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Their strong adherence to the principle of separation of church and state has led Mennonites and groups in the German Baptist Brethren tradition to provide services to members for which others look to government agencies, such as aid to widows and orphans and support for the elderly. Mennonites and Brethren have also maintained hospitals and homes for the aged that serve not only members, but the general public as well.

On the American landscape, not all Anabaptist service has remained inward-turned, however. As an expression of biblical neighbor-love and as a pragmatic solution to the need for ways for their pacifist members to provide alternative wartime service, Anabaptist groups began in the 20th century to develop a network of aid organizations that provide services, especially in times of emergency.

Just days after Hurricane Charley struck Florida on August 13, 2004, the Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) began to set up a staging area in Arcadia, Florida to which volunteers could come to provide recovery services to the victims of the storm. Unlike many groups that provide immediate aid and then leave, the MDS and its Church of the Brethren counterpart, Emergency Response/Service Ministries, provide long-term service, including repair of buildings and emergency child care. Although a small segment of the less conservative Amish community operates its own disaster relief service, Christian Aid Ministries, most Amish groups participate in MDS programs. It is not unusual to see a van load of Amish carpenters working alongside a group of highly acculturated urban Mennonites on a home repair project.

In 1920, Mennonites banded together to relieve their brethren in the Ukraine who faced starvation in the wake of World War I and the subsequent Russian Civil War. Out of these efforts emerged the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), an umbrella organization for domestic and international relief and development programs, sponsored by Mennonite churches in North America and the Brethren in Christ. The 1921 death of popular Goshen College student Clayton Kratz while serving as a relief worker in Russia cemented MCC in the Mennonite imagination while MCC's skillful lobbying of the Soviet government resulted in permission to legally function in the Soviet Union. By 1924, MCC had distributed over a million dollars in aid, including tractors and horses, to help rebuilt rural Mennonite communities. In the process, MCC saved the lives of an estimated 9,000 Russian Mennonites.

Under the direction of Orie Miller, MCC executive secretary (1935-1958), MCC increasingly focused its ministry to aid non-Mennonites. As Miller insisted, MCC policy should be non-partisan and should be extended without preference as to race and nationality but with special attention to relief needs among women and children suffering the hardships of war.

Among Miller's successors, the focus of MCC's ministry is the promotion of peace and justice. Since it does not engage in church planting (which it believes to be the responsibility of mission boards), it has been accused by conservative Mennonites of providing service and material aid at the expense of preaching the gospel. MCC emphasizes that all of its workers must be Christians, although not necessarily Mennonite, and if they are not involved in preaching or teaching on the mission field, they must model the Christian lifestyle through their actions in accord with the message of Matthew 25:35-36. In 2003-2004 MCC supported 1,400 workers in 55 countries with 69 million dollars in funds and materials.

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September (Web-only) 2005, Vol. 49