Beachy Amish and Conservative Mennonites

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  I owe my readers a little explanation. I label all plainly-dressed, white-head-covering Mennonites as Beachy Amish simply for the sake of distinguishing them from the other 4 branches of the Mennonite religion. On a closer investigation though, there are many that are quick to point out "no, we're not Beachy, we're just Mennonites." At the very first I felt like rolling my eyes. Of course they're Mennonites. But the reason I had been using the term "Beachy Amish" is because it is a large, varied group of Mennonites that are halfway between conservative Mennonites and liberal Amish. The whole story started somewhere in the early 1900's in the middle-eastern US. No central government, varying degrees of conservativeness, some resemble Amish while some are very close to the Holdeman Mennonites.
   The truth is, there are at least 4 groups that look like they are part of the Beachy church but are not. I will refer to these as Conservative Mennonites, with a capital C. Whenever I use the word conservative without capital C I will be referring to other Mennonites such as the Old Order.


   They're sprinkled all over the country, with the highest population being in the southern part of the country. Members of their fellowship are Hispanics, mestizos, Mayas, coolies, black people and also white-skinned Mennonites who have left the other colonies of Old Order, Old Colony and KG. Many naturalized North Americans are also here; in fact it has the biggest amount of North Americans as compared to the other Mennonite denominations.

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Mennonite Houses

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