THE AMISH ANSWER

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

To this end, the Amish have a very carefully laid out set of rules to follow—the Ordnung —which is defined by scriptural texts and by community consensus. Church members who violate the Ordnung and won't heed warnings to stop are, again by congregational consensus, put under the Meidung, the ban. Members cannot socialize or do business with such shunned ones until they repent. (The community will, however, help them out if the need arises.)

Thus, the Amish don't have a Sunday only religion but try to closely follow and live by the Scriptures in everything they do. Following passages in the New Testament, they don't "conform to the ways of the world" but live in a separate manner, not letting themselves become "yoked" to unbelievers. They don't swear oaths, and they are passivists.

And here I found the question I was looking for. From the Amish point of view it is, How do you create an entire community dedicated to God and not to the world? All the puzzling cultural answers I had observed followed from their solution to that problem: by making decisions as a community. If individuals had complete freedom to make their own cultural choices, the overall community values would inevitably erode. (Someone would get a car, TV or other product of mainstream culture, and eventually others would follow suit.) Yet new decisions have to be made. The culture must be able to adapt as needed for survival, to adjust to the outside world without getting swallowed up by it. So every local Amish congregation can, by consensus, modify the Ordnung when necessary.

Further, each decision has a rationale behind it. So it's OK to make outgoing calls on a community phone but not to have one in your home? Yes, because the only people you can call on a community phone are English (not other Amish), so the phones will be used only for necessary business. You can't own a car but can hire a driver? Then if you need a car for an exceptional reason (perhaps to get a relative to a hospital), you can arrange for one, but your normal visiting circle will still be limited to your community of nearby neighbors. You can't have electricity but can have some normally electric appliances? That way, you won't be yoked to the unbeliever via a power line-and won't get engulfed by all the electrical doodads of mainstream consumer culture. You can use a tractor for hauling (or for stationary power when running such tools as a grinder) but not for field work? That way, your farm will stay small (horses can work only so much land), and you won't swallow up your neighbors'. The tractor has pneumatic tires up front (to save wear on the engine) but lugged ones in back (which can't be used on state roads and so keep you from using it for transportation). Even the puzzling fact that Yoder uses his baler in the field but his neighbor does so only in the barn comes clear. The neighbor belongs to a different local church, and his congregation made a different ruling on the best way to limit gasoline-powered farm machinery.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print