The Amish
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4. S. Scott, “Amish Groups.” Nolt and Meyers, Plain Diversity, 144–45, 172–74, refer to this network as the “self-consciously communal” Amish.
5. Nolt and Meyers, Plain Diversity, 78, 156.
6. S. Scott, “Amish Groups.”
7. S. Kauffman, Mifflin County Amish.
8. Leroy Beachy, Unser Leit, 2:397.
9. Ibid., 442.
10. For more on these labels and examples, see Nolt and Meyers, Plain Diversity, 80–83, 142–43.
11. Nolt and Meyers, Plain Diversity, 13–15, 178–79; Hurst and McConnell, Amish Paradox, 55–57.
12. Nolt and Meyers, Plain Diversity, 58–70, 101–20.
13. Leroy Beachy, Unser Leit, 2:471; Hurst and McConnell, Amish Paradox, 58–95.
14. “An Alarming Concern,” unpublished, undated anonymous document in Karen Johnson-Weiner’s files.
15. Swartzentruber history is recounted in Leroy Beachy, Unser Leit, 2:398–407; Hurst and McConnell, Amish Paradox, 35–43; Johnson-Weiner, New York Amish, 52–77; E. Kline, “Letters Pertaining to the Sam Yoder Division”; Luthy, “Origin and Growth of the Swartzentruber Amish”; and R. Weaver, “Glimpses of the Amish Church.”
16. A. Keim, “Military Service and Conscription.”
17. For accounts of New Order origins, see Leroy Beachy, Unser Leit, 2:436–51; Kline and Beachy, “History and Dynamics of the New Order Amish”; and Waldrep, “New Order Amish and Para-Amish Groups.”
18. Underwear is regulated by some but not all groups. Although some affiliations permit store-bought underwear, the Swartzentrubers make their own.
19. Since 1990, the Swiss Amish in Daviess County, Indiana, have had tops on their buggies.
20. Nolt and Meyers, Plain Diversity, 61, 115.
21. The orange emblem required by most states for slow-moving vehicles has been a contentious issue between state governments and the Swartzentrubers. See Zook, “Slow-moving Vehicles.”
22. “An Alarming Concern.”
23. Some groups distinguish between full fellowship (visiting minister participates in the communion service) and partial fellowship (restricted to visiting minister preaching on a regular Sunday), as noted by David Luthy in letter to Donald Kraybill, Jan. 9, 2012.
24. Leroy Beachy, Unser Leit, 2:439–44. See also Nolt and Meyers, Plain Diversity, 47.
25. Because new settlements often have small districts, groups that are starting numerous settlements may appear to be growing faster than other affiliations when church district is used as a proxy for population.
CHAPTER 9. POPULATION PATTERNS
Epigraph: Betsy Scott, “Taking Life Slower,” News-Herald (Willoughby, OH), Oct. 1, 2006.
1. Exact population numbers are difficult to determine because some communities do not publish lists of households or members, and those that do record such information do not use consistent or comparable methods. Raber’s New American Almanac provides an annual listing of districts by state and county but not the number of households or members. The directories of larger settlements provide detailed and fairly reliable information about districts, households, and individuals in those communities.
2. Based on the 2007 annual reports of correspondents from each settlement that appeared in the Diary, Jan. and Feb. 2008.
3. Gemeinde Register, Jan. 3, 2007, 1.
4. This estimate is similar to the 6.8 average completed family size that Ericksen et al. found in their fertility study of several Amish communities in the first half of the twentieth century (“Fertility Patterns and Trends,” 258). According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, June 2010, women ages 40 to 44 who had ever married had an average of 2.1 children.
5. In the 1960s, most Americans were married by their early twenties (median age was 20.3 for women and 22.8 for men), and only 9 percent of Americans ages 30 to 34 had never married. Both of these rates are similar to present-day Amish patterns.
