The plain dress went; the peace position did not.
The prescribed bonnet, cape dress and collarless coat were general into the 1930s and gone by the 1960s, and the church argued the whole way. Nonresistance survived that liberalisation and remains in the Articles of Faith, though a good many American members now serve in the military.
The abandonment of prescribed plain dress took roughly forty years and left scars. Into the 1930s General Conference legislated on the bonnet, the cape dress, the collarless coat and the necktie; through the 1940s and 1950s the rules were progressively relaxed, and by the 1960s the prescription was gone. Two groups had already separated over exactly this kind of drift — the Old Order River Brethren, who kept the plain form, and the United Zion Church. What survived the liberalisation is the peace position: the Articles of Faith still state that Christians do not take life, and the denomination maintained alternative service programmes. In practice a significant share of North American members now serve in the armed forces, and the denomination has not disciplined them for it, which is where the doctrine and the behaviour visibly part company.
The same ground, other faiths
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