Thus, a particular affiliation with daughter settlements in different states may have different rates of retention in the various settlements. A young woman who ran away from a Swartzentruber settlement in Missouri counted sixteen people (six before baptism and ten after) who left her fifty-family community over a six-year period.30 “There is a big variation in defection between Swartzentruber communities,” she notes, with rates as high as 25 percent in some communities and as low as 5 percent in others.
Retention rates are sometimes higher in families where the household head is a farmer and/or ordained.31 This may result from a more conservative outlook in general rather than farming or ordination per se. “Conservative thinkers,” said one leader, “are more likely to be ordained and to have offspring that think like dad does.” In general, males tend to defect at higher rates than females, and those attending public schools at higher rates than their peers in Amish schools.32 Finally, defections cluster somewhat in certain families. In one study, 39 percent of the families with children who defected lost three or more.33
These social factors that sway the likelihood of defection underscore the impossibility of calculating an exact composite rate. Nonetheless, based on evidence from numerous settlements and affiliations, we estimate that on average about 85 percent of Amish-born children will join and remain lifelong members of an Amish community.
Who Leaves and Why
Whether one leaves the Amish before or after baptism makes a big difference because the church respects one’s choice to be baptized or not to be. Youth who leave before making that pledge will not be punished officially, although in certain affiliations they may be ostracized by friends and family. In all groups, however, those who exit after baptism will be excommunicated and face some form of shunning, because they have broken their lifelong vow to uphold the teachings of the church.
Some unbaptized youth who decide to leave but fear the reaction of their family may choose to vanish in the night. Others gradually drift away from the church-community as they develop outside interests and social ties. Many continue to relate to their extended family and Amish friends throughout their lives, even attending church services occasionally. Others move out of the orbit of Amish life, returning home only for funerals and weddings. We explore the decisions that youth face regarding baptism and church membership in chapter 12.
Youth who choose not to join the church may make that decision for several reasons: a dysfunctional family environment, educational and/or occupational aspirations beyond the Amish realm, or romantic ties with an English person that pull them out of the community. Growing up in a family with sexual or domestic abuse or an overly strict or incompetent parent may cause a child to flee Amish life. Saloma Miller Furlong, in Why I Left the Amish, points to some of these reasons for her departure. Family troubles as well as an outside romance pushed and pulled Ruth Irene Garrett away from her Iowa Amish community, as she explains in Crossing Over: One Woman’s Escape from Amish Life.34
Other youth, like Ira Wagler, who left and returned to his Iowa community a half dozen times before finally leaving, simply become restless within the bounds of Amish life and enjoy exploring the larger world. Still others, often from more liberal families, set their minds on becoming pilots, musicians, or doctors and leave to pursue the necessary education. Wayne Weaver, who left Amish life to pursue medicine and become a physician, tells his story in Dust between My Toes. Similarly, Andy Yoder of Sugarcreek, Ohio, completed college and entered medical school. “My parents have been wonderful, welcoming me home when I am not in school,” he says. “I love the Amish culture and never thought I would leave it … but I always enjoyed school and dreamed of going to high school and college.”35
Some rebellious Amish youth who leave the community engage in activities that are offensive to their birthright culture. For example, “Emma the Amish model” appeared on the New American Pinup website selling underwear in a provocative pose. The Amish Outlaws, a band consisting of four ex-Amish and two “honorary Amish” men, play all sorts of music in full Amish attire at various East Coast venues.
Adult church members who leave are typically married and twenty-five to fifty years of age, and they usually exit for different reasons than do youth. Common reasons for abandoning Amish life in adulthood include (1) a desire for a more intense “born again” religious experience, (2) freedom to own more technology—especially a car, (3) dissatisfaction with the leadership and regulations of the Gmay, (4) a preference for speaking English in church services, and (5) involvement in mission activities. In some cases, all of these factors blend together.
