The Mennonites

Denomination·Founded 1536 CE·Around 1.44 million baptized members in the 110 national churches that belong to Mennonite World Conference, in about 10,400 congregations across 61 countries, as of the November 2025 census. MWC puts the wider Anabaptist family, including bodies outside its membership, at 2.03 million baptized in 87 countries. Roughly 84 percent of MWC members are African, Asian or Latin American. Baptized members only — children are not counted.

Judaism → Christianity → Catholicism → Protestantism → Anabaptism → The Mennonites

Mennonite World ConferenceMennonite Church USAThe recordMennonite Abuse Prevention

Branch
Overview Belief 3How to Live 1Practice 1Stories & Scripture 1Community 1 You × The Mennonites Discussion

Core Tenets

2 — a sample of the center, never the sum Part of Belief →
The shared center — held across the tradition
Baptism is a vow, so it cannot be given to an infant. The Anabaptist objection was never mainly about water. It was that a church of everyone born in the parish is not a church, and that a promise made on your behalf before you can speak is not a promise. Baptising adults was a capital crime in the Holy Roman Empire from 1529. Go deeper — context →
Christians do not take up the sword — including for a just cause. Schleitheim in 1527 put the sword outside the perfection of Christ, and Mennonites have paid for that in every century: migration to Prussia, then Russia, then the Americas, ahead of each state that decided pacifism was disloyalty. It is not withdrawal from suffering — Mennonite Central Committee has run relief in war zones since 1920. Go deeper — context & 1 source →

Numbers count Panfaith activity only — never real-world adherence.

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