Abstract
Review of: Janzen, Rod, and Max Stanton. 2010. The Hutterites in North America. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Review of: Katz, Yossi, and John Lehr. 2014[2012] Inside the Ark: The Hutterites in Canada and the United States [2nd ed.]. Regina, SK: University of Regina Press.
Janzen, a historian, and Stanton, an anthropologist, spent twenty-five years visiting Hutterite colonies in the United States and Canada, witnessing firsthand the changes to Hutterite life. The authors provide readers with an exceptional historical-social-cultural analysis of the everyday lives of Hutterites. The Hutterites are a communal group and an intentional community who share a common set of Christian / Anabaptist religious beliefs. One of the most important points, if not the most important point, made by the authors is that the Hutterites are a diverse group and there is often a great degree of variation between Hutterite colonies and even within colonies. They are divided into four distinct branches or Leut (German for people): Lehrerleut, Dariusleut, Schmiedeleut One, and Schmiedeleut Two. The Lehrerleut are the most conservative and the least diverse, the Dariusleut are moderates and the most diverse, and the Schmiedeleut are the most liberal, although the Schmiedeleut One are the most liberal regarding cultural and religious issues while the Schmiedeleut Two are more conservative and aligned with the Dariusleut, sharing what might be called the middle ground among the various Leut. The Dariusleut have the most colonies (159), followed by the Lehrerleut (139), Schmiedeleut Two (118), and Schmiedeleut One (61). [Second paragraph]
Recommended Citation
Smith, William L. 2015. "Advances in Hutterian Scholarship." Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies 3(1):124-29.
ISSN
2471-6383