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The peace churches came to this conviction through Bible-based, turn-the-other-cheek idealism. The more than 100,000 plain-living U.S. Mennonites, whose best-known sect is the Amish farmers of Pennsylvania and Ohio, take their name from Menno Simons, one of the leaders of the Reformation's Anabaptist movement. Because they sought to abandon all church structure and live simply by the Gospel alone, the early German Mennonites were killed or outlawed by Catholics and Protestants alike. A century later, England's George Fox and the Friends (now 122,000 strong in the U.S.) were persecuted for trying to build a church free of ritual, creed or priest and based on God's "Inner Light," granted to every man. The turn of the 18th century saw the birth of the pietistic, back-to-the-Bible Brethren movement in Germany—a reaction against the still remembered horrors of the Thirty Years' War and the spiritual rigidities of the established Protestant churches. The desire to pursue their separate ways in peace led all three groups to seek freedom in the New World.
During the Civil War, the peace churches in the U.S. joined forces to gain Government recognition of the rights of conscientious objectors. In 1940, they again cooperated to set up the National Service Board for Religious Objectors, which arranged for assignment of C.O.s to Government-approved civilian jobs in time of war. The Mennonites, Brethren and Quakers accounted for more than half of the 10,230 men who were conscientious objectors during World War II.
Aid to Viet Nam. All three faiths openly denounce U.S. military action in Viet Nam—and at the same time work at projects that tend to make the U.S. look good there. The Brethren have had voluntary workers in Viet Nam since 1955, most of them effectively involved in community development, education and now refugee resettlement. The National Council of Churches' Division of Overseas Ministries channels its relief support to Viet Nam through the Mennonite Central Committee. Recently an inspection team from the American Friends Service Committee toured Viet Nam, is now formulating proposals as to how the Quakers can give nonmilitary help to the country.
Although their goals are the same as many nonreligious Vietnik protesters, the peace churches generally disapprove of activities that clearly violate U.S. law, such as draft dodging and burning Selective Service registration cards. "This is exhibitionism," says Francis Brown, general secretary of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends. The peace-churchmen seek only to live to the letter of Christ's injunction (in Luke: 6: 27-29): "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To him who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also."