CHAPTER 10
COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION
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The Single Boys’ Gathering, open to “unmarried men aged 21 to 101,” is one of many annual “reunions” for Amish people with similar interests. The 2011 reunion, held near Nappanee, Indiana, drew over 160 church members from 19 settlements in 10 states. The event opened Friday evening with a talk by a local minister and continued with visiting around a bonfire. Saturday events included a tour of the area, softball, volleyball, a hog roast, and poetry readings. As a fundraiser, participants shelled out $50 to $100 apiece for a mug with the Single Boys’ Gathering logo featuring the profile of a young man seated by a campfire in the woods. A poster in their gathering place featured an Oscar Wilde quote: “Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others.”
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Social Architecture
To the outside eye, the stark symbols of dialect, distinctive dress, and horse-drawn transportation place the Amish beyond the orbit of mainstream society.1 Hidden beneath these signs, however, is an even more striking rejection of modernity: the absence of bureaucracy. In his study of modernization, German sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920) traces a shift from traditional views of authority legitimated by custom, religion, and personal relationships to rational models of authority anchored in impersonal laws, regulations, and organizations. The rise of rational authority—embodied especially in bureaucracies such as governments, factories, banks, hospitals, and universities—is the biggest difference between premodern and modern societies.2 Unlike traditional forms of authority, modern organizations gain their clout from written policies, contracts, paid officials, specialized roles, hierarchies of rank, and employee expertise. Although the rational calculation embedded in bureaucracies promotes efficiency, Weber worried that its rigidity and mechanistic rules could create an “iron cage” that would fetter human freedom.
The Amish world is remarkably free of bureaucracy and its rational modes of authority. But although corporate-style organizations are absent, Amish society is hardly disorganized. Its building blocks include geographic settlements, nuclear and extended families (chapter 11), church districts, and affiliations (chapter 8). In this chapter we explore the architecture of Amish social structure, focusing on church districts, leadership, formation of new settlements, and emergence of non-bureaucratic organizations.
The entire Amish social system, rooted in more than two thousand church districts, is linked by informal webs of kin and friendship, homespun committees, and loosely coupled networks. Largely cut off from the Internet, mass communication, and rapid transit, Amish life revolves around local affairs. The social architecture of Amish society is informal, small, and compact. These features dramatically diverge from the bureaucratic design of postindustrial societies. Amish social structure embodies a Gelassenheit style, a structural humility unlike the centralized systems of authority that consolidate modern expressions of power.
Informal
To the modern observer, the organization of Amish society may seem loose, fuzzy, and amorphous. There are no national or regional headquarters, annual conventions, or organizational charts—and certainly not an executive director or a marketing department to promote Amish interests. Kitchens, shops, and at-home offices provide space for committees, organized as need arises, whose officers and members work without pay. This nebulous structure confounds outsiders seeking information on official Amish opinions and policies.
With few contractual and formal relationships, Amish life is bonded by informal ties, family networks, common traditions, uniform symbols, and a shared caution of the outside world. The informality expresses itself through face-to-face interaction on a first-name basis and with an awareness of each person’s position in an extended family system rather than in a role-defined organizational flow chart. When people first meet, they do not introduce themselves by stating their occupation, as middle-class Americans might, but try to ascertain whether and how they might be related. Oral communication takes precedence over written, and meetings of ordained leaders rarely generate many records. Organizational procedures are dictated by oral tradition and collective memory, not by policy manuals. Congregations across a given settlement are loosely coupled by family ties and the friendships of leaders rather than by bylaws, charters, or formal policies.
Small-Scale
From egos to organizational units, Gelassenheit prefers small-scale things. Meeting in homes for worship limits the size of congregations. Small schools provide a personalized education, and small farms are preferable to large ones. Large manufacturing operations are often frowned upon because big operations draw attention to their owners, generate excessive wealth, and establish a power base that threatens the informality of Amish society.
An Amish businessman explained, “My people look at a large business as a sign of greed.”3 Another Amish man put it this way: “Our discipline thrives with a small group. Once you get into that big superstructure, it seems to gather momentum and you can’t stop it.” Amish people sense that, in the long run, the modern impulse for large-scale things could damage the intimate character of their community. In the words of one Amish carpenter, “Bigness ruins everything.” Indeed, a commitment to human-scale units may provide a psychological boost to individuals because they are known intimately by others in their small church-community and do not vanish in a crowd.
