Canada and the World
Current Events with a Canadian Perspective
Last update
13 April 2011
Christianity Part Six
HUTTERITES
Founded by Jacob Hutter (left) in 1528, this group shares much of its religious and
cultural foundation with the Amish and Old Order Mennonites.
What sets them apart is their insistence on living a communal life with communal ownership of property.
Hutterites suffered a great deal of persecution in Europe and moved to the United States.
Their situation was little better in the U.S. and they all immigrated to Canada in 1918. They settled in Alberta and Manitoba and later set up communities in Saskatchewan.
There are about 42,000 Hutterites in the world, more than 28,000 of them living in Canada’s Prairie provinces. They live in rural colonies with an average of 13 families and a total population of about 85. When the population reaches 125 to 150, the settlements subdivide and form new colonies, on average every 16 years.
JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES
This group gets its name from the English translation of the name for God in Hebrew
Scriptures -
Charles Taze Russell (1852-
From this small beginning, Jehovah’s Witnesses now number five million worldwide in almost 75,000 congregations. There are 113,000 active Canadian Jehovah’s Witness evangelists.
A major activity is the publishing and distribution of their translation of the Bible
as well as their magazines Watchtower and Awake.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are pacifists. During the Second World War, their refusal to salute the flag or to help the war effort caused them to be very unpopular in some countries.
The religion was banned in Canada from 1941 to 1943; their literature had been banned in the First World War.
Jehovah’s Witnesses reject the Trinity, believing that Jesus Christ is a lesser god than God the Father. They also believe that Christ visited Earth invisibly in 1914 and that the end of the world (Armageddon) will happen before the last of the generation to witness the events of 1914 has died out. So, in the very near future, the battle of Armageddon will begin.
Jesus, under Jehovah’s divine rage, will execute vengeance upon the rest of Christendom and followers of other religions. After much suffering, massive human extermination, and many upheavals, the world will be purified.
God’s Kingdom, a theocracy, will be established on Earth for 1,000 years. After the 1,000 years of God’s Kingdom, Satan and his demons will be released for a short time. They, and their human followers, will then be destroyed.
Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that 144,000 of the saved will eventually dwell in Heaven, and that the rest of the saved will live forever in an earthly paradise.
People who die before Armageddon actually cease to exist. They expire and their body deteriorates and returns to dust. At the time of resurrection, God will create a new body for each believer. It will be similar to their former shell, but without the imperfections. They will resume life with their original personality and memories.
Only Jehovah’s Witnesses will be saved so members, called Publishers and Pioneers,
go door-
LUTHERANS
Not surprisingly, Lutherans follow the teaching of Martin Luther, the man who started the Protestant Reformation.
Today, the Lutheran Church has more than 64 million adherents worldwide (72,000 in Canada).
The central belief of Lutherans is that salvation comes through faith and that this is God’s gift to humans.
They reject the Roman Catholic idea that God’s favour is earned through human actions. What that means is that the way peoples lives turn out, for here and eternity, has nothing to do with how much they try to be good and do good, or how badly they fail in their efforts.
Salvation is a pure act of grace on God’s part. The root meaning of salvation is health or wholeness. When people are completely healthy and whole in body, mind, soul, and spirit, and in their relationships with God and humanity, that’s salvation.
The Bible is the foundation of doctrine rather than church tradition.
There are two branches of Lutheranism in Canada -
MENNONITES
Mention the word “Mennonite” and most people picture families, dressed in black riding
in horse-
Paul Falardeau
down country roads or farming without benefit of tractors; but, Mennonites who live this way, called Old Order, are a small minority. Today, most Mennonites are fully integrated into mainstream society.
The first Mennonites came to Canada from the United States in 1786, and they were descendants of Mennonites from Europe. They date their identity from the Anabaptist movement of the early 16th century, which said that baptism should only be accorded to mature believers who have chosen to accept Christ.
The movement spread through Germany and the Netherlands, where Menno Simons (after
whom the denomination is named) became its leader. But, persecution caused Mennonites
to scatter, some of them settling in Pennsylvania. They lived in self-
Renewed persecution in Russia in the 1870s brought more Mennonites to Canada, particularly to southern Manitoba.
But, the biggest Mennonite immigration took place in the 1920s when about 20,000 escaped Russia’s Communist revolution. A further, 12,000 came from Russia and Germany after the chaos in World War II left them homeless and stateless.
There are said to be about 1.2 million Mennonites in 41 countries; about a quarter of these live in Canada.
There are some 1,000 Mennonite congregations in Can-
Within that broad spectrum, all share a firm belief in pacifism and reject involvement with the military or warfare.
Image credit
Dan Patterson
Sources used in this series
Religions in Canada, Directorate of Human Rights and Diversity, Government of Canada.
The Encyclopedia of World Religions, Robert S. Ellwood (ed.) Facts on File, 1998.
Religion for Dummies, Rabbi Marc Gellman and Monsignor Thomas Hartman, For Dummies Publishing, 2002.
Religious Tolerance, Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Religion, CBC Montreal
Return to Christianity Part Five
© Canada and the World, April 2011
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Hutterites are baptized when they are between 20 and 25 years of age.
SHUNNING
Disfellowshipping is the word Jehovah’s Witnesses use to describe the process of expelling a member from the church.
Members are kicked out for serious violations of the church’s teachings and other members must shun them from that point on. That means having no contact and not speaking to the expelled member.
If the disfellowshipped person is a family member, then they are treated normally within the family, except that they are made to understand that their actions are disapproved of.
Also, there is no discussion about church matters in their presence.
This can have a devastating effect on a person whose entire religious, family, and social life may have been grounded in the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
This harsh treatment has caused marriages to break up and, occasionally, has led to suicide.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are not the only religious organization to use shunning as a disciplinary measure.
Scandinavia is the heartland of Lutheran worship.
In Iceland Lutherans account for 94% of the population.
Norway -
Denmark -
Sweden -
Finland -
Greenland -