When a fertilizer salesperson visited the Hillcrest Hutterite colony south of Saskatoon recently, Joseph Wollman had a question for him, one most farmers in Western Canada are pondering now that spring is approaching.
“We asked him, ‘what can we grow that will pay for the cost of the fertilizer and the other inputs?’ He didn’t have an answer,” Wollman chuckles ruefully when told some non-Hutterite farmers think the colonies are sitting pretty now, making money while other farmers stumble.
“We don’t get paid any more for wheat. We don’t get paid any more for barley. We don’t get paid any more for canola,” said Wollman, who is minister and leader of his 115 person colony.
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“Hutterites are suffering, too.”
This may be a bad year to be a Hutterite grain farm but most Hutterite colonies are well-diversified, with livestock and vegetable production or manufacturing to support the needs of the typical 80 to 130 person colony.
Bad market prices and weather catastrophes such as recent droughts have hit many colonies as hard as other farms. Hutterite colonies are not immune from bad investments and management decisions and occasionally colonies fail or need the assistance of other colonies to survive.
But there is no doubt that Hutterite society in general has gone the opposite direction from most of the rest of Western Canada’s farming population.
While farm numbers and rural population have tumbled fairly steadily since the 1930s, the number of Hutteritie colonies and Hutterite people has steadily risen.
A spreading movement
From the original three colonies in South Dakota in the 1870s, Hutterite society has expanded to more than 400 colonies spread across the northern plains of North America, with the most in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. And more are being established.
It’s a statistically stunning ethnic, social and religious success story featuring a stubbornly insular people who manage to swim upstream against the prevailing economic currents that have washed away thousands of farmers and hundreds of towns and villages in Western Canada.
It is also a demonstration of how a religious movement born and theologically ossified in the 16th century has survived an epic journey across many countries and through much persecution to thrive in a world utterly alien to that in which founder Jacob Hutter preached, yet which still clings tightly to its founding values.
To Jonathan Kleinsasser, Hutterite social and economic success is no surprise. The formula was written down 2,000 years ago by an unimpeachable authority, the Bible, said Kleinsasser, head of manufacturing at the bustling Crystal Spring colony south of Winnipeg near Ste. Agathe, Man.
“The testament that we believe in hasn’t changed. Over more than a thousand years, it hasn’t changed one word,” he said. “The country we live in and how we make our living might change, but the basic principles that we take out of the New Testament don’t change. They’re always the same. They’re unchangeable. We didn’t invent them. But we believe in them.”
The Hutterite movement was born during the Protestant reformation of the 1500s, when many people and countries broke away from the Roman Catholic church. It was part of the Anabaptist movement, which believed in adult baptism, pacifism and a firm division of church from state, putting it at odds with both the Roman Catholic and state Protestant churches.
The name comes from Jakob Hutter, one of the most influencial founders of the movement, who was executed in 1536 for his preaching. Communalism was adopted at this time.
Finding space in which to live an isolated communal lifestyle has been an enormous struggle, generating persecution and intolerance in many countries. It caused the Hutterites to repeatedly move, from their founding in Tyrol, in what is now Austria, east to Moravia, through what is now Hungary and then to Romania, Russia and Ukraine.
Disagreement with Russian authorities over serving in the military prompted them to cross the ocean, ending up in South Dakota in 1873-4 with a population of less than 1,000, only half of whom became communalist in North America.
By the First World War there were 18 colonies in the United States, but a number of young Hutterite men were jailed and abused for their refusal to join the military. Two died in captivity. This prompted all but one of the colonies to move to Canada after 1918.
Rooted in Bible
Like other Anabaptists, Hutterites view their beliefs as Bible-based, meaning that they take the Protestant Bible as the basis and unassailable authority for their world view.
Unlike their Mennonite siblings, they reject the notion of private property beyond anything but the most personal small items.
Hutterites see themselves as a people of The Word, but it is clear from talking to them that the core of their way of communal living is contained in only a few words in one book of the New Testament: The Acts of the Apostles.
Of the three passages that Hutterites immediately refer to when explaining their commitment to communalism, the most succinct is Acts 2:44: “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.”
These words are all-important to Hutterites and dictate how they must live. Their emphasis on these few lines explains their difference from other Anabaptists and the general Christian world.