Compact
Interpersonal relationships in Amish society are enmeshed in what social scientists call a “high-context culture,” one in which things are left largely unsaid and members learn by doing and by interacting with others.4 In this dense environment of overlapping relationships, members of the community know the same people—their siblings, parents, grandparents, cousins, employers, friends, neighbors, ministers—as well as the occupations, hobbies, and social reputations of those people. “Everybody knows everything about everyone else,” said one woman. A grandfather agreed: “In our communities we can’t hide anything, not in church, not on the farm, not in our community. After a couple gets married all the women are watching to see when the young bride is expecting [a baby]. When the older women see she is, they set a chair for her at church so she doesn’t have to sit on a [backless] bench. And then everyone knows. And when she sees the chair, she often blushes. The whole neighborhood knows everything because everything is so transparent. We can’t hide anything from anyone.”
Work, play, child rearing, education, and worship are not as sharply separated in Amish life as they are in mainstream society. In modern society, for example, customers entering a pharmacy expect to know only that the pharmacist has been trained and licensed by the proper authorities, represented by framed certificates on the pharmacy wall. Customers judge only the pharmacist’s professional credentials, not the pharmacist’s character as a parent, spouse, or church member. Nor do most customers care—or know about—the pharmacist’s life outside of the pharmacy. For the Amish, however, public and private roles are not split; the same circle of people interacts in family, neighborhood, church, and work. People know and relate to one another in many different roles simultaneously—as a relative, neighbor, coworker, and fellow church member.
One leader described these thick, crisscrossing networks when he asked, “What is more scriptural than the closely knit Christian community, living together, working together, worshiping together, with its own church and its own schools? Here the members know each other, work with and care for each other, every day of the week.”5 In a high-context culture, gossip and small talk become informal means of social control, leading one member to declare, “The Amish grapevine is faster than the Internet.”
Districts
The twenty to forty Amish families who live near each other form a church district known as the Gmay—the primary social unit beyond the family. These districts are the pillars of the entire social system. As districts grow in membership, they divide, guaranteeing that all district
s remain roughly the same size. In settlements with sparse population, a district may stretch twelve miles from side to side, but where the Amish population is dense, the span may shrink to a mile or so, and families are able to walk to services. Ironically, the rise of Amish businesses has brought people closer geographically, since they live on smaller plots of land.
Roads, streams, township lines, and other markers form a district’s boundaries. Like members of a traditional parish, the Amish must participate in the district that encircles their home. If residents of one district want to join another Gmay, they must move into its territory. Because there are no church buildings, the homes of members become the gathering sites not only for worship but also for socializing (see fig. 10.1).
Because extended families live so close, often some members of a district are related to one another. Kinship networks are dense with many repeated surnames. For example, one district in northern New York contains a large number of Millers, some more closely related than others. The large Lancaster settlement has 176 women named Mary Stoltzfus. The abundance of similar names generates nicknames based on physical traits, personal habits, or unusual incidents. The nicknames tend to follow patriarchal lines across several generations. One woman said, “I’m a Bootah. That goes way back to my great-grandparents. When they got their marriage license, the clerk wasn’t too bright, and she wrote their names ‘Bootah’ (butter) instead of Beiler. So ever since we’ve been the Bootahs.”6
FIGURE 10.1. Households and Schools in a New York State Church District
The church district is the social and ceremonial unit of the Amish world. Sunday worship services, baptisms, weddings, and funerals take place within the Gmay, as do many fellowship meals, work parties, and social activities. In short, the Gmay is church, family, factory, club, and precinct, all packaged together in a neighborhood parish.
Districts select and ordain their own leaders—typically a bishop, two or three ministers, and a deacon. The leaders (all males) are viewed as servants of both God and the congregation. In fact, their German title, Diener, translates literally as “servant.” Leaders have no professional credentials or special training, and they serve for life without pay, earning their own living by farming, carpentry, or other occupation.
A bishop serves as the spiritual head of a district or, in certain affiliations, of two neighboring districts. He officiates at baptisms, weddings, communions, funerals, and members’ meetings. As the spiritual head of the leadership team and the symbol of church authority, the bishop interprets and enforces church regulations. If disobedience or conflict arises, he is responsible for resolving it. Family and church networks are often entangled in controversies of one sort or another and require delicate diplomacy.
The minister, or preacher, fills the second leadership role in the district. A congregation usually has two or three preachers, depending on their age and health. One of them serves as the lead minister, working closely with the bishop to give spiritual direction to the congregation. Apart from their general leadership roles, the ministers’ primary responsibility is preaching on Sunday mornings.
Each congregation also has a deacon, whose public duties include reading Scripture and prayers in worship services, depending on local custom. The deacon supervises an alms fund and attends to the material needs of families in the district. (Individual congregations own no land or buildings and have no assets other than the alms fund.) The deacon also assists with baptism and communion and carries responsibility for reproving wayward members. At the request of the bishop, the deacon, often accompanied by a minister, visits members who may have violated the Ordnung and reports back to the bishop, who may then initiate a process of church discipline.
