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Current Research

Professor Kraybill's current research involves several different projects related to Anabaptist communities.

1. Concise Encyclopedia of Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites. This single-volume encyclopedia will provide easy access to basic topics and information about these four Anabaptist communities in North America. The encyclopedia will be published by Johns Hopkins University Press. A publication date has not yet been determined because the research and writing are still underway.

2. Church Member Profile 2006, a major three-year study of members of three different denominations: Church of the Brethren, Mennonite Church USA and the Brethren in Christ. A team of three researchers worked together on the project: Carl D. Bowman directed the Brethren Member Profile, Conrad Kanagy directed the Mennonite Member Profile, Professor Kraybill directed the Brethren in Christ Member Profile and also served as the coordinator of the overall project. Questionnaires were mailed to 7,000 members of these three denominations in early 2006. Results were analyzed in late 2006 and early 2007, and shared with denominational leaders in the spring of 2007. Road Signs for the Journey: A Profile of Mennonite Church USA, an interpretation of the Mennonite survey data by Conrad Kanagy, and Resources for the Journey, an accompanying CD/DVD package, were released in July. Carl Bowman is currently working on an interpretation of the Brethren survey data, which will be published by Brethren Press. The Church Member Profile project is described in more detail in CMP2006 [pdf].

3. Amish Identity and Diversity: Transformations in 20^th Century America is a major three-year project that is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, collaborative research division. Kraybill is the senior project investigator along with co-investigators Steven M. Nolt (Goshen College, IN) and Karen Johnson-Weiner (SUNY Potsdam, NY). For more information on the project, see the NEH project overview [pdf].

4. “From the Buggy to the Byte: How the Amish Tame Technology” is the working title of a research project on the Amish understanding of technology. National in scope, this project explores different ways in which Amish communities cope with technology by rejecting, accepting, adapting, and inventing new forms. Face-to-face interviews are the primary source of data. The project is tracing and analyzing how technological restraints vary across different social sites in Amish society from mobile construction crews to schools. How do Amish communities determine which technological advances to accept and which to reject? What is the underlying cultural logic to the different patterns of technological usage? What is the process of decision making that shapes Amish responses to technology? These are some of the questions that the project addresses. The results will be summarized in an academic book.