An Amish Paradox

by Charles E. Hurst

  42. Kraybill, The Riddle of Amish Culture, 136.

  43. The results presented in this section draw on the survey and interviews with ex-Amish described in appendix A. Most of the respondents were working in manual trades; the large majority were married and lived (some on a farm) in a rural area within sixty miles of where they grew up; and their educational backgrounds did not reveal a preoccupation with going back to school to “make up for lost time” (though those who left before they were baptized were more highly educated). However, 13 percent of respondents had divorced, many of the women worked outside the home, and more than half of respondents felt their standard of living was higher than it was when they were growing up.

  44. Although no one in our survey mentioned it, an Old Order man we interviewed told us that to his knowledge at least a half dozen Amish young men in the settlement had decided not to be baptized in the church because of their sexual orientation. One of them later brought his partner, unannounced, to a family reunion, which “created a lot of talk.”

  45. As early as 1968, Hostetler argued that one of the main reasons for leaving the Amish was the desire to have a more intensive religious experience, in contrast to the almost ascetic attitude of the Amish toward religion (Amish Society, 306–12). Several complementary factors may underlie the desire for a deeper religious experience. First, the born-again ideology is attractive for its simplicity. Individuals don’t have to navigate the maze of church rules to be in good standing with God. Second, the newfound certainty of salvation by God’s grace alone may appeal to those who feel the threat of hell and damnation is overemphasized, though it is a testimony to the effectiveness of Amish enculturation that most ex-Amish do not reject the underlying dualistic framework of heaven versus hell. Third, the prospect of emotional intimacy with God may appeal to some individuals who are not satisfied with the emphasis on what they perceive to be the form and ritual in Amish religion. The more common explanations put forward by sociologists and anthropologists of religion for the growth of evangelical churches do not seem to apply well to the Amish case. These include the growing attenuation of relationships and disconnection from friends, family, and neighbors, captured by the metaphor of ‘bowling alone’ (Putnam, “Bowling Alone”), and the rise of modern media that enhance the experience of absorption and fantasy, creating a desire for a different subjective reality from the frazzled world around us (Luhrmann, “Metakinesis”).

  46. Luhrmann, “Metakinesis,” 518.

  47. One ex-Swartzentruber young woman described the reaction this way: “When they started getting the Pennsylvania Dutch Bibles out, I’m telling you there was an uproar because so many young folks started understanding it. They’re like ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe Jesus said this. Well, why are we doing what we’re doing?’ So it caused revelations for these people. And then the preachers would come in and say ‘You do this, blah blah blah,’ but they said, ‘Well, I just read in the Bible this is … da da da.’ So they done away with them Bibles, you’ll get in trouble if you read ’em. They kind of teach you you’re being too smart for your own good.”

  48. Quoted from a pamphlet authored by Eli Stutzman and Joe Keim, My Amish Vows to the Church: Are They Binding? (Savannah, OH: Mission to Amish People, 2005), 1.

  49. Keim himself confesses to having been ordered off private property more than once. For their part, Amish church leaders are always on the lookout for proselytizers. “It’s ongoing, and they end up taking people away from the Amish,” commented an Old Order business leader. “Most of these evangelical churches will go after an area where there’s an existing church—it’s an easier target for them.” In addition to revivals, the recruiting strategies of the evangelicals include putting fliers and magazines in Amish mailboxes and arranging for “Bible study” in the homes of individuals who seem receptive.

  50. The Swartzentrubers, however, do have a “grace period” during which they will not shun any individual who leaves the church during the six to twelve months following a church split. One Swartzentruber widower took advantage of this grace year to purchase a chain saw, a tractor, and a small car, for which he did not have a driver’s license but which he kept parked in a partially hidden shed next to his house. An ex-Swartzentruber man told us that an unofficial split in 2006 among the Swartzentrubers in Tennessee had some young Ohio Swartzentrubers hoping for an official church division so they could leave and not be shunned.

  51. One hypothesis about the Swartzentruber tendency to go “all the way” is that it is related to the strict stance on excommunication taken by the church. Since even a small step “up” is equivalent to the worst apostasy, they might as well “go all the way.” Stevick describes this as the big jump–small jump theory: the more conservative the affiliation, the larger the jump. Whereas ex–New Order Amish often become members of other Anabaptist churches, the ex-Swartzentrubers often become truck drivers, circus workers, soldiers, factory workers, or even workers on ranches in the western United States (Richard Stevick, personal communication).

