Amish leaders struggled to know how to navigate these cultural currents. Notes from meetings of Amish ministers in the 1840s in Holmes County, Ohio, reveal that leaders in that place repeatedly stressed the importance of simplicity in personal appearance and a skepticism toward new consumer goods, but the frequency with which they admonished their flock suggest the sort of countervailing pressures they faced.15
Beginning in 1862 Amish church leaders from Pennsylvania to Iowa gathered annually to discuss common concerns. The American Civil War, then raging, was fairly easy for them to address. They reaffirmed Anabaptist pacifism and in most cases, it seems, young men heeded the church’s teaching. How to respond to other forces reshaping their communities was less clear. A majority of Amish leaders seemed ready to embrace a change-minded agenda, to the chagrin of those who wished to stand by the “old order” of simplicity, small-scale community, and tradition-guided church life that resisted being pressed into a popular Protestant mold.
In the end, about two-thirds of Amish churches in the 1860s opted for a more fluid and change-minded identity. These churches stopped gathering for worship in members’ homes, as their ancestors had long done, and constructed church buildings. They replaced the authoritative memory of the aged with written constitutions that could be amended by majority votes, and adopted the style and programming of their Protestant neighbors.
By the early 1900s these change-minded Amish churches had aligned themselves with their more progressive Anabaptist cousins, the Mennonites, thereafter morphing into Mennonite congregations and formally joining one Mennonite group or another.16 In other cases, progressive Amish families simply assimilated into mainstream society and discarded religious particularity entirely. Such was the case, for example, of seismologist Charles Richter, who developed the Richter Scale of earthquake magnitude. Although he had deep roots in the Amish community of Butler County, Ohio, where he was born, his autobiography suggests his family had passed on to him virtually nothing of his Amish heritage.17
In contrast, the tradition-minded or Old Order Amish of the 1860s formed the nucleus of what would become the Amish church that remains distinguishable in the twenty-first century. These Amish rejected the programmatic approach to church that they saw in Sunday schools, mission budgets, and seminary education. Instead, they focused all the more on the collective discipline of the local church and traditional interpretations of Scripture.
In broad strokes, the old order tradition that took shape in the mid-1800s was a cluster of commitments that continue to shape the contours of Amish life today:
plainness, simplicity, and a rejection of consumer culture, combined with an expectation that the church can and should collectively prescribe such things as clothing and home furnishings.
church defined in small-scale, local terms, resulting in a rejection of church buildings, denominational structures, and salaried clergy.
a clear sense that tradition is a trustworthy guide for navigating an uncertain future and for maintaining social balance, matched with skepticism toward progressive forms of authority such as science, popular opinion, or professional expertise.
Navigating the Modern World
It should be clear by now that the Old Order Amish did not forge their identity around rejecting cars or telephones. In the 1860s those pieces of technology did not exist! But old order dispositions pointed the direction in which Amish choices about consumer technology would unfold in the decades to come. For example, after 1910, the Amish rejected automobile ownership in favor of continued horse and buggy transportation. Cars quickly became status symbols, while the more egalitarian buggy slowed the pace of life and kept family and community life local and face-to-face.
Constructing and reconstructing the boundaries of Amish life was a dynamic process that involved forces both inside and outside Amish society. The rise of the welfare state, for example, challenged the Amish notion that the church alone would provide for members’ needs when family finances proved inadequate. Resisting public (and commercial) insurance programs, Amish people rejected Social Security when it was extended to self-employed farmers in 1955. After prolonged conflict with federal tax collectors, the Amish received congressional exemption from the program, and from Medicare, in 1965. Today self-employed Amish people and Amish employees of Amish employers are exempt from these taxes and also barred from receiving benefits. Apart from these exceptions, Amish individuals pay all other income, property, inheritance, and sales taxes just as any other U.S. resident would.18
The Amish principle of nonresistant pacifism also set them at odds with the state. During the First World War a number of Amish men were imprisoned and abused because of their refusal to fight and, no doubt, because they spoke a German dialect which marked them as political pariahs during the nation’s war with Germany. Beginning in the 1940s draft boards were more understanding of Amish pacifism, granted them conscientious objector status, and often assigned them to work in civilian hospitals—a pattern that held throughout the years of Cold War conscription. Still, not all Amish families were comfortable with the state sending their young men off to urban places of employment. Between 1953 and 1973 a half dozen new Amish settlements sprouted in Ontario, comprised of households emigrating from the United States and disenchanted with what they felt was overly intrusive U.S. government.
Going to church on a winter Sunday morning near Jamesport, Missouri. Credit: Don Burke
The vast majority of Amish remained in the United States, however, and over the course of the twentieth century their numbers rose substantially. In 1970 there were some 50,000 Amish (adult church members and unbaptized children combined). By 2000 there were 180,000 and in 2015 there were 300,000. The old order is alive and well in contemporary North America even as its members have charted a distinctive path in the midst of modernity.
