Mennonite Action protesters Tim Seidel, front right, Rick Yoder, front left, Ben Rush, back left, and Mike Ramer, back right, are arrested by U.S. Capitol Police during a Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, protest against the war in Gaza outside Sen. Mark Warner's office in Washington, D.C.
Mennonite Action protesters Tim Seidel, front right, Rick Yoder, front left, Ben Rush, back left, and Mike Ramer, back right, are arrested by U.S. Capitol Police during a Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, protest against the war in Gaza outside Sen. Mark Warner's office in Washington, D.C.
At 75 years old, Ken Hosler is new to political advocacy. The Lancaster city resident said this new stage in his life started three years ago when he reconnected with his Anabaptist roots. When he first attended East Chestnut Street Mennonite Church, Hosler said he knew he had “come home.”
“It just is helping me to live out my faith more and more,” Hosler said, describing his faith as seeking “to serve and love on people wherever I can.”
That’s why he helps his church give out meals on Monday nights and volunteers at Lancaster County Food Hub. It’s also why he said he joined Mennonite Action, a group that formed in November 2023 when several hundred Mennonites in the U.S. and Canada joined a Zoom call to discuss what they could do to end the violence in Gaza.
The group condemned both Hamas’ killing of 1,195 Israelis in the Oct. 7 attack and Israel’s military response. By the end of 2023, Israel’s military actions killed 21,978 Gazans and displaced tens of thousands more, according to Gaza Ministry of Health data reported by the United Nations.
After the Zoom call, Mennonite Action formed into a nonprofit under the umbrella organization Nonviolence International, which supports several other nonprofits that advocate for the end to conflicts around the world. The growing coalition of progressive Mennonites has since expanded its focus to addressing domestic issues, including supporting immigrants.
Hosler said he first learned about Mennonite Action after hundreds gathered in Washington D.C. on Jan. 16, 2024, to call for a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza war. In an act of civil disobedience, about 150 people sat in the rotunda of Congress’ Cannon Office Building and sang hymns until police arrested, cited and released each of them, according to the group’s own report. Another 200 people gathered outside and sang hymns in solidarity.
One of those arrested was Dawn Ranck-Hower, the pastor at New Holland Mennonite Church, one of dozens of distinct Mennonite congregations in Lancaster County, where the Mennonite tradition over centuries has broadened to include a wide spectrum of ideologies and religious practices.
Mennonites historically are apolitical and believe strongly in the separation of church and state. Ranck-Hower said she grew up in a church where “no one would have voted.” Now, her church is part of the most progressive Mennonite branch and her congregants are politically active.
Mennonites have a long history of caring for immigrants and the marginalized and supporting civil rights, but they mostly do it under the radar, Ranck-Hower said. The faithful also have a long history of working with Palestinians, and Ranck-Hower herself spent three months in Israel and Palestine in 2019. After the start of the Gaza war, many progressive Mennonites wanted to take action, Ranck-Hower said, including herself, but they didn’t know how.
“Mennonite Action has given us the tools to know how to speak out and to organize,” Ranck-Hower said.
For her, acquiring those tools started in D.C. while advocating for a Gaza ceasefire, then going to speak to U.S. Representative Lloyd Smucker, a Republican who represents Lancaster and York counties, who also has been the subject of several Mennonite Action protests.
After Donald Trump was re-elected in November 2024, arrests and deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement ramped up, social safety net programs were cut, and suddenly the political problems were close to home, Ranck-Hower said.
When faced with problems of national or international scale, Ranck-Hower said it’s important for people who want change to do what they can locally while speaking out nationally.
“We are each required to do the good that is ours to do because if we don’t do it, who will?” Ranck-Hower said.
Ranck-Hower said every pastor really only has one sermon, and they just find different ways to preach it. Her sermon is about following Jesus’ example of advocating for the poor and walking with the marginalized. Many members of Ranck-Hower’s “small congregation” of about 45 people are members of Mennonite Action.
The group has helped people learn new organizing tools, allowing for united actions, Ranck-Hower said, which has helped energize Lancaster’s progressive Mennonites who are speaking out and stepping up volunteer and charity support.
“If you’re doing activism alone, you’re going to burn out really fast,” Ranck-Hower said. “If you’re doing activism and have a voice together, there’s a certain sense of community and lifting each other up. When you start feeling unsure or scared, you look into the eyes of the person beside you and you draw strength.”
Hosler is an example of that growth in shared public activism. In October, he walked in a parade with the New Holland Mennonite Church’s float that bore the message, “God’s love knows no borders,” a phrase used at several Mennonite gatherings over the last year to call for support in Gaza and for immigrants in the U.S.
