Religious Seekers' Attraction to the Plain Mennonites and Amish
For all the liberties granted Westerners, a small stream of seekers is looking into the seemingly austere plain Anabaptist sects (Amish, Mennonites, etc.). What are they seeking? Using theories of modernity, secularization, and gender as guides, this study analyzes survey data from a web-based conve...
| Published in: | Review of religious research |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Springer
[2016]
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| In: |
Review of religious research
|
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Mennonites
/ Amish
/ Attraction (Psychology)
/ Religion
/ Search for
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| RelBib Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy CB Christian life; spirituality KDG Free church |
| Further subjects: | B
Plain Anabaptists
B Amish B Modernity B Secularization B Fundamentalism B Popular Culture B religious switching B Gender B Mennonite |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | For all the liberties granted Westerners, a small stream of seekers is looking into the seemingly austere plain Anabaptist sects (Amish, Mennonites, etc.). What are they seeking? Using theories of modernity, secularization, and gender as guides, this study analyzes survey data from a web-based convenience sample of 1074 seekers. Females, young adults, and evangelicals are overrepresented. Chief attractions include religious seriousness, strong community, and modesty. A factor analysis of all 21 attractions produced six latent attraction variables. Seekers characteristic of: (1) the family factor seek to consolidate social domains around the family, granting parents greater control in offspring socialization, (2) the femininity factor reject an increasingly change-minded, sexualized mainstream youth culture, (3) the personal conviction factor tend towards evangelical fundamentalism, mistakenly viewing plain people as a sweeping statement against secularization, (4) the primitivism factor are seeking to demodernize in tangible ways, (5) the stability factor desire a stabilizing social system to address psychological stresses, and (6) the returnees factor are looking to rejoin, either after having left earlier in life or having discovered plain ancestry. Depending on changes in broader society, characteristics of religions may incidentally correspond with era-specific stresses, triggering a generation of seekers, as is the case here with plain Anabaptists. |
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| ISSN: | 2211-4866 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Review of religious research
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s13644-015-0222-5 |