a lesson, a reading assignment, and a ten-question quiz. |
| Book report | Read one of the two book report choices in full, pass its ten-question quiz, and write a one-paragraph summary, after Module 8. |
| Final exam | Fifteen multiple-choice questions and one essay of 1,500 to 2,000 words, taken after Module 8. |
| Credit | 3 credit hours toward further titles and degrees. |
Grading
| Part | To pass |
|---|---|
| Module quizzes (8) | Pass each with 70% or higher. Retakes allowed. |
| Book report quiz (10 questions) | Pass with 70% or higher. Retakes allowed. |
| Book report summary (one paragraph) | Approved by the school |
| Final exam, Part 1 (multiple choice) | Pass with 70% or higher. Retakes allowed. |
| Final exam, Part 2 (essay, 1,500 to 2,000 words) | Approved by the school |
Required texts
- The Amish: A Concise Introduction, Steven M. Nolt (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016)
- Beliefs: Mennonite Faith and Practice, John D. Roth (Herald Press, 2005)
- Free online: articles in the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online (GAMEO), and the story of Dirk Willems from the Martyrs Mirror
Both books are short and written for general readers. You will read most of The Amish and selected chapters of Beliefs; each module tells you which. GAMEO, an encyclopedia written by Anabaptist scholars, is free at gameo.org. For the book report you will read one more book, chosen from the two listed in the Book Report section.
What you will study
Module 1: The Radical Reformation Module 2: The Amish: Origins and Beliefs Module 3: Amish Life: Family, Work, and the World Module 4: The Mennonites Module 5: The Journey South: Mennonite Colonies in Latin America Module 6: The Hutterites: Holding All Things in Common Module 7: Other Separated Communities: Old Believers and Hasidic Jews Module 8: Polygamists, Brethren, Bruderhof, and Ministry Across the Line
Book report choices
Women Talking, Miriam Toews; Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots, Deborah Feldman
Academic honesty
All written work must be your own. You may quote and discuss the course readings and other sources, but you must say where the words and ideas came from. Submitting work written by someone else, including work generated entirely by AI tools, is not permitted. If you write about a living person from a Plain or separated community, or a former member, change their name and identifying details unless they have given you permission, and never photograph Plain people without their consent.