  52. In “The New Order Amish,” Waldrep refers to this approach as the “Kalona understanding” because it is the practice used by Old Order Amish in Kalona, Iowa.

  53. As noted earlier, the New New Order districts do reject the principle of excommunication altogether, seeing it as an unnecessary intrusion of the church into an individual’s relationship with God.

  54. Reiling, “The ‘Simmie’ Side of Life,” 159.

  55. We also found some support for Ericksen, Ericksen, and Hostetler’s claim that the probability of leaving the Amish clusters in families (“The Cultivation of the Soil,” 61). In our survey, fully 70 percent of respondents reported that more than three of their extended family had left the Amish. Only 9 percent of respondents reported that no other member of their extended family had left the Amish before their own decision to leave. Several of the open-ended responses to our survey and to our follow-up interviews also alluded to the fact that families with a high incidence of “leavers” carried a stigma in the community. The impact of family members on defection rates deserves further study, with closer attention to the distinction between the decision not to join the church and defection after baptism. Meyers, for example, found that the majority of those who do not join the church appear to leave on their own without being influenced by siblings’ decisions (“The Old Order Amish,” 382–84).

  56. Huntington, Amish in Michigan, 2.

  Chapter 4. Continuity and Change in Family Life

  1. Coontz argues persuasively that such images of a golden age of the traditional family evaporate upon closer inspection: they are “an ahistorical amalgam of structures, values and behaviors that never co-existed in the same time and place” (The Way We Never Were, 9).

  2. When elderly parents “retire” and give the farm or the business over to the children, they typically move into a “grandparents’ house” that is right next to or even attached to the home of one of their married children. This is hardly a retirement, since they “help their adult children’s new families in whatever way they can” (Kreps, Donnermeyer, and Kreps, A Quiet Moment in Time, 73).

  3. Weaver-Zercher, Amish in the American Imagination, 113.

  4. Plath, Long Engagements, 1.

  5. We sampled every tenth family in the directory; therefore, our figure is an average based on an analysis of all families rather than those who have completed their fertility cycles. The 2.0 figure for the general population is based on a Centers for Disease Control analysis of live births in 2003 (Martin et al., “Births”).

  6. In 1998 Mrs. Bessie Hostetler of Buffalo, Missouri, was listed in the Sugar creek (Ohio) Budget as having the largest number of living descendants at the time of her death: 951.

  7. Wasao (“Fertility Differentials”) also showed that ordained church leaders in the Holmes County Settlement had larger families, on average, than did ordinary church members.

  8. The gap between average numbers of children per family was lar
gest for the Andy Weavers (at 3.0 children) and the Old Order Amish (at 2.2 children).

  9. According to Wasao, the average number of children plummeted from 9.6 to 6.6 among the Andy Weavers, from 7.6 to 5.8 for the Old Order, and from 6.7 to 4.5 for the New Order (“Fertility Differentials,” 108).

  10. Unsurprisingly, the majority of respondents in our survey indicated they “strongly disagree” (62 percent) or “disagree” (15 percent) with birth control, but 7 percent said they had no feelings either way and 13 percent indicated they “somewhat agree” with the use of birth control. Another factor related to the declining fertility rate is the corresponding decline in infant mortality, which fell from roughly 59 per thousand live births for a cohort born between 1920 and 1929 to roughly 8 per thousand live births for the 1980–89 cohort, the latter figure being only slightly above the average for Wayne and Holmes counties in 1988 (Wasao, “Fertility Differentials”).

  11. Greksa and Korbin, “Amish,” 561.

  12. The list of most common surnames in the Holmes County Settlement is based on our analysis of the 2005 Ohio Amish Directory, whereas the list from Lancaster County is taken from Kraybill, The Riddle of Amish Culture, 93. Miller and Yoder were also the two most common surnames in each of the four affiliations included in the directory. Our analysis of first names in the Holmes County Settlement shows that Mary and Eli have been consistently at the top; there has been some change in the popularity of names for both boys and girls over the past half century, however, although biblical names are still preferred. For girls born before 1945, the five most popular names were Mary, Anna, Emma, Fannie, and Verna, whereas for those born between 1995 and 2004, the most popular names were Mary, Rachel, Esther, Susan, and Clara. For boys, the five most popular names in the earlier cohort were Eli, Daniel/Dan, Levi, Roy, and John, while the more recent cohort shows Eli, Michael, Joseph, David, and Aaron.

