Free Republic

So, I'm flying out of San Diego at 6:00 am this morning. I got to the airport much earlier. There's an Anabaptist couple. Man and woman, early-mid 20s. He's wearing traditional garb. Abe Lincoln beard. Flat-brimmed straw hat. She's wearing a long dress with a white hair covering. I assumed they were Amish. Except.... Both were wearing tennis shoes. And I couldn't help to notice that she was wearing a very colorful set of yoga pants under her dress. Also, she was listening to an iPhone. She had earplugs in her ear. I wish I had talked to them. I...

Diverse Group of Amicus Briefs Ask the High Court to Protect a Peaceful Hutterite ColonyFor Immediate Release: May 3, 2013Media Contact: Emily Hardman, ehardman@becketfund.org, 202.349.7224Washington, D.C. – Yesterday, the State of Michigan, twenty-one First Amendment scholars, and eighteen religious organizations representing tens of millions of religious believers filed friend-of-the-court briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court, urging the Court to hear a religious liberty appeal on behalf of a Hutterite colony in Montana. The question in the case is whether the Hutterites, who trace their history to the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s, can be forced to provide workers’ compensation insurance...

ARM RIVER HUTTERITE COLONY, SASK. - Canada's Hutterite community has taken an unprecedented political stand, writing the prime minister to warn that the country could become the next Sodom and Gomorrah if same-sex marriage is legalized. Hutterian Brethren Church of Canada, which represents about 50,000 Hutterites in British Columbia and the Prairies, urged Paul Martin not to adopt the proposed legislation. "We will be classed as traitors in God's eyes, and we will live the darkest day in all of Canada's history," says the letter. Never before have the intensely private Hutterites taken such a public, and political, stand. The...

Most of us know of the Amish. The Amish were made famous by the film "Witness", but a lesser known group, Hutterites, came to mind after a recent post about Communism in colonial times. The Amish, Mennonites and Hutterites are Anabaptists. The reason they are called Anabaptists is something to think about because it reveals something about their character. Although they are devout Christians, they do not believe in baptizing children because children do not have the wisdom to decide something as serious as a religious conviction. Baptism is done much later in life with the consent of the individual....