Sunday, March 1, 2009

The hutterites PART II

IF you havent read the post immediately below, do so first. Or not. its up to you. really it is.



SO back to The Hutterites.

-Like i said, The hutterites number over 50,000 this day and are growing quickly. Each community has between 50 and 150 persons.

-Oddly enough there is very few people joining them. They grow from within. At the turn of the 20th century each family averaged 12 children. wow. They are a very family centered group. They are strictly monogamous as well.

-Everyone in the community speaks atleast three languages fluently, Hutterisch, German and -English. Each is used for different purposes.

-Their finances are 100% shared, and distributed evenly according to each persons need

-They share all of their meals and each family has its own little apartment to live in.

-large scale agriculture is their main source of income, and unlike the Amish, they readily embrace technology, but still make an effort to keep it in its place. For instance, they will use large combines for farming, truck for transportation, and electricity for a wide variety of things most people use it for. They do, however, forbid the use of TV and other electronic gadgets that tend to be more of a hindrance on our personal relationships.

-Contact with the outside world is kept to a minimum, in order to guard themselves from becoming entrenched in negative patterns of the greater society, such as divorce, cheating, Materialism, stealing, violence, promiscuity, etc. two examples of the success of this philosophy are, in the past 400+ years of existence there has been zero murders, and very few divorces.

-spiritually they are very much focused on things in the 'Kingdom.' The reign of God and the things of eternity are at the front of their minds and priorities. therefore they do not involve themselves in politics or anything of that sort.

-they are very disciplined and genuine in their spiritual practices, evident in their daily services amongst other things.

If you are interested to learn more about this very interesting group of people here in the U.S. there are several books about them. Hutterite Society by John Hostetler is a great read. We can learn a lot from this humble disciplined loving group of people.

Peace and Grace be with you.

2 comments:

  1. I think you should also inform your masses of the strong patriarchy of the hutterites and also their extinction from the missionary community.

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  2. yes becca thank you. Indeed the Hutterites as it turns out have always had a very strong social hierarchy, possibly to a fault. Also unlike in their early days when they sent missionaries out like crazy, it would seem that the overwhelmingly high percentage of their missionaries not returning due to being killed, took its toll and they crawled back into the shell.

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