From questioning the usage of technology to taking the Bible very seriously, we are able to learn greater than quilt-making and horse-and-buggy riding from these quirky American communities.
The Amish are a tight-knit Christian community who’re best known for his or her eccentricities – funny bonnets, horse-drawn carriages, similar dress, not having electricity, and their deeply conservative values, for instance.
This has drawn a number of interest from the fashionable world in recent times, resulting in a thriving tourist industry and diverse TV series to watch the quaint ways of those traditionalist people.
The faith of those communities is usually ignored – yet they’d say that it’s the inspiration of their unusual lifestyle. Can modern Christians learn from their unique interpretation of scripture?
Radical acceptance of Reformation principles
In some ways the Amish are a window into the past, as they’ve held on to traditions and their lifestyle since their beginnings in the unconventional wing of the Protestant Reformation referred to as the Anabaptists.
They and their related Mennonite communities were forced to maneuver to the US within the 18th and nineteenth centuries, fleeing persecution from other Christians, and it’s within the USA where they’ve managed to carry on to their ways.
As Anabaptists, they took Reformation principles seriously and refused to compromise, with the result that other Christians often persecuted them. Yet a few of their theological disagreements of the time are widely accepted by Protestants today, corresponding to adult baptism.
Taking the Bible very seriously
Some of the quirks of Amish (and the related Mennonite societies) are on account of taking the New Testament very literally. Women wear head coverings, church leaders are drawn by lot, there are clear gender roles, for instance. Such practices are seen to produce other spiritual purposes corresponding to encouraging humility – and being separate from the ‘world’.
These ideas could be criticised as legalistic or fundamentalist by many Christians today. Yet this devotion to the Word can have undeniably powerful effects. For example, the dedication of the Amish to the teachings of Jesus on forgiveness have led to public expressions of grace and mercy that were a robust witness to the Christian faith.
Most famously, when the disturbed Carl Roberts decided to enact his revenge on God for the miscarriage of his child by taking young Amish girls hostage after which shooting 10 of them in 2006, killing six, the response of the traumatised Amish community was to increase grace towards the family of the shooter, an act that made headlines world wide and have become the main focus of the 2010 film “Amish Grace”, in addition to several books.
Scepticism about technology
Perhaps that is what the Amish and Mennonite communities are best known for – no phones, electricity, cars or television. However there are numerous different churches they usually vary within the extent that they are going to reject or adopt technology. They may accomplish that by judging whether it’ll harm their faith, family and community bonds, on a case by case basis. So some churches will allow cars but not tractors – others the alternative. And they are going to consider whether the technology will help or hinder what is vital to them, corresponding to faith and community, reasonably than adopting it without pondering since it appears to make life easier.
Today’s ‘developed’ societies face the frightening consequences of artificial intelligence, the harm brought on by social media to young people and to our public discourse, and widespread breakdown in family and community bonds. Perhaps we too needs to be more discriminating in regards to the technology that we allow into our lives?
Practising submission
In English, the word ‘submission’ has negative associations with oppression and abuse. However the word within the old language utilized by the Amish, ‘Gelassenheit’, is a very important a part of their spiritual practice and said to be their source of peace. Most essential to them is submission to God, but in addition to the church and community. For example, if a choice is made by the leaders, the community will accept it even in the event that they don’t agree (or create a separate church). This principle seems a technique they’ve kept their traditions and strange lifestyle despite all of the temptations of modernity. Uniformity inside a church community is predicted.
Submission to oldsters, leaders, husbands in a conventional understanding of scripture can also be essential to those communities. This is more controversial in modern Western societies. But do we want to learn more submission in our spiritual lives – on the very least to God? With the rise in atheism, disunited churches and spiritual confusion and unrest, perhaps we are able to take heed to these Anabaptist brothers and sisters to at the very least learn more in regards to the concept of submission, even when not follow it to their extremes.
Separation from the State and its power
The Amish think it can be crucial to be self-sufficient and independent from the federal government. They live this out in numerous ways. They don’t accept government aid and welfare – as an alternative having their very own funds that they distribute to people in need. They also run their very own schools, not wanting their children to be influenced by the ‘worldly’ teaching of public schools.
This independence also enables more radical following of Jesus’s commands, corresponding to loving enemies, because the Amish won’t send their people to war if there’s conscription.
Modern Christians are sometimes not aware of how much our dependence on government has increased since it has happened so incrementally. It has often turn out to be a ‘god’ that we glance to for our security. But what would occur if the system broke down or became more authoritarian or oppressive? There are benefits to keeping a distance from structures of power.
Valuing ‘tradition’ reasonably than trying to find ‘progress’
The modern Western world often has an unconscious bias towards anything that changes society, pondering it’ll be for the higher. Genuine conservatives who need to preserve tradition seem like rarer. Yet the deeply conservative Amish show among the advantages of being sceptical about progressivism, which might help to supply a more balanced view.
Maintaining close family and community ties through on a regular basis tasks
Many quaint Amish traditions, corresponding to communal quilt making, ‘barn raising’ where a community comes together to construct a barn for a member, and canning (preserving fruit and vegetables) have a practical function, but also they are a method by which individuals can come together, support each other and construct relationships.
Being near nature and the land
Many Amish are farmers, and their early beginnings were inspired by the Genesis 1 instruction to steward the Earth of their work. The combination of this preference and the distancing from technology is that their old ways are rather more environmentally sound than modern farming. They are also self-sufficient and more resilient should troubles come.
Heather Tomlinson is a contract Christian author. Find more of her work at https://heathertomlinson.substack.com/ or via X (twitter) @heathertomli