CHAPTER THREE
Living the Old Order
In 1953 Charles Wilson, the CEO of General Motors, told members of Congress that “what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa.”1 Although Wilson had a reputation for exaggeration, in this case he had articulated a deeply held American assumption that the values epitomized by the automobile—personal choice, sleek modernity, and the undisputed ability of science and engineering to improve life—were aligned with fundamental American values. Unconstrained by the collective schedules of trains and trollies, cars expressed the country’s individualistic impulse. Automakers wielded the authority of technology and mass production to combine innovation, consumer appeal, and planned obsolescence in a product that came to represent America itself.
The Amish have been much more skeptical of the values embodied in contemporary car culture, even as they sometimes hire drivers and selectively use motor vehicles for certain trips. They might well agree that the car exemplifies basic American values, but they are not sure they want those values animating their lives.
The Amish story is much more than simply a narrative of rejecting car ownership, of course. As we’ve seen, their church communities began to distinguish themselves from the cultural mainstream in the mid-1800s, before the advent of the automobile. Yet the Amish unease with the automobile and their choice to forego personal car ownership says a great deal about how Amish life has diverged from the national norm and taken an old order path. Before we look at the Amish road map, however, we consider the modern American world they see around them.
Life in Modern America
Scholars have long debated the definition of modernity, yet most see a cluster of emphases and activities as central to what it means to be modern. Rationality and efficiency are esteemed, and science and technology—to the degree that they promise greater efficiency through rational processes—are often unquestioned authorities. Being able to do something faster or to increase the quantity of something are self-evident goods that need no justification. No one has to convince us that quicker download speeds are better than slower ones, for example, or sell us on the bene
fits of more iPhone memory. A recent advertisement for an unlimited phone data plan captured these sentiments with its pitch line: “I need to upload all of it. I need—no, I have the right to be unlimited!”2
One byproduct of the modern drive for efficiency is that life has become segmented, broken down into separate parts. Work was separated from leisure, residential space was divided from commercial space, and the elderly were segregated into age-defined retirement homes. Media splintered and specialized audiences. Assembly lines were the epitome of modern manufacturing, taking a process and dividing it into discrete stages that were then repeated with maximum efficiency. Consolidated school systems that brought together large numbers of children and then separated them by age and ability were the assembly line’s educational parallel, and retail franchise networks played a similar role in the commercial realm.
The emergence of the Internet, smart phones, and wireless technology has promised to blur some of modernity’s tidy categories. People can now work from home, shop at work, and perpetually “connect” with others, even on vacation. Nevertheless, this most recent iteration of what some theorists call “late modernity” or “liquid modernity” continues to share a firm commitment to the basic outlines of rational efficiency. Mobile apps, for example, have become ubiquitous because they promise specialized, on-demand, Internet shortcuts that seem instantaneous. Moreover, the basic division of time from place that flourishes in a worldwide web of virtual communities, avatars, and anonymity is yet another dimension of modernity’s penchant for segmentation.3
Alongside these aspects of modernity, United States culture adds its own distinctive stamp. Like other nations, the United States is a country of national myths. There is, for example, the myth of the “melting pot,” by which many Americans believe that assimilation of cultural groups is inevitable or benign or both. Perhaps more important has been the myth of individual transcendence, a promise that people can leave all tradition behind and start over anew, that the future is better than the past and that new equals improved. Americans are much more apt to deal with discontent by leaving a product, group, or situation behind and starting over again rather than sticking with something old and working to improve or adapt it. The rhetoric of individual choice and personal self-improvement has often tied the characteristics of modernity and U.S. culture together into a seamless understanding of the American way of life.
Certainly the principles that characterize modernity have increased material production and raised living standards for many people. They have also come at something of a cost. People primed for efficiency are apt to feel like they are—or should be—in a hurry. Endless choices leave individuals perpetually dissatisfied and lonely, while the segmentation of life, mixed with the powerful allure of technology, can make it seem not only easier, but even better, to quickly scan Facebook updates instead of spending time talking with a friend. Although some observers wonder how the Amish can so easily accept the dictates of their tradition, the Amish might ask if contemporary Americans have not thoughtlessly accepted the logic of modernity and national myths. Indeed, in rejecting the broad contours of American life, the Amish may be better able to recognize those contours than highly educated people who swim in the sea of modernity.
In any case, the Amish do not generally share the modern assumptions and American values that animate most aspects of contemporary society. In the next chapter we’ll see how the compact and integrated nature of Amish community life diverges from the modern penchant for efficiency of scale and segmentation. For now, we’ll consider how Amish religious values and cultural habits emphasize slowing down, placing the community ahead of the individual, and otherwise standing against the cult of the transcendent individual.
Yielding and Following
The Amish teach much that would be familiar in any branch of the Christian tradition—the Trinity, the death and resurrection of Christ, the future reality of heaven and hell, and so on. They believe that the Bible is the word of God, they practice rituals of baptism and communion, and strongly encourage daily devotions.
But the Amish tradition is also a specific expression of Christianity with distinctive emphases. For example, the Amish dissent from displays of national patriotism, which they see as a form of idolatry. Compared with many other churches, the Amish place a heavy emphasis on following the example of Jesus in everyday life. Scripture reading in Amish worship centers on the stories of Jesus and his teaching as found in the four Gospels of the New Testament. What the Amish see in these texts is a picture of humility, obedience, and nonresistant love. Jesus was obedient to God the Father and submitted to painful crucifixion as an expression of his compassion for humanity.
