An Anabaptist Church Confronts Modernity

A Plain People Separate from the World

Ronald C. Jantz

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9798385286713
  9798385286720
• eBook ISBN:
  9798385286737
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

In this study the reader will learn about the origins of the Holdeman Church, beginning in the Dutch Lowlands of the sixteenth century and continuing into the twenty-first century. This narrative history delves into the culture of the Holdeman people and how John Holdeman created a religion in the nineteenth-century United States that attracted a small group of German immigrants from Russia. The book addresses the question of whether the Holdeman people, numbering about twenty-five thousand members in the United States, can resist the temptations of modernity and not only survive but thrive in the twenty-first century. The story is a tribute to their effectiveness in defining themselves and drawing the boundaries of separation in a world of social instability and the breakdown of many traditional norms and values.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Chapter 1: European Roots and John Holdeman
• Chapter 2: Methods and Framework
• Part One: Historical Perspectives
• Part Two: The Nineteenth Century
• Part Three: Persistence and Change
• Epilogue
• Bibliography