In November, he helped recruit people to attend Mennonite Action’s Build Your Courage training in Lancaster, part of the group’s 30-city national tour meant to introduce people to grassroots organizing and nonviolent civil disobedience.
Mennonites have long practiced living simply as part of their faith. For many, that goes hand-in-hand with giving money to the less fortunate, and there, too, Hosler said he has grown.
“My wife and I, we’ve always tried to be generous, but we’ve taken that to another level,” Hosler said.
From Gaza to ICE
Mennonite Action in Lancaster has been largely fueled by a core group in their 30s, including Ben Rush, a city resident who has been with the group from the outset and is a member of its Lancaster planning committee. Rush, too, has been arrested in Washington, D.C., during protests against U.S. military support for Israel in the Gaza war, most recently in September.
He describes Mennonite Action as a version of church that is “more about living out beliefs and inclusion.” That’s why the group has been able to bring in people ranging from high schoolers to retirees, he said.
Rush and other members of Mennonite Action are direct with their political language, saying Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza — a position Mennonite Action took before an independent investigation commissioned by the United Nations released a legal analysis on Sept. 16, 2025, stating Israel’s military actions in the Gaza strip amount to genocide. The International Court of Justice is hearing an ongoing case alleging genocide in Gaza, but it could take years for a resolution. Israel has said any claims it is carrying out genocide are false and antisemitic.
As part of its organizing strategy, Mennonite Action has been calling on the U.S. to stop military aid to Israel for almost two years, well before the U.N. put out another report in October stating the U.S. and other countries were supporting Israel’s genocide in part by providing “large-scale military aid.” Through September, 466 Israeli military personnel were killed in the Gaza war, as were 67,000 Gaza residents, an estimated 80% of whom were civilians, according to analysis from Brown University.
After Trump’s election and calls for mass deportations, Mennonite Action added supporting immigrants to its agenda, again using emotionally charged language to describe the administration’s actions.
“The genocide in Gaza rages on as ICE kidnaps our neighbors off the streets in the U.S.,” Rush said, quoting a prepared statement. “That’s why we’re bringing training tools and frameworks to help our communities respond in courage to our historical moment.”
Becca Rast, a political organizer in Lancaster, was also on the group’s first call back in 2023. She was the campaign manager for Jess King when she ran as a Democrat in 2018 against Smucker, and she worked on Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. Rast said she grew up with many of the core Mennonite Action organizers in Lancaster, cutting their teeth in high school organizing protests against the war in Iraq.
When news started breaking of ICE raids around the country, and of Lancaster residents getting deported, it created a new galvanizing moment for Mennonite Action that has helped it build energy locally, Rast said.
What’s next
Mennonite Action is trying to turn that energy into actions that will put pressure on elected officials, said Sarah Baggé, who is part of Mennonite Action’s Lancaster and national organizing committees. The group also has been talking about the history of “mutual aid” among Mennonites, she said, referring to groups offering financial and material support to people in need. She gave a $200 donation to a Go Fund Me to support an Afghan refugee family being resettled in Lancaster last year.
Leaders of other nonprofit and activist groups in Lancaster are noticing an uptick in energy and support, which they say is being driven by Mennonite Action.
Michelle Hines, who co-founded the Lancaster chapter of the progressive advocacy organization PA Stands Up, now works with Solidarity Lancaster, which is focused on supporting people affected by ICE deportations and tracing local government cooperation with federal deportation efforts.
“We love Mennonite Action,” she said.
Hines said when she started organizing in Lancaster in 2016, she was shocked at how many of the activists were Mennonites or Quakers, another Christian movement committed to nonviolence. The circles of all the activist groups heavily overlap. For instance, Hines started Lancaster Stands Up with Nick Martin, a prominent local activist and organizer who also helped found Mennonite Action. Hines said she’s seen members of the group step up to help people who fall between the gaps of support already offered by government services or nonprofits, such as helping a family quickly find housing.
Stephanie McNulty co-founded the nonprofit Lancaster Neighbor Fund, which provides small grants to immigrants facing deportation or whose family members have been detained. She said she has also seen an increase in giving and other organizing from Mennonites in the area.
While nonprofits like hers are able to provide some support, McNulty said she has been impressed at how nimble and creative Mennonite organizers have been at quickly responding to immediate needs in the community. She’s seen mutual aid groups become more and more organized, and said she thinks Lancaster’s progressive organizing in the coming years likely will grow from Mennonite roots.
For Hosler, his newfound political participation is part of how he practices his faith.
“It’s the nonviolent Jesus,” he said. “What does love require of me?’ is a question I pose to myself, and then I try to find ways to live out that love.”
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