The Amish

by Donald B. Kraybill

  The common guidelines for Amish life, known as the Ordnung, provide a blueprint for expected and forbidden behavior. Although the Ordnung is typically an oral tradition, ministers in some groups keep a written record of it. This body of interpretation—both oral and written—gives guidance on moral issues that are not addressed directly by Scripture as well as practical applications of biblical principles. The Ordnung typically includes guidelines for dress, buggies, technology, home décor, sports, and similar matters. Although leaders recommend guidelines, they are only binding when ratified by the congregation.

  In one sense, the Ordnung communicates the collective advice of the Gmay. But it is more than advice. The Ordnung requires obedience because the Amish believe that it flows from the moral discernment of the church, which is blessed by the spirit of Christ and endorsed by heaven. Yet because of its oral and unsystematic character, the Ordnung is pliable and adaptable. A good Ordnung, the Amish say, is readily accepted by members and promotes harmony and unity in the redemptive community. Members who intentionally stray from the guidelines will receive repeated admonitions before they face excommunication. In some cases violators leave the church before it suspends their membership. The Ordnung’s central role in providing moral guidance reveals the priority of faithful practice over doctrinal belief in Amish religion.

  The Moral Muscle of Tradition

  Custom carries a hefty dose of moral authority in Amish society. Regardless of whether the norm involves wearing a particular style of dress, living without public electricity, growing a beard but shaving the mustache, or holding worship services in homes rather than in church buildings, traditions are change-resistant. The Amish believe that tradition carries God’s endorsement and that submitting to it is a sign of a humble and godly character. That many people cannot say when or why a particular practice emerged does not bother them. They assume that the church in decades past, under the guidance of God’s spirit, deemed it a wise practice for the community’s spiritual well-being. A given Gmay may reconsider or change elements of its Ordnung, but its embedded bias leans toward continuity rather than change.25

  Unlike most mainstream Americans, who have great confidence in analytic reasoning, intellectual rationale, and the latest scientific studies, many Amish people are content to trust the time-tested wisdom woven into the fabric of traditions. There is no impulse to update statements of faith, revise patterns of worship, or write new songs for church services. Tradition is the default response to change. “How thankful we can be,” says one writer, “for the many guidelines that have been handed down to us from the church of our forefathers … basic principles that have been taught from generation to generation.”26

  Over time, cultural practices have come to carry religious authority as well as social imperative. Dropping the taboo on owning motor vehicles would not only assault the wisdom of ancestors but also shred a central piece of Amish identity. Buying a car, Amish people point out, is the first thing ex-members do when they leave the church.

  The covenant community nourishes Amish faith through its teaching, rituals, traditions, and Ordnung. And although these practices provide a reservoir of rich resources, Amish people quickly note that neither the community nor its customs save them. Only faith in Jesus Christ, they say, does that.27

  A Back Road to Heaven

  A “New Birth” or “Born Again”?

  The quest for salvation and eternal life is a central theme in Christianity. The Amish view of salvation reflects the communal dimension of their spiritual life. Using a biblical metaphor, they see themselves as strangers and pilgrims in this world, traveling on a heavenward journey along a back country road.

  Unlike some Christians, who see religious conversion as resolving an existential crisis, Amish people view conversion as more of a process. True, baptism stands as a critical marker in Amish life—a symbol of the choice to join the disciplined church-community.28 But salvation itself is more of a turning point on the road to a mature religious commitment. “Salvation is a gradual project,” notes one leader, because children grow up observing their elders practicing their faith.29 They absorb it through social osmosis rather than intellectual inquiry. In the words of one Amish man, “Salvation cannot be reduced to a conversion experience.”

  Many Christians use the biblical language of “new birth” or being “born again” to describe religious conversion. In what might seem like splitting hairs, the Amish make a distinction between these theological code words. For many Amish, the former phrase suggests a communal understanding of faith, while the latter term signals a highly private understanding. Amish leaders preach about the importance of the “new birth,” but they avoid the “born again” label because they associate it with religious groups that accent individual experience and an egocentric view of salvation marked by claims about “my personal relationship with Jesus Christ.”

  Emotional expressions are somewhat restrained in Amish life. Baptism, for example, stirs emotions but not the verbal exuberance common in some religious circles. In some Protestant churches, crisis conversions locate moral authority in personal experience. This is consistent with an individualistic culture in which subjective feelings are a highly valued authority. However, in a collective society in which the church is a source of moral wisdom, giving too much weight to personal emotions would challenge the collective order.

