How do the Amish/Mennonite children join the church? What is the ‘positive act’?
Is it that they choose when they turn 18 through Baptism or a public declaration?
I prefer to read books on other religions or our separated brethren, do you have any authoritative recommendations that I could purchase?
It is normally through formally requesting church membership and convincing the leadership of your sincerity and maturity. There is no “magic age 18” - you can join at any age if the church deems you mature enough to understand who Jesus is and why you believe in him and want to follow him. In theory, this could be at age 5 but almost nobody is accepted at age 5 in practice. You may need to make a formal statement of faith or make a statement that you accept church discipline. If you have not been validly baptized in their view, you would need to get baptized at that time. Adult baptism in another tradition, such as Southern Baptists, may be accepted as valid so you would not need rebaptism, so a Southern Baptist could “convert” to being Mennonite or Amish just with a statement of faith with no rebaptism. It’s possible that baptism in a church that baptizes infants (e.g. CC, EO, CoE, Lutheran, etc.) may be considered valid if you
actually received that baptism as an adult (or child of sufficient maturity to understand and consent). For example, a person of Jewish background who went through RCIA at age 17 and was baptized in the CC understanding what they were getting into may be able to become Mennonite by confession of faith. The baptism of LDS and other non-trinitarian sects is likely to be held invalid. The final determination of validity or invalidity of a candidate’s prior baptism would happen at the church the person wanted to join.
My church more or less accepts the
Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective as authoritative, but there is no infallible magisterium or pope to adjudicate disagreements on the correct interpretation of any section or any section’s applicability to a specific real-world incident or situation. Decisions would be made at the local level and/or with the Bishop/Overseer of the conference. If the local church is excessively at odds with the overseer, the church could be cut loose or the church might preemptively leave and form their own conference or join another.
One historical problem that Mennonites and Amish have is a tendency to schism over minor differences, resulting in a lot of little denominations that differ only slightly from others but are unwilling to unite. This is a bigger problem in more conservative traditions than more liberal ones.