They also probably explain why Hutterites have survived five centuries of persecution, discrimination and the generally harsh economic conditions of farming, said John J. Friesen, a historian at Canadian Mennonite University who translated into English the central 16th century statement of Hutterite beliefs. By avoiding prosperity, they have created it, he said.
“If their basic drive had been economic, I think they would have failed,” he added.
“The drive has been religious. The economic success has been a byproduct. Economic success is a tool. It’s a secondary issue. The basic motivation is religious and they live like this because they believe that by living like this they can live in faithfulness to God.”
James Hofer, hog production manager of the Starlite colony near Starbuck, Man., sums up simply the Hutterite dedication to making communal farming work.
“If the religion is practiced and lived as it was set out in Acts two, it’s a way of life and a system that was designed to work,” said Hofer, who is also a director of Manitoba Pork Council.
“It has to work.”
This drive to make communalism and farming sustainable encourages a relentless effort to remain economically viable, Friesen said. Because Hutterites believe that a community failure would indicate a break with God’s will, they leap at new farming methods and technologies to survive – and often create new technologies and methods.
“They try to be as efficient as they can be in order to survive,” Friesen said.
“They’re great innovators. They’re often ahead of the latest technology.”
That’s been true in spades in some colonies, such as the Crystal Spring colony.
Its hog sorting, feeding and holding equipment is world famous and is exported to hog producers in the Philippines, Chile, Argentina, Germany and the United States.
The colony has patents on its hog equipment innovations and recently copyrighted dozens of computer-drafted designs its people have developed for a line of laser-cut, zinc-coated decorative wind spinners, similar to wind chimes, which are sold through Manitoba Wal-Mart stores and other chains.
Those spinners may soon be sold nationally through Wal-Mart.
Other colonies are resolutely conservative in their economic operations, focusing exclusively on agriculture, but they too embrace equipment and technology that promote efficiency in livestock and crop production.
Kleinsasser, who might have become a rich entrepreneur if he had lived non-communally, betrays no regret when asked whether sharing everything with the rest of the colony has been worth it.
“Money isn’t my goal. If it was, I’d be an unhappy man,” said Kleinsasser, beaming a bright smile. “My biggest ambition is to see what we have here carry on.”
The Crystal Spring colony offers a dramatic snapshot of the synthesis of 16th century theology and advanced modern technology that many Hutterite communities have achieved. Inside its large manufacturing facilities, young Hutterite men operate a computer-programmed laser cutter imported from Finland, while designers and production engineers work on computers that are connected directly to machines in the factory, and the office fields calls from around the world.
Kleinsasser was getting ready for a trip to Toronto the next day to meet with Wal-Mart officials about national distribution of the wind spinners and preparing for a trip at the end of the month to the Philippines to help install hog sorting equipment.
Hofer, whose Starlite colony does no commercial manufacturing but uses advanced hog production techniques, says he does not envy wealthier non-Hutterite hog producers.
“What gives me satisfaction, and makes me get up in the morning, is just a sheer desire to contribute all my strength and energy to the colony and to the purpose of the colony,” said Hofer, who has five boys and two girls all under the age of 18.
Communalism, whether religious or not, can bring concrete economic advantages, Friesen and many Hutterites said.
Instead of every family owning a number of vehicles, Hutterite colonies usually have only one vehicle for every two, three or more families. Relatively small acreages are able to support dozens of families because of the efficient use of expensive machinery, bulk buying of inputs that brings discounts, and the ready source of unpaid labour.
Most Hutterite homes have few of what are generally considered to be modern necessities: no TVs or video games, few computers or decorations and almost no books except in the minister’s house.
Their clothes are simple and cheaply bought or made. Non-economically productive hobbies are frowned upon or banned. Hutterite families do not take trips to Disneyland.
Hutterites say this frugality helps them survive the bad years, like this year, when grain prices are low.
“You share your victories, but you also share your losses Ð equally,” Hofer said.
“It’s more fun to share victories, but it’s half the burden to share losses.”
Kleinsasser said communalism and frugality prevent economic downturns that cause the kind of disruption that can occur in the outside world.
“We have never laid people off. We have never disappointed anyone who wants to work. We just all take less,” Kleinsasser said.
“There are years when we earn a lot less, but we manage to make a living.”
The Hutterite embrace of the “Protestant work ethic” also helps. Visitors to colonies are often surprised by how little “down time” there is. Meals, which are taken communally in a central hall, are eaten quickly after a brief prayer, with a closing prayer given only 10 or 15 minutes later, barely giving colony members time to eat the hearty meal.