  An overemphasis on the individual, argues one Amish writer, “exalts the feelings and emotions of the individual until they become an end in themselves and an authority to settle all controversy. This appeals to people, because it promises them freedom.” The writer argues that “people who overemphasize and are overly dependent on the personal leading of the Holy Spirit have an aversion to Scripture passages that uphold tradition. They will use the Bible freely to support their beliefs. … People will do things or go to places because [they say] God told them to do so.” Rather than heeding churchly authority, he concludes, “it is more common for people to speak of their own decisions, based on their own discernment as to what is ‘God’s will.’”30

  From the Amish viewpoint, a heavy emphasis on a personal relationship with God may embolden people to speak of “my interpretation of the Bible” or to assert that “God spoke to me.” Such personal narratives of faith are suspect because they shift moral authority from the community to the private sphere of individual experience.

  A Living Hope

  The phrases “assurance of salvation,” “eternal security,” and “once saved, always saved” are code words in some Christian circles that meet with sharp resistance in Amish settings. For some evangelical Protestants, these labels are a mark of religious confidence. Amish people, however, are loath to declare that they have an “assurance of salvation” because for them such assertions presume that human beings can know the future and read the omniscient mind of God.

  The Amish prefer to speak of “a living hope”: a quiet and calm confidence that God will be a just and merciful judge when they face eternity. This stance, grounded on a deep sense of humility and providential trust, acknowledges that God is the one who ultimately decides such weighty matters.

  Amish leaders are also hesitant to endorse any theology that drives a wedge between salvation and ethical practices. Unhitching salvation from ethics would lighten one’s responsibility to the Ordnung and make obedience optional—leaving some ethical choices to personal preference. They cite Jesus’s teaching that good trees bear good fruit, noting that the true followers of Jesus will be known by their obedience (Matt. 7:17–24). Although they emphasize that salvation comes by confessing that Jesus is the son of God who died for their sins, Amish people also believe that, as his disciples, their lives must exemplify his ethical practices.

  Amish understandings of their relationship to God and their relationship to other people are so interconnected that it makes no sense to them to separate ethics from salvation or to speak of one dimension and not the other. In this sense, Amish religion is ho
listic and organic; beliefs and behavior cannot be divided into distinct categories. This is why bold claims of salvation apart from obedience appear dangerous to them. An exaggerated stress on personal salvation, they say, threatens the entire foundation of communal spirituality and fruits of faithful living. Yet all of this makes the Amish vulnerable to charges from evangelical Protestants that they are seeking to “earn their salvation” or that they are spiritually deceived into thinking that doing “good works” and following human-made rules will save them.

  From the Amish perspective, a modest view of salvation resting on a “living hope” encourages members to heed the guidance of the church throughout their lives. Debates about assurance of salvation in Amish circles become animated because they strike at the heart of their entire socioreligious system—the churchly authority vested in the Ordnung. These different understandings of salvation point to the fundamental chasm between Amish views of moral authority and those of evangelical Christians, some of whom believe that few Amish are saved.

  The Larger World

  Separation from the World

  When Amish baptismal candidates kneel and confess their faith in Christ, they renounce three things: the self, the devil, and the world. This triple renunciation names three entities that threaten the well-being of the covenant community. Selfishness leads to pride and disobedience; the cunning devil, with his tricks and deception, lures members astray; and undue affection for the outside world may pollute the purity of the church.

  The term world, in the Amish mind, refers not to the cosmos but to the values and vices of mass culture. Deep reservations about “worldly” culture appear in biblical texts that Amish leaders cite: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world” (1 John 2:15); “Whosoever … will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4); “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord” (2 Cor. 6:17); and the Apostle Paul’s admonition: “Be not conformed to this world” (Rom. 12:2).

  A sharp dualism between church and world crystallized in the sixteenth century as Anabaptists were tortured and executed. The words of one early Swiss Anabaptist confession epitomize the deep chasm between the church and the world: “All of those who have fellowship with the dead works of darkness have no part in the light. Thus all who follow the devil and the world have no part with those who are called out of the world into God.”31

  This tenet of faith—Absonderung, translated as “nonconformity” or “separation” from the world—means keeping a cautious distance from evil: violence, war, promiscuous sex, abortion, greed, fraud, divorce, drugs, and so on. The Amish affirm Jesus’s description in Matthew 7:13–14 of two mutually exclusive ways: a narrow path leading to eternal life and a broad avenue filled with people heedlessly heading toward destruction. Members of their church-community, the Amish say, should seek to follow Jesus on the narrow path. The words of a well-known song in the Ausbund etch this belief into Amish consciousness:

  There are two ways in this time,

  The one is narrow, the other broad.

  Who now will go the other way,

  He will be despised by everyone.32

  Reservations about the larger social world run deep in Amish spirituality for two reasons: the religious persecution of their Anabaptist forebears and their belief that Satan governs the rebellious spirit of the present world. Biblical cautions about the world were galvanized into Anabaptist consciousness as hundreds of them lost their heads to the executioner’s sword, were burned at the stake, or suffered various kinds of torture.33 These images and their implications survive in Martyrs Mirror stories and Ausbund hymns.

