@book{1163,
  keywords = {Russian Mennonites},
  author = {Winfield Fretz},
  title = {The Waterloo Mennonites: a community in paradox},
  abstract = {A scholarly study by a sociologist who was also founding president of Conrad Grebel College of what he calls "the most ethnically and organizationally diverse of any Mennonite community." Information was gathered by fieldwork, including a special census in 1972. The author explains the historical and religious background in the main Swiss, Amish and Dutch-Russian strands of Anabaptists who migrated within and from Europe between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. Differences among the three original types are shown to have been complicated by subsequent splits in faith, doctrine and practice, and related to the degree of exposure to the mainstream economy and culture. Despite these differences, the Mennonites of the Waterloo region are described as sharing some values, customs and traditions, including a strong sense of community forged during centuries of persecution and migration in search of religious freedom. Other chapters discuss the roles of church, family and school; the importance of farming not only as livelihood but also as "sacred vocation" and ideal environment; distinctive occupational and leisure patterns; traditions of self- sufficiency and mutual aid; and forces of change within the Mennonite community and between Mennonites and the larger society and culture. The book concludes with a useful account of recent changes in Mennonite institutions, including the formation of the Mennonite Conference of Eastern Canada, the Mennonite Credit Union of Ontario, the Mennonite Historical Society of Ontario, and Conrad Grebel College.},
  year = {1989},
  number = {Book, Whole},
  pages = {391 p. ill., map, bibl., index+},
  publisher = {Wilfrid Laurier University Press for Conrad Grebel College},
  address = {Waterloo},
  language = {English},
}