The percent of unmarried Amish persons over 30 years is 5.7 for Elkhart–LaGrange; 4.7 for Michigan settlements; 3.6 for Jasper, New York; and 7.3 for Lancaster, Pa. Rates were calculated from samples taken from settlement directories (2007 Indiana Amish Directory; 2010 Michigan Amish Directory; 2010 New York Amish Directory) and Kraybill’s “2010 Lancaster Demographic Study.” National data is from a 2011 Pew Research Center report, “Barely Half of U.S. Adults are Married” by Cohn, Passel, and Wang, which is based on an analysis of U.S. Census data. For the Amish, the rate represents all people over age 30. The Pew report includes only those in the two age groups mentioned (30–34 and 35–39); 24 percent of Americans ages 35 to 39 had never married, up from 7 percent in 1960. Of course, some Americans marry for the first time after age 39, which would shrink the gap between all Americans and the Amish.
6. Hurst and McConnell, Amish Paradox, 100.
7. An exception to this pattern is the conservative Nebraska Amish in Pennsylvania’s Big Valley, whose family size is limited by hereditary factors.
8. Wasao and Donnermeyer, “Analysis of Factors Related to Parity,” 242; Greksa and Korbin, “Key Decisions,” 389.
9. Ericksen et al., “Fertility Patterns and Trends,” 269; Meyers, “Population Growth,” 317; Hurst and McConnell, Amish Paradox, 99; and Wasao and Donnermeyer, “Analysis of Factors Related to Parity,” 242.
10. Nugent, Crossings, 19–26. Cultural and historical factors had a bigger impact on fertility rates than urbanization or industrialization.
11. J. Stoll, “The Family under Attack,” 8–10.
12. For more on this point, see Nolt and Meyers, Plain Diversity, 119–20.
13. This is an estimate drawn from knowledgeable insiders. A listing of some sixty converts, compiled by Robert Alexander (a convert) in 1997, includes the birth date, baptism date, spouse, and Amish settlement of each. (List in Donald Kraybill’s files.) The authors are not aware of a comprehensive list of converts.
14. E-mail to Donald Kraybill, Feb. 23, 2009.
15. Die Botschaft, Oct. 6, 2004, 1.
16. E-mail to Donald Kraybill, Aug. 3, 2009.
17. J. Smith, “Seekers.”
18. S. Scott, “Newcomers,” 2.
19. Ibid.
20. Personal communication to Donald Kraybill, July 18, 2012.
21. These converts, coming from Old Colony Mennonite, plain-dressing, Low-German-dialect backgrounds in Canada and South America, needed to learn Pennsylvania Dutch. Some came from car-driving and others from horse-driving groups. A listing of these newcomers appears in a letter from David Luthy to Sam Steiner, dated September 19, 2011, in Steven Nolt’s files.
22. Ohio Amish Directory, 611–25.
23. Since 1939, several descendants of convert Marx Jess (1867–1948) have been ordained in the Arthur, Illinois, settlement. Illinois Directory; Diary, Nov. 2008, 26.
24. Diary, July 2005, 71.
25. S. Scott, “Newcomers,” 4.
26. Greksa and Korbin, “Key Decisions,” 373, 383; Meyers, “Population Growth,” 313. Nolt and Meyers, Plain Diversity, 99, report a present northern Indiana retention rate of about 95 percent compared to 80 percent in the 1920s and 1930s. Swartzentruber, “Retention Rates in Amish Communities,” also found a recent increase. Ericksen, Ericksen, and Hostetler, “Cultivation of the Soil,” 56–57, used genealogical data from the Fisher Family History book and found defection rates to be more stable for people born between 1900 and 1930.
27. Nolt and Meyers, Plain Diversity, 83. For similar results from a different sample, see Meyers, “Old Order Amish,” 390–91.
28. Kraybill, “2010 Lancaster Demographic Study,” is the source for the Lancaster defection rate. In Lancaster County the two Amish-related car-driving alternatives are the Beachy Amish and several Amish-Mennonite churches. The Geauga County defection data was reported by Greksa and Korbin, “Key Decisions,” 381.
29. One example of these organizations is MAP (Mission to Amish People), www.mapministry.org/.
30. Emma Gingerich, e-mail to Donal
d Kraybill, Jan. 21, 2012.
31. Greksa and Korbin, “Key Decisions,” 385–89, discuss both of these factors in detail. Meyers, “Population Growth,” 320, reports that farming families have a slightly higher retention rate (5 percent) than factory families, but the difference is not statistically significant.