Despite their exit from Amish life, former members often point to positive Amish values such as a strong work ethic; helping one another with emergencies, finances, and work; not relying on government or insurance companies for help; being accountable to each other; and taking care of the elderly. Some adults who leave, like youth who run away from dysfunctional families, carry pain and bitterness for years. Others, with the passage of time and maturity, develop an appreciation for some of the values of Amish life. People like Wayne Weaver and Andy Yoder still carry a deep respect for their Amish heritage. One study of former members of Amish and Beachy Amish (car-driving) churches who had completed at least a bachelor’s degree and entered a profession found that, without exception, they embrace many of the religious and cultural values of their Amish heritage in their lives in the modern world.36
Tough Love
Leaving the Amish is quite different from dropping out of a mainstream American church, where the only consequence might be a call from a staff member for an exit interview. Excommunication and shunning (Bann und Meidung) are long-standing Amish practices related to the termination of membership and the treatment of former members. Because the Amish believe that baptism and church membership are not just a private spiritual matter, forfeiting one’s membership carries significant social consequences. Rituals of shaming remind everyone of the breach and encourage the wayward one’s return into the fellowship.37 One sociologist contends that reintegrative shaming, like shunning, is more of a deterrent to deviance in the larger society than the threat of formal punishment.38
Amish people offer several reasons for the practice of shunning, also known as social avoidance.39 They note that more than a half dozen New Testament passages endorse it.40 In 1 Corinthians 5, the Apostle Paul urges church members to clean out the “old leaven” of “malice and wickedness” before they eat the Lord’s Supper (v. 8). In a pointed admonition, Paul tells the Corinthian church to remove a wicked person from its midst and “deliver such an one unto Satan” so that his or her spirit will eventually be saved (1 Cor. 5:5).41
Article 17 of the Dordrecht Confession of Faith, the early seventeenth-century Anabaptist statement that the Amish use for baptismal candidates, explicitly advocates social avoidance on biblical grounds. Shunning reminds offenders of the seriousness of defaulting on their baptismal vows with the hope that they will confess their errors and return to the church. Ex-members are not enemies of the church, leaders are quick to note, but brothers and sisters who must be treated with love. The Dordrecht Confession explains that members should not consider transgressors “as enemies, but admonish them as brethren in order to bring them to knowledge, repentance, and sorrow for their sins so that they may be reconciled to God and His church and consequently be received and taken in again.”42
As we noted in chapter 8, since the early twentieth century Amish communities have made a distinction between those that practice strict shunning (streng Meidung), which is lifelong (unless the offender repents), and a more lenient form that makes it easier to lift the ban on a former member. The stricter style requires transgressors to confess their error to the congregation that excommunicated them. More lenient affiliations will cease shunning if the wayward person joins a plain-dressing, nonresistant Amish Mennonite or Mennonite church. Regardless of how it is terminated, the practical application of shunning varies from fami
ly to family and from affiliation to affiliation, with traditional ones being harsher than liberal ones.
Shunning does not necessarily mean severing all social ties—members may, for example, converse with ex-members—but it does restrict certain types of interaction. Shunning is an asymmetrical, one-way relationship. Members are permitted to help and visit offenders, but offenders are not granted the dignity of aiding a member. Members may shake hands with offenders but not accept anything—gifts, payments, or money—directly from their hands. According to the ritual formula in more conservative groups, the offender should place such items on a table or counter, and the member should pick them up without a direct transaction. Also forbidden are accepting rides in an offender’s car and eating at the same table with an ex-member. Sometimes, for public meals within the community, a different tablecloth or several inches of separation between tables mark the boundary between present and former members. Because these are group rites of shaming—not acts of personal animosity—their importance swells in social settings. For example, a more liberal family might, in the privacy of their home, welcome an ex-member to their table but refuse to eat with the same person at a wedding or funeral meal or similar public gathering.
“Remember,” said a farmer, “we still help ex-members. If an ex-member’s barn burns down, we go and help to rebuild it. We will help them if their wife is sick. … [But] generally we don’t invite them to social events or to weddings or to things like school meetings.” Members are expected to shun ex-members within their own family circle, even an excommunicated spouse. Members who refuse to do so, especially in public settings, may need to confess their disobedience, and if unwilling, they too may face the sting of shunning.
“Shunning and spanking go side by side,” an Amish mother explained. “We love our children. When we spank them, it’s a discipline to help them control their minds. When spanking, we don’t get angry at them, and the same is true for shunning.” For the Amish, healthy churches, like good parents, are responsible to administer discipline with love. Parents and churches both seek to protect those under their care from their own frailties.
The Amish believe that they have a divine responsibility to hold accountable those who break their baptismal vows, to remind them of what the Amish consider the eternal consequences of their negligence, and to preserve the purity of the church. In the Amish view, shunning is a form of tough love for backsliders. An elderly bishop called it “the last dose of medicine that you can give to a sinner. It either works for life or death.” Another leader explained that a church without shunning “is like a house without doors or walls, where the people just walk in and out as they please.” And, one bishop told us that shunning helps to maintain the integrity of church membership because “it helps to keep our church intact” by removing rebellious and disobedient spirits who would stir up dissension.
Although the church views shunning as a tough form of Christian love, Amish leaders, like officials in other churches, are susceptible to abusing power—wielding their authority in oppressive ways. A domineering leader may at times use excommunication and shunning as a tool of retaliation.43
Some ex-members understandably become bitter toward the church and denounce shunning as an unloving practice. The tough love often feels harsh to those who are expelled, and some of them remain embittered for life. Many others make a more or less smooth transition to the outside world and leave any bitterness behind.