A German term that pulls together many of these values is Gelassenheit (yieldedness, yielding to others), and it is a central expression of the Amish way.4 “Gelassenheit means more than outward obedience,” an Ohio Amish deacon explains. “It is also the inward attitude to this obedience. It is the way that God’s work on earth was completed. Christ revealed this way through his life.”5 The examples of the Anabaptist martyrs who died without fighting back echo through Amish history and remind Amish people that following Jesus is a real, if costly and dangerous, possibility.
Children absorb the Amish way of humility, simplicity, and obedience at a young age. Credit: Don Burke
Amish spirituality stresses self-surrender. Yielding to God, to the church, and to others is part and parcel of being Amish. “Thy will be done,” a line from the Lord’s Prayer—a prayer that is frequently on Amish lips—epitomizes their confidence in divine providence and a spirit of humble acceptance. The Amish are not fatalists and do not believe in predestination, but they do have a remarkably strong sense of giving up self.
In 2006 after a non-Amish gunman invaded an Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, and shot ten young girls, five of them fatally, Amish family members and neighbors responded with remarkable words and acts of forgiveness. Some observers wondered how the Amish could express forgiveness so readily in such circumstances and characterized the Amish response as unnatural. In fact, forgiveness was not easy for those caught up in the Nickel Mines tragedy. But although forgiveness was difficult, it did not strike the Amish as an unnatural act. Forgiveness involves some element of giving up—giving up bitterness, giving up revenge—and Amish life is saturated with routines and rituals of giving up—giving up personal choices about dress, technology, and higher education. For Amish people, forgiveness is not easy, but it fits into a larger pattern of self-surrender that marks their life. In contrast, most Americans are trained—even in their religious lives—not to sacrifice anything and to have it all. That sort of orientation is worlds apart from an Amish approach to faith.
Everyday Faith
Amish spirituality is neither highly emotional nor given to articulate reflection, but it is pervasive and public. It is not a private or a Sunday-only affair. It permeates everyday life in a myriad of ways. “Plain dress is sometimes understood as only [an effort] to be different,” an Amish writer has said, “but it is much more.” Those in mainstream society “wear their clothes to enhance their reputation or to show off their bodies or to demonstrate their wealth. This is an expression of self-will.” Individuals could be left to make clothing choices all on their own, “but we insist on a uniformity of dress decided by the church for two reasons.” First, “because self-will must be yielded” and, second, because “it takes away competitiveness” and “provides an escape from the fashions of this world.”6 Prohibitions on jewelry, including wrist watches and wedding rings, diminish individual adornment and illustrate one’s submission to the pattern of the church.
Plainness also permeates home décor and is evident in personal interactions. Averting eye contact or pausing before responding to a question are expressions of Gelassenheit that stand in contrast to an assertive, boisterous personality. An emphasis on humility prizes small-scale, face-to-face relationships over big institutions, grand buildings
, and sprawling organizations. Amish churches meet for worship in the homes of members, and that pattern keeps congregations small and local. A handful of families comprise a local church district that is defined geographically. Households do not “shop around” for an Amish church they prefer, but participate in the district in which they live.
Plain dress distinguishes the Amish from their neighbors watching a summer parade in the town of Arthur, Illinois. Credit: Don Burke
Horse and buggy transportation expresses and reinforces Amish values. As one publication aimed at church members explains, the unlimited access to automobiles in wider society has resulted in people “heading off in all directions and leading essentially separate lives.… Members of the same [non-Amish] church may live ten, twenty, or even fifty miles apart, attending church [on Sunday mornings] and yet be totally unattached to the life of the community.”7 The Amish do not view cars as evil but as tools that can easily foster the problematic human impulse to put one’s own desires and priorities first. Prohibiting car ownership but allowing members to hire non-Amish drivers for some trips is not, from the Amish point of view, hypocritical. It is, rather, a deeply consistent expression of their values. In both cases what the church is striving to discourage is individual autonomy. Hiring a driver places one in the debt of another person, promotes cooperation, limits frivolous trips, and ensures that no one travels too far alone.
Similarly, the old order critique of public education during the mid-1900s focused on the size and scale of consolidated schools that encouraged competitive achievement, critical thinking, and specialization. Amish schools, in contrast, operate on a small scale, stop with eighth grade, and promote values of cooperation, submission, and humility.
This spirituality of submission may strike modern onlookers as crushing. What about free self-expression, self-determination, and making the most of your life on your own terms? Amish life does, in fact, allow for some creative outlets. From uniquely tended flower beds to multicolored quilt tops to craftsmen who find new ways to refit electrical machinery so it can be run with church-approved power sources, ingenuity is no stranger to the Amish home and shop. Furthermore, individual personality traits and preferences texture Amish life in ways that cannot be communicated in postcard images. Nevertheless, it is true that Amish life does not offer the flexibility and freedom that many Americans have come to assume as a self-evident good. To be Amish is to make a choice to surrender many choices to the wisdom of the group and to submit to tradition, to the conviction of older generations, and to church leaders.
The Amish Page 3
