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From: Merle Rummel <>
Subject: Re: Ephrata/Pietists/Pacifists
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 07:42:30 -0500


>Also, is someone familiar with the early HARMON generations who may have
>passed through Ephrata Cloister? If they were also vegetarian and
>non-combative the Indians would have found them friendly and tolerable,
don't
>you think, even in 1738 in present Montgomery Co VA?
>
Our Brethren strong stance on pacifism does not seem to come out of our
Pietist heritage, but out of our Anabaptist heritage.

In my findings about the frontier Brethren, they were NOT anti-fighting!
Daniel Boone (his 2 brothers were Brethren Elders!) killed Indians. My own
ancestor, Conrad Kern, minister at the Crane Creek Church at Salisbury NC,
was a member of the Revolutionary Militia, and while he didn't fight (?),
he is recorded as guarding a jail. I have many such.

On the other hand, an Abraham Bowman is recorded as bringing a whole colony
to early Kentucky (somewhere between Lexington and Harrodsburg) and just
disappeared, the only reference I have found that may pertain to them,
says: "One Fort would not fight (the British/Indian invasion)!"

This seems to have been one of the strong differences between the Pietist
Brethren (who seem to be the main group moving to the frontier) and the
Anabaptist Brethren(who seem to stayed back home in "withdrawn"
communities). Annual Meeting came from the heart of colonial
Pennsylvania/Maryland, and in 1826, put these Frontier Brethren on
"avoidance" because of their different ("stange") beliefs. So today, we
have very little of our Pietist heritage.

Merle Rummel
Church Historian

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