  13. Nolt, “Inscribing Community,” 181–98.

  14. Lasch used “havens in a heartless world” to describe the increasing association of the nuclear family with a private sphere of life that had little overlap with the public sphere of the economy (Haven in a Heartless World).

  15. Kraybill, The Riddle of Amish Culture, 90.

  16. Luthy notes that dividing farms into multiple parcels has become commonplace since the 1990s (“Amish Settlements across America,” 19).

  17. Meyers and Nolt, An Amish Patchwork, 76.

  18. By 2007 the Amish Helping Fund had become so large that it began to be used for refinancing Amish homes and businesses that had originally been financed with conventional bank loans.

  19. Bobby Warren, “Escalation Alarming,” Wooster (Ohio) Daily Record, December 26, 2007, A1. Holmes County recorded only 81 foreclosures, compared to 426 in nearby Wayne County, 400 in Tuscarawas County, and nearly 250 in Ashland County.

  20. Kraybill, “Plotting Social Change,” 71.

  21. Umble, Holding the Line, 152–59.

  22. Swartzentruber church rules do not permit use of natural gas, but Swartzentruber Amish are permitted to receive some payment for the natural gas wells on their property. The Andy Weavers allow a gas stove only if there is a natural gas well on one’s property.

  23. Scott and Pellman, Living without Electricity, is a very readable account of exactly how the Amish accomplish “life without electricity.”

  24. Ibid., 50.

  25. The Old Order Amish have retained the custom of holding weddings on Thursdays; however, the New Order Amish have switched to Saturdays to minimize conflicts with business operations.

  26. This language is from a deed in which Eli and Iva Troyer “sold” 119 acres to Aaron and Nettie Troyer on December 11, 2001. It is standard language for similar transactions.

  27. A few Amish families even open their homes to outsiders on a temporary basis. Ohio State University has a program for German students to spend time in Amish homes. We met one Old Order family who had hosted foreign exchange students for years, including one they jokingly nicknamed “useless Yusuf” because of his penchant for avoiding work.

  28. Kraybill, The Riddle of Amish Culture, 29–36.

  29. Meyers and Nolt, An Amish Patchwork, 9.

  30. Hostetler, Amish Society, 156.

  31. Johnson-Weiner, Train Up a Child, 46.

  32. Kraybill, The Riddle of Amish Culture, 30–31.

  33. “Teaching Girls to Be Reserved,” Family Life, December 2007, 14.

  34. Korbin and Greksa (“Paradox of Self and Conformity”) have argued that the conformity essential to the maintenance of Amish identity, which is usually associated with a weak sense of self that can be bent to the will of others, paradoxically requires a strong sense of self.

  35. “The Big ‘I,’” Family Life, November 2007, 6–8.

  36. Regehr, Mennonites in Canada, 199.

  37. The Amish we interviewed tended to echo the traditional defenses of spanking (a sign of nonpermissiveness, anticipatory socialization, and God’s will) rather than sympathizing with emergent criticisms (that spanking is compulsive, demeaning, violent, and abusive). See Davis, “The Changing Meanings of Spanking.”

  38. “Godly Parenting,” Brotherhood Messenger 4 (1): 1. The Brotherhood Messenger is published by Amish Brotherhood Publications, Millersburg, OH.

  39. Spindler described cultural compression as occurring at “any period of time in the life cycle of the individual when he encounters a culturally patterned reduction of alternatives for behavior” (Fifty Years, 89).

  40. On the basis of the dominant profiles of Amish children who took the Myers-Briggs Personality Test, Hostetler refers to the “Amish personality” as “quiet, friendly, responsible and conscientious” and “loyal, considerate and sympathetic” (Amish Society, 186). There are many difficulties in seeing culture as “personality writ large,” however, including the danger of overstating the degree of cultural homogeneity. Even in Hostetler’s original study, the two dominant personality types made up only 54 percent of the Amish sample.

