Stauffer Mennonite

The original church was founded in 1845 when a split occurred in the Lancaster Mennonite Conference in Lancaster County, PA. The more conservative group formed a new church called the Piker Mennonites because their meeting house stood near the “pike” U.S. Route 322 in Earl Township near Hinkletown. In 1916 the original "Pikers" split into the Stauffer Mennonites and the group around bishop John A. Weaver, called Weaver Mennonites, who are less conservative. The schism from the Bowman group in Pennsylvania was about the extent of shunning and divided the congregation 101 to 102.

The Stauffer Pike Mennonites and Weaver Pike Mennonites continue to share the same church building, alternating every Sunday. The original church building, built in 1840, was demolished and replaced in 2015 with a nearly identical building 75 yards farther from Route 322 due to noise.[2] However, a very small section of stone wall that was part of the original structure remains standing indicating where the historic structure once stood.

Today the name "Stauffer Mennonite" in a broad sense can refer to at least nine different groups, all descending from the church that was founded in 1845. The groups are named after the bishop who founded the group: Jacob Stauffer, Phares Stauffer, Joseph Brubaker, Noah Hoover, Titus Hoover, Aaron Martin, Allen Martin, Martin Weaver, and Jonas Weaver groups. Today the Noah Hoovers are mostly counted as a separate group.

In general all of Pike Mennonite groups up to 2016 held to orthodox Mennonite beliefs, strictly Plain dress and forbade cars and modern farm machinery. Shunning was practiced in a stricter way than among other Old Order Mennonite groups.[3]

In 2016 the main Pike Mennonite group, the Stauffer Old Order Mennonite group (as named in an 2020 May article), had a split because of insurance and other issues. Bishop Arthur Martin of Snyder County was the leader of this movement, which itself has not founded a separate clear church yet. After his reluctance to get rid of a certain insurance, this movement came to be, while other issues certainly played a role too. The Arthur Martin movement is still a loose connection of former Stauffer Mennonites, some got cars, some moved, some went back, some work together with ex-Wenger Mennonites. It´s still not a clear defined church, who can be identified. Even the main church has taken a long time to use shunning on them. In general all people belonging to the movement have a more liberal tendency than the main group, they fragmented from. And because of this tendency one has to see if this movement will survive and form a separate still Pike Mennonte defined church or if many different churches come to be. In Snyder County this movement got almost 50 % of the main group in its beginning.

As of 2010, these groups are among the most conservative of all Mennonites of Swiss and south German ancestry outside the Amish. They stress strict separation from “the world”, avoid excommunicated members (shunning), wear very plain clothing, and do not have electricity or running water. Stauffer Mennonites in general do not wear beards, with the exception of the Noah Hoover Mennonites, who are now considered not to be part of the Stauffer Mennonites in a narrow sense, but of the larger Horse and Buggy Old Order Mennonite movement which formed from later schisms.

In 1936 the Stauffer Mennonites had 161 baptized members. In 1959 there were 2 congregations with 218 adult members. In 1977 there were 382 members and in 1990 about 700.[4] In 2008 there were 13 Stauffer Mennonite congregations with about 1300 adult members.[5] In 2015 there were 17 Stauffer Mennonite congregations with 2010 baptized members[6] and a total population of 4,260.[7]

• Groffdale Conference Mennonite Church

• Scott, Stephen (1996), An Introduction to Old Order and Conservative Mennonite Groups, Intercourse, Pennsylvania: Good Books, ISBN 1-56148-101-7

• Stauffer Mennonite Church in Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online