Vernon Community in

Hestand, Kentucky Hestand is an unincorporated community in Monroe County, Kentucky, United States. There is an Amish like, so-called "para-Amish", Christian community at Vernon Community, Hestand Vernon Community in Hestand, Kentucky is home to a Anabaptist Chri ...

is home to a Anabaptist Christian community, that was founded in 1996 by Simon Beachy, former leader of the "Believers in Christ" in Lobelville, Tennessee. The Christian community is classified as " para-Amish" by

G.C. Waldrep G. C. Waldrep (born George Calvin Waldrep III; 1968) is an American poet and historian. Biography Waldrep was born in South Boston, Virginia. He earned undergraduate and doctoral degrees in history at Harvard University and Duke University, resp ...

, adhering to plain dress using

horse and buggy ] A horse and buggy (in American English) or horse and carriage (in British English and American English) refers to a light, simple, two-person carriage of the late 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, drawn usually by one or sometimes by two h ...

for transportation.

History

In 1973 families from a small Reformed Amish Church in

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...

founded a community at Lobelville, Tennessee, later called "Believers in Christ". The intention was to create a heartfelt primitive Christianity like in the beginning of the Anabaptist movement. The community attracted many people from

Amish The Amish (; pdc, Amisch; german: link=no, Amische), formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptist Christian church fellowships with Swiss German and Alsatian origins. They are closely related to Mennonite churc ...

, Old Order Mennonite, Old German Baptist backgrounds as well as people from non-plain churches, so-called

seekers The Seekers, or Legatine-Arians as they were sometimes known, were an English dissenting group that emerged around the 1620s, probably inspired by the preaching of three brothers – Walter, Thomas, and Bartholomew Legate. Seekers considered all ...

. The group struggled to hold together until Simon Beachy, a charismatic personality of Old Order Amish background, arrived. Beachy's central theme was "true brokenness". Beachy also rejected the idea of having an

Ordnung The Ordnung is a set of rules for Amish, Old Order Mennonite and Conservative Mennonite living. '' Ordnung'' () is the German word for order, discipline, rule, arrangement, organization, or system. Because the Amish have no central church governme ...

(set of rules) like almost all other Old Order communities. In 1996 Beachy left the community at Lobelville to create a new one at Hestand with hand-picked followers.

Customs and belief

The Christian community at Hestand is an independent community with many

features, like Plain dress,

transportation, no telephones, etc., but without fellowship with other Amish communities. It has a "lower strictness level" than the Noah Hoover Mennonites of

Scottsville, Kentucky Scottsville is a home rule-class city in Allen County, Kentucky, in the United States. It is the seat of its county. The population was 4,226 during the 2010 U.S. Census. History The site along Bays Fork was settled in 1797 and developed into ...

, or the Caneyville Christian Community. A member of the community, Ruben Schwartz, known as "Dr. Ruben" is an alternative medicine practitioner who works with herbs and

iridology Iridology (also known as iridodiagnosisCline D; Hofstetter HW; Griffin JR. ''Dictionary of Visual Science''. 4th ed. Butterworth-Heinemann, Boston 1997. or iridiagnosis) is an alternative medicine technique whose proponents claim that pattern ...

. The community lives off

market garden A market garden is the relatively small-scale production of fruits, vegetables and flowers as cash crops, frequently sold directly to consumers and restaurants. The diversity of crops grown on a small area of land, typically from under to ...

s, sorghum syrup production and other goods they sell.

Population

As of 2005 there were 32 families in the community.G.C. Waldrep: ''The New Order Amish And Para-Amish Groups: Spiritual Renewal Within Tradition'', in

The Mennonite Quarterly Review ''The Mennonite Quarterly Review'' is an American interdisciplinary review journal, devoted to Anabaptist and Mennonite history, theology, and contemporary issues. History, circulation and operations Published continuously since its concepti ...

82 (2008), page 415.

References

Literature

* George Calvin Waldrep: ''The New Order Amish And Para-Amish Groups: Spiritual Renewal Within Tradition'', in

82 (2008), pages 395–426.
Joseph Donnermeyer and Cory Anderson: ''The Growth of Amish and Plain Anabaptists in Kentucky'', in Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies 2(2):215, pages 215-244 , 2014.
{{Monroe County, Kentucky Anabaptism in the United States Anabaptist organizations established in the 20th century Christian communities Intentional communities in the United States Populated places in Monroe County, Kentucky 1996 establishments in Kentucky Populated places established in 1996