The Hutterites: To Care And...Not To Care

From Mennonite historian John Ruth, whose award-winning The Amish: A People of Preservation was reviewed in our April 1993 issue, The Hutterites: To Care and...Not to Care is an earlier and also excellent film in the same vein. A less familiar offshoot of the religions which came out the of 16th-century European Anabaptist movement (including the Amish and the Mennonites), the Hutterites, descended from Jacob Hutter, emigrated to America from Russia in the 1870s. Originally 1,265 members strong, the group now has some 30,000 members in about 300 colonies spread throughout Canada and the United States. This program looks at their lifestyle, in detail. In their commitment to community, separate churches, and separate schools, the Hutterites resemble their Amish cousins. When it comes to technology, however, the two religions disagree. The Amish shun technology, the Hutterites embrace it wholeheartedly, and Hutterite settlements have often been the leaders in agricultural output in their particular areas. Very much a male-dominated society whose lives rotate around scripture, the Hutterites care very much about their communities (and will gladly pitch in to help other communities in trouble, regardless of whether they are Hutterites), but--as interviews with Hutterite men, women, and children attest--they have little in the way of individual preferences. Yet, even though they are small in number, the Hutterite influence has been felt far away, and in one of the most interesting scenes in the film we visit a Japanese Hutterite society. An intriguing companion piece to Ruth's The Amish, this is highly recommended and an Editor's Choice. [Note: A sequence in which a group of ducks are beheaded--while perfectly natural in a small agricultural community--is rather disturbing for modern viewers who are much more distanced from the earlier stages in the food preparation chain.] (Available from: Vision Video, P.O. Box 540, 2030 Wentz Church Rd., Worcester, PA 19490; (800) 523-0226.)