Ex-members can, however, return to the fold anytime and receive pardon—upon confession of their deviance. “I have a brother who is excommunicated,” explained one person. “But the back door is always open. He can come back if he wants to, but it’s up to him.” Although most ex-members never return, a few do.
Explaining Amish Growth
As we noted in the preface, the growth of Amish society in North America since the mid-twentieth century surprised many scholars who were predicting its demise. The ability of this distinctive community not merely to survive but to thrive in the midst of a hypermodern society begs for an explanation (see fig. 9.1). Given the birth and defection rates cited in this chapter, the solution to the puzzle of Amish growth may seem obvious: high birth rates and strong retention.
While those two metrics help us understand Amish growth, they do not explain it entirely. A compelling explanation requires a systemic view of Amish society as a holistic system of interconnected beliefs, practices, and institutions working in tandem to sustain itself, arresting assimilation into mainstream society and, at the same time, creating a viable and attractive community that young people are willing to claim as their own as they move toward adulthood. Such an explanation explores the conditions (beliefs and practices) that support and encourage large families and the factors that create lifelong commitments to Amish ways. Numerous sociocultural factors contribute to the vitality, and hence the growth, of Amish life.
A system of distinctive symbols (dress, language, and carriage)—articulated publicly in daily life—marks the visible boundaries of Amish culture, as we described in chapter 7. These signs and their associated rituals create a clear and robust identity that builds solidarity within the community and clarifies its separation from the outside world.
The decentralized structure of Amish society places ecclesial authority in small, close-knit congregations that hold members accountable to one another and to the Ordnung of their community. Membership in a geographically bounded community tempers individualism, increases social control, and builds commitments to core practices. By limiting mobility, horse-drawn transportation supports this small-scale, face-to-face community. In addition, a horse-based culture requires rural environs and keeps Amish communities outside urban areas, which threaten Amish sensibilities.
We proposed in chapter 1 that when Amish groups have faced new developments in American society, they have negotiated with modernity—rejecting things that would hinder their way of life, accepting helpful things, and adapting certain practices and technologies to minimize their harm. These negotiations are especially evident in the areas of social interaction with the outside world, technology, and education.
FIGURE 9.1. Amish Population Growth in North America, 1901–2012. Source: Raber’s New American Almanac, 1930–2012; The Mennonite Year Book, 1905–1960; Amish historical documents.
Although all Amish people uphold the principle of separation from the world, the various groups do not apply it in the same way. In the economic sphere, all affiliations engage in trade with the outside world, but they vary the conditions under which it occurs. Some groups maintain separation from the world by emphasizing small, family-based farming, while others permit members to develop entrepreneurial businesses that use advanced technology, creative advertising, and competitive marketing. The most traditional groups do not permit members to work in non-Amish factories or engage in construction work in suburban areas. The development not only of trade but of Amish businesses themselves is, of course, essential to the economic viability of Amish society.
Amish affiliations also differ in how they apply the principle of separation to social interaction with outsiders. Lower groups restrict how and when their members relate to non-Amish people and popular culture much more than liberal groups do. Nevertheless, all Amish affiliations do separate themselves from the larger society in both symbolic and practical ways. All groups prohibit marriage to outsiders unless they have joined the Amish church. This practice of endogamy (marriage within the group) reduces the intrusion of outside influences, increases homogeneity, and deters people from leaving the community. Endogamy also makes it easier to socialize children into an Amish worldview because they are not exposed to competing religious traditions within their family.
In the realm of formal education, the church has also declined to negotiate. The rejection of high school and higher education limits access to educational credentials and thus to professional jobs that would place members directly into mainstream culture and encourage more mobility
, which could eventually erode the solidarity of Gmays. The ordination of lay ministers without formal training reduces the analytical and theological speculation that could erode long-standing Amish beliefs and convictions. The rise of Amish private schools after 1950 has been a key development for socializing Amish youth with like-minded peers and curtailing not only outside friendships but also competing worldviews that might undermine Amish religious ideology.
When it comes to social discourse with public media, the Amish draw a sharp line by rejecting the ownership of television and access to the Internet, at least at home. Such selective adaptations welcome positive influences while rejecting those that would be detrimental to core Amish beliefs and practices.
Finally, that decisions about these everyday matters are made in the context of the church and are seen as expressions of deep conviction creates a sacred canopy over all of Amish life. This religious canopy legitimates the entire social system, endowing practices and customs with a sacred authority that impedes social change.
These and other aspects of Amish life cohere to bolster its growth. Working in concert, these factors fortify beliefs about the importance of marriage, child bearing, and large families. They also protect Amish life from individualistic values that would threaten if not upend traditional family practices. Similarly, these elements create a distinctive and productive society that socializes youth into an Amish world-view that satisfies their longing for meaning and belonging so that, in the end, four out of five claim this society as their own.
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