  41. Cooksey and Donnermeyer, “Go Forth and Multiply,” 12. The authors, who base their analysis on the 2000 Ohio Amish Directory, further note that the average age of marriage for the Amish has actually decreased slightly over the past forty years. In addition, women who are currently either New Order or New New Order Amish marry later, on average, than their Old Order or Andy Weaver peers; and a smaller percentage of New Order Amish have married by age thirty.

  42. Stevick notes that the German word for wedding, Hochzeit, means “high times” (Growing Up Amish, 199).

  43. If the couple admit to premarital sex, the bishop must excommunicate them for six weeks, and the wedding ceremony itself is be altered slightly. In practice, it is rare for young couples to admit to having sexual relations before marriage unless, as noted in chapter 3, the woman has become pregnant.

  44. In Growing Up Amish, Stevick provides a detailed account of the wedding itself, as well as pre- and postwedding events.

  45. In Smith’s view, the relations of ruling refer to all the sets of activities in a variety of institutional contexts by which society, groups, and individuals are ruled and regulated. These include rules, laws, and expectations that define what are appropriate structures and behaviors (Smith, Conceptual Practices of Power, 12–19).

  46. The quotes are from Hershberger, Amish Women, 11; Johnson-Weiner, “The Role of Women,” 231; Stoll, “Views and Values,” 8–9; and Stoltzfus, Traces of Wisdom, 35, respectively.

  47. Schwemmlein, “The Weaker Vessel?” 33.

  48. Swander, Out of This World, 145.

  49. Stoltzfus, Traces of Wisdom, 130.

  50. Johnson-Weiner, “The Role of Women,” 231.

  51. Umble, “Who Are You?” 48.

  52. di Leonardo, “The Female World of Cards and Holidays,” 323.

  53. Cancian, “The Feminization of Love,” 289–90.

  54. Hostetler describes the many functions of silence in Amish life, which he collectively describes as the “si
lent discourse.” He argues that silence takes on great significance in communities where people are deeply involved with one another (Amish Society, 388–90).

  55. Ericksen and Klein, “Women’s Roles and Family Production”; Spain, “Gendered Spaces and Women’s Status”; Schwemmlein, “The Weaker Vessel?”; Johnson-Weiner, “The Role of Women.”

  56. Swander, Out of This World; Johnson-Weiner, “The Role of Women.”

  57. Spain, “Gendered Spaces and Women’s Status.”

  58. Interdependence rather than “hierarchically arranged roles” thus becomes the dominant mode of interaction (Johnson-Weiner, “The Role of Women,” 238).

  59. Kraybill and Nolt, Amish Enterprise.

  60. Cooksey and Donnermeyer, “Go Forth and Multiply,” 22.

  61. Johnson-Weiner, “The Role of Women,” 235, 238.

  62. Cooksey and Donnermeyer note that the results of the marriage squeeze are more noticeable among older cohorts of Amish women: “Whereas less than 82 per cent of women over age 75 were married by age 30, just over 95 per cent of women in the youngest cohort were married by age 30” (“Go Forth and Multiply,” 13). Put another way, among women born before 1940, approximately 10 percent never married, compared to just over 2 percent of women born between 1970 and 1980.

  63. Wasao, “Fertility Differentials,” 98.

  64. Livecchia, “Anabaptist Remarriage.”

  65. Hostetler, Amish Society, 164.

  66. Garon and Maclachlan, The Ambivalent Consumer, 11.

  67. “Good Horsemanship,” letter to the editor of Family Life, December 2007, 1.

  68. The relation between the Amish and the state department of transportation has taken a different path in Ohio than in Indiana, where regulations for horses and buggies differ by county, and where some counties require license plates on buggies. In response to criticism that the Amish were not paying gasoline or license plate fees to offset the wear and tear on the roads created by buggies, Amish leaders formed a committee that took up a voluntary contribution of twenty-five dollars per vehicle from every Amish in the state to contribute to road maintenance. New legislation then had to be passed to form a legal channel for these “voluntary” contributions, which exceeded a quarter of a million dollars.