  Then, too, the worldliness of mass society is dangerous because Satan controls it. Biblical images often cited in sermons depict Satan as a roaring lion masquerading as an angel of light.34 “Evil companions,” according to one writer, “are the devil’s dragnet by which he draws many into hell.”35 One Amish minister sees Satan shaping popular culture through music: “Many [non-Amish] are filled from early morning to late night with the satanically inspired music of lust and greed … these sounds keep good thinking out of our minds, [which soon] become filled with this garbage, pushing out the good.” The writer concludes, “We know that whenever God creates something sacred and good, Satan, in his persistent opposition to God, will, without fail, try to set up a very clever, but worthless, counterfeit.”36

  Nevertheless, although Amish people reject aspects of contemporary culture, they certainly expect to find many non-Amish people in heaven. When asked about the salvation of others, they are quick to repeat the words of Jesus: “Judge not, that ye be not judged” (Matt. 7:1). Because only God knows human hearts, Amish people are loath to speculate on anyone’s eternal destiny. What matters is that people—regardless of their church affiliations—keep their baptismal promises and follow the teachings of their particular church. Spending time forecasting the eternal destiny of others, they say, would be trying to do God’s work.

  Evangelism and Service

  The Amish believe that their redemptive community should be a witness—a light in the larger world, as proclaimed by Jesus: “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid” (Matt. 5:14).37 They also echo Christ’s teaching that their way of life should not call attention to themselves, but “give glory to your Father in heaven.” As one Amish man explained, “We try to let our light shine, but not shine it in the eyes of others.” In a gentle critique of noisier evangelistic voices, one leader said, “We want our witness to be a quiet light.” The swift Amish forgiveness after the slaying of schoolgirls in 2006 spawned more than two thousand news stories around the world. “That story,” observed an Amish farmer, “made more of a witness for us all over the world than anything else we can ever do.”

  The communal focus of Amish spirituality diverges from evangelistic methods that focus on individual conversion. For the Amish, evangelism often violates humility and rings of a belief that “my religion is better than yours.” Furthermore, it downplays the centrality of the church’s collective witness. Additionally, mission activities in other cultures would likely bring disruptive changes to long-established church traditions. Although the Amish do not proselytize or try to recruit outsiders, anyone who confesses faith in Jesus Christ and is willing to accept the church’s expectations is welcome to join. Still, the number of converts is small.

  Although Amish churches do not engage in evangelism efforts or operate mission agencies, some members give financial contributions to non-Amish mission projects. And members of Amish groups serve others outside their community by participating in various Anabaptist service and disaster relief organizations (see chapter 19). In some settlements, Amish people engage in civic activities by serving in volunteer fire companies, donating blood, raising funds for hospice care, and becoming organ donors when they die. All of these activities express humanitarian care for those beyond the Amish fold.

  A Durable Faith

  The principles of discipleship, yieldedness, and separation from the world set the tone for Amish religious life. Yet like people everywhere, the Amish experience gaps between ideal values and social realities. Amish people are the first to confess that they too often fail to follow the teachings of Jesus. For some, spirituality has become rote conformity to the rules of the church and lacks heartfelt devotion. Others may dress the part but are not fully committed—“half-Amish,” so to speak. They wear plain garb but are worldly at heart. One Amish man admitted, “The only reason I stayed Amish is because I married a lovely Amish girl!”

  Indeed, the waters of Amish spirituality are not always tranquil. Crosscurrents beneath the placid surface sometimes challenge traditional views. Voices in some communities call for more engagement in the outside world via service and mission-related activities. Some members who desire a more evangelical emphasis with a born-again experience question the orthodox Amish view. Amish business owners, struggling to compete in the public market,
sometimes try to bypass church rules and gain more access to forbidden technology. Greater exposure to the outside world and its unfettered individualism challenges the long-standing Amish values of humility, obedience, and submission.

  Yet despite these crosscurrents, Amish faith has been hardy, avoiding the multitude of innovations produced by mainstream religion and spirituality in modern America. Amish resistance to higher education, a scientific worldview, analytical study of the Bible, individual-centered religious experience, mission outreach, and church bureaucracy has been staunch. As we explain further in chapter 5, Amish patterns of religious ritual have also remained largely untouched by modernity.

  For the vast majority, the heart of Amish faith throbs with the quiet rhythms of a deep and genuine spirituality. The final words of “Rules of a Godly Life” sum up the spirit of Amish faith this way:

  Finally, in your conduct be friendly toward everyone

  And a burden to none.

  Toward God, live a holy life;

  toward yourself, be moderate;

  toward your fellow men, be fair;

  in life, be modest;

  in your manner, courteous;

  in admonition, friendly;

  in forgiveness, willing;

  in your promises, true;

  in your speech, wise;

  and out of a pure heart gladly share of the bounties you receive.38