Old Order Mennonites, Rituals, Beliefs, and Community

Lee focuses on the Weaverland Conference of Old Order Mennonites, a group formed in 1893 and now consisting of over 5,000 members. A large concentration of Weaverland Mennonites live in upstate New York near Seneca Falls, and Lee focuses his easily readable sociological study on that community. Individual chapters deal with the worship, rituals, rules, and discipline of the group, and with a number of recent defections to a more mainstream Mennonite Church located in the same area. Lee argues that Weaverland Mennonites are held together by their practices alone, rather than by a common underlying set of beliefs. --Choice Magazine