Leadership
As we discussed in chapter 5, Amish leaders are selected by drawing lots. This may seem like a game of chance to outsiders, but for the Amish, this mystery-filled rite, a combination of democracy and God’s will, gives all church members a voice in the selection of new leaders while conferring divine blessing and legitimacy on church authority. Without a search committee or rounds of potentially divisive voting, the Gmay quickly finds a qualified leader who is well-known to his fellow congregants.
Despite their belief in divinely sanctioned leadership, the Amish are well aware that their leaders are fallible human beings. If a particular leader annexes more authority than he should or in some way violates the stewardship of his office, he may be silenced by his congregation. In the vast majority of cases, however, Amish leaders earn the trust of their congregants as they carry out the duties of their role. “Remember, the bishop didn’t ask for this job,” said a member. “Most of them are more like a governor than a ruler.”
Patterns of leadership and authority vary by settlement and affiliation. In some affiliations the bishops meet on a regular basis once or twice a year to consult with one another; leaders in other groups meet only when urgent matters require it. Among the ethnically Swiss Amish congregations, the bishop often exercises a heavier hand than in the non-Swiss affiliations. Paradoxically, in some cultures, hierarchical structures and rituals help maintain and facilitate egalitarian relationships across the society.7 This is true in Amish society, but in most but not all cases, the leadership seniority is a soft hierarchy based on age and tenure. This informal hierarchy undergirds the authority structure among the bishops. A young minister explained that “the oldest ones have priority.” Young ministers often go to an older bishop for advice. “And he will not hesitate to give his opinion, based on Scripture. Then he will conclude and say, ‘Don’t do it that way just because I told you, go home and work with your church.’ So it is not a dictatorship by any means.”
A bishop carries heavy responsibilities and exerts wide influence over the life of the Gmay. His personality and views shape the ethos of the congregation. Diverse views and styles of bishops lead to diverse interpretations of the Ordnung. Some bishops are dominant and heavy-handed, while others are gentle and gracious. Certain bishops hold authority tightly in their own hands, while others consult widely before making decisions. For example, one Swartzentruber woman blamed a recent schism in her community on a new bishop, noting her own father’s deathbed warning that if that man “ever got the reins,” there’d be no stopping him. On the other hand, a young Amish teacher in a progressive Indiana settlement said that he has lived under three different bishops and has not yet experienced a harsh one. “People are people, and styles and interpretations will vary,” he said. “But I think it is safe to say there are many more George Washingtons out there than Fidel Castros.”
A bishop has considerable latitude in deciding what he brings to the congregation for a vote. Because he controls the agenda, he can stall or expedite an issue. The power of lay members is curbed somewhat because there is no open agenda or the opportunity for motions from the floor in members’ meetings.
Although bishops have considerable clout, several checks and balances restrain their reach. First, they need the unanimous consent of the congregation to proceed with most proposed actions.8 Second, a bishop’s attempt to promote or obstruct a proposed action—to discipline an erring member, change the Ordnung, or accept a new practice—will only be effective if the ministers support it. Long-term stalemates may arise if the other leaders and the bishop disagree on a matter. An additional check on a bishop’s muscle is the sentiment of the bishops in nearby districts. Leaders within the same affiliation try to balance forbearance and respect, and they usually seek to cooperate while still respecting one another’s autonomy. If one bishop allows bicycles, cell phones, or even LED flashlights, and neighboring bishops do not, the decision will stir ill will toward the permissive leader.
Relatives on the ministry team can also bring complications. If, for example, several of a bishop’s adult children and cousins strongly favor or oppose an issue, it may influence how he proceeds—or it may divide the family.9 Occasionally, a father and son may be bishop and minister in the same district, or two brot
hers may be chosen to serve as minister and deacon. One bishop in Illinois found himself squeezed between his own brother, who wanted to start a Sunday school, and the affiliation’s elder bishop, who strongly opposed it.
If a bishop and his congregation face an impasse, or if he is accused of immorality or a serious abuse of power, three outside bishops will mediate the situation and seek a resolution, which could include removing him from office. Bishops of isolated districts that are not closely affiliated with other Gmays are the most vulnerable to abuse of power because they have the fewest external checks.10 Observing one such district, a professional working with one of its members noted that “the insular and non-hierarchical nature of Amish groups means that a few people ‘in power’ in a particular group can destroy lives if they so choose.”11 The first district to form in a settlement may be isolated geographically for a number of years until it grows, but it will likely maintain fraternal links to other districts, which helps to reduce the risk of dysfunctional leadership.
Settlements
Popping Up Like Mushrooms
The expanding North American Amish population has seeded more than five hundred new settlements since 1900, and the number continues to rise. In fact, nearly 40 percent (176) of present-day settlements were started since 2000 (see fig. 10.2). When different Amish affiliations establish new communities in the same geographical area, they are considered separate settlements.12 Minimally, a settlement must include three households.13
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