32. Meyers, “Old Order Amish,” 385, 392.
33. Ibid., 382. See also Greksa and Korbin, “Key Decisions,” 394–96.
34. Hurst and McConnell, Amish Paradox, 84–93, describe defections in Holmes County, Ohio. For additional stories of ex-Amish leaving because of family dysfunction, see Burkholder, Amish Confidential; Dell, Daring Destiny; O. Garrett, True Stories of the X-Amish; and Streiker-Schmidt, Separate God.
35. I. Wagler, Growing Up Amish; W. Weaver, Dust Between My Toes; Wittmer, Gentle People; Andy Yoder’s story was told in 2008 by Lee Elliott, “Doctor in Training: Amish Upbringing Fuels Area Man’s Desire to Help Others,” Times-Reporter (New Philadelphia, OH), Jan. 13, 2008. An update was published two years later: Misti Crane, “Born Amish, Student Remains on Course to Become Doctor,” Times-Reporter (New Philadelphia, OH), April 5, 2010. Naomi Kramer, from the Jamesport, Missouri, Amish settlement, is a nursing graduate from Goshen College with a story much like Andy Yoder’s. Kramer and two other formerly Amish people have started a scholarship fund for Amish-reared young adults who want to attend college (http://adsfund.weebly.com/index.html).
36. Nisly, “Community and Formerly-Amish Professionals,” 61–82.
37. Sections of our discussion of shunning are adapted from Kraybill, Nolt, and Weaver-Zercher, Amish Grace, chap. 11. Consult that chapter for a fuller explanation of shunning as well as the distinction between forgiveness and pardon.
38. Braithwaite, “Reintegrative Shaming.”
39. J. Hostetler, Amish Society, 85–87.
40. The primary biblical texts that support shunning include Matt. 18:15–18; Rom. 16:17; 1 Cor. 5; 2 Thess. 3:6, 14–15; 2 Tim. 3:2–5; and Titus 3:10. For an articulate Amish explanation of shunning, see Biblical Guidelines in Shunning.
41. Amish excommunication and shunning resemble in some ways the practices of Benedictine Orders. This same verse (1 Cor. 5:5) as well as Matt. 18:15–16 are cited in Benedictine Rules 23 through 29. See RB 1980, 49–53.
42. In Meiner Jugend, 57.
43. John A. Hostetler critiques Meidung in “Letter Concerning Shunning.”
CHAPTER 10. COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION
Epigraph: Loren Beachy, “The Plain Side,” Goshen (IN) News, Aug. 29, 2011.
1. Sections of this chapter are adapted from Kraybill, Riddle of Amish Culture, chap. 4.
2. Weber identified charisma as a third form of authority, and he also pointed to technology as the primary force in the process of modernization (Theory of Social and Economic Organization, 324–58). Weber distinguished between different types of rationality, as elucidated by Stephen Kalberg, “Max Weber’s Types of Rationality.”
3. “The Shop that Grew” is a two-part essay that explains the dangers of growing a big Amish business.
4. E. Hall, Beyond Culture, 85–128.
5. [D. Wagler], Are All Things Lawful?, 7.
6. Nolt and Meyers, Plain Diversity, 64–67, compare naming practices in several different settlements, including gendered differences in the patterns of naming children.
7. See Bell, China’s New Confucianism, 38–55.
8. Typically, one negative vote will not stop a decision. However, two or more objections will derail a proposal and require additional processing.
9. A schism in a Swartzentruber Gmay divided a bishop from his married daughters, all of whom chose to go with the opposing faction. One of the married sons, a minister, also went with the opposing faction and became the bishop of the new group. A more recent schism has divided the married daughters.
10. An example is Bishop Sam Mullet Sr. in the Bergholz district in Jefferson County, Ohio. He established this one-district settlement in 1995 but spurned fraternal ties with any affiliations, including the Fredericktown (Ohio) Amish group from which he had migrated. His autocratic style of excommunicating members who disagreed with him stirred controversy among other Amish leaders, yet none of them had authority to intervene in the Bergholz district and remove him from office. On September 13, 2006, a conference of three hundred bishops and ministers from five states met to discuss their shared concerns about Mullet’s activities. They unanimously agreed not to honor his excommunications and to reinstate into their own