Members regularly work from early morning until late at night, with meals and religious services the only breaks
Friesen said an admiration for work and loathing of leisure is part of their religious perspective.
“They look at work as something that is Godly. It’s good. Idleness leads to problems. Idleness leads to a dissipation of the community. So they try to find meaningful work for everyone in the community.”
Regardless of the economic efficiencies that communalism brings, Hutterites insist their system would never survive a loss of religious faith, even if it stayed communal. The people wouldn’t stay, as they generally haven’t in most attempts at communal living through history.
That’s true for Irvin Kleinsasser, a 32-year-old sales and customer support specialist for the factory on the Crystal Spring colony. Two of his brothers left the colony: one for Alberta’s oil patch and one to work as a skilled tradesperson in Winnipeg. But his commitment to his Hutterite faith made him choose to stay with the colony.
“The community has been there for me, but I’m not here for social security. That’s there, but I’m here because of my faith. It all ties together so beautifully and that’s why we live as we do,” he said.
“If you have a family and kids coming up, it’s just a beautiful way of living. You all work together. It’s beautiful. You can live your life and your faith.”
He has a simple ambition for himself as a father of two- and three-year-old boys.
“I hope and pray that I can raise them as my father raised me.”
Many Hutterite men leave colonies after they reach adulthood, which they consider to happen after age 15, when many stop going to school. Some enter the outside world without finding satisfaction and return to the colony, while others leave forever.
But Friesen said the colonies keep more of their children than they lose, and the still-high (although declining) Hutterite birth rate means the overall on-colony population is growing, forcing them to “seed” or “branch” new colonies every generation or two.
Starlite, which branched from the nearby James Valley colony in 1991, is already preparing to divide. It now has 160 people, well beyond the population Hutterites consider sustainable.
Sociologists consider such small communities to be fundamentally different from larger communities. Small populations are able to operate upon informal understandings between people who know each other while larger communities need to develop written rules and structures for people who do not know each other well.
The former works well for the Hutterite understanding of the lifestyle prescribed in the second chapter of Acts. The latter, they believe, does not.
The Hutterite community is spreading and growing, and also becoming more complex. It is united in its reverence for the 16th century sermons of its founding generations: sermons meticulously copied and passed down the generations, with never a new one composed.
Hutterites are also united in their basic profession of faith, summed up in Pieter Riedemann’s 1565 Confession of Faith.
But they have been divided into three main sections since the 1870s: the Schmiedeleut, the Dariusleut and the Lehrerleut, named for the leaders of the three waves of Hutterites who left Russia for South Dakota.
In the 1990s the Schmiedeleut colonies broke into two groups over a dispute and now are loosely referred to as Group One and Group Two Schmeideleuts.
As contemporary Hutterites wrestle with the innovations of recent decades, large differences have also appeared between sections and between colonies. Schmeideleut colonies tend to be the most engaged with the outside world and willing to embrace new technologies while Lehrerleuts tend to be the most conservative.
But colony to colony, the differences can be great within any section.
Hofer said that televised school classes from a central hub transmitted simultaneously to a number of colonies are accepted by some colonies but rejected by others. Some, like his colony, accept an audio feed of the lesson but not the television image.
“Whether it’s correspondence courses (by mail) or audio teleconferences, I don’t see the difference. But not all colonies see it that way, and that’s OK.”
Jonathan Kleinsasser said there have been tensions within the Hutterite community and within individual colonies over questions of technology and interaction with the outside world, but that’s a good thing.
“I always say, if two people think the same thing, you don’t need one of the people,” he said.
“We need to challenge each other.”
Wollman said the differences are not so great that the Hutterite community cannot still be seen as a single movement.
“We all believe the same things.”
For now at least, on the plains of North America, the Hutterite’s combination of economic efficiency, aggressive technical innovation, an overwhelming work ethic and willingness to live with few luxuries appears to support an economically sustainable rural life for most colonies.
As long as these characteristics remain nailed together with an unshakeable faith, the system will work, Irvin Kleinsasser said.
And that faith is not up for debate.
“We might have votes on whether to buy a new piece of equipment, but not about basic beliefs. There’s no debate or negotiation there,” he said.
“You don’t vote on those issues. It was written down 2,000 years ago.”
