For readers new to this website, there are several "plain" groups that we focus on: Amish, Mennonites, and occasionally Hutterites. All three of these groups are known as Anabaptists (adult baptism), but they express their faith in different ways. Another religious group that shares a lot of similarities with these faiths are the German Baptists. While their religious roots come out of a movement known as Pietism, they have a number of commonalities with the Amish and Mennonites (pacifism, adult baptism, etc) Unlike the Amish, the German Baptists generally don't have an aversion to technology and photography, depending on which group they are in. We'll be exploring the German Baptist church more in the weeks ahead to try to better differentiate between the Brethrens and other Anabaptists.
CAPTION: Rosanna Bauman writes the Plain Kansas column and she's often mistaken for Amish, but she is, in fact, German Baptist. This is her grandfather walking through the Kansas prairie with one of her brothers. Beautiful scene!
Here are a couple of articles on the newswires this morning that have a German Baptist angle to them:
PRODUCE: In Baraboo, Wisconsin, a German Baptist family (often confused by locals with Amish) runs a produce stand at a farmer's market. Sounds like a wonderful family with some great products! There is a fairly sizable German Baptist population in northern Wisconsin.
CHEESE: Cheese was the focus of this article, but that wasn't the part that really caught my interest. Marriages between outsiders and Plain people where one partner converts and the other doesn't are very rare. Marriages where both covert to the same faith are less rare although still uncommon. I know of only one case where an Amish person has married a non-Amish and each has remained in their different faiths. While the article barely touches on it, it looks like this is a case of a German Baptist woman marrying a non-German Baptist man who did not convert. Also, lots of good stuff in the article about cheese!:) Click here to read.
Missy
There are more member/non-member couples out there than you would think in the German Baptists. I knew a couple that had been married about 50 years with the wife being a member and the husband not, and he finally did join in his old age. Lots of younger couples too.