Brethren & Mennonites During the American Revolution
Brethren Meetinghouse, Germantown, PA, built 1770. Photo by Michael Hanson provided by Germantown Church of the Brethren.
Mennonite Meetinghouse, Germantown, PA, built 1770. Photo by Smallbones provided by Wikimedia Commons.
In recognition of the 250th anniversary of the American declaration of independence, we have developed some resources to communicate about the distinctive experiences of our communities during the American Revolution.
We created new a temporary exhibit of four panels. We also put the contents of these panels into a brochure which you can see here: Brethren & Mennonites During the Revolutionary War Era.
In March, we worked with James Madison University to host a panel of lecturers to speak on Religious Communities During the Revolutionary War Era. We were grateful to have Robert Brown, professor at JMU, speak about “Religious Rhetoric and the Revolutionary War,” to speak more broadly about what various religious leaders were saying at that time. We are unable to show Prof. Brown’s multimedia presentation here, but the other two presentations can be presented here, at least in manuscript.
Carl Bowman, Senior Fellow at the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, spoke about “The Church of the Brethren during the Revolutionary War era.”
Elwood Yoder, Interim Executive Director at Brethren & Mennonite Heritage Center, spoke about “Virginia Mennonites find Religious Freedom in the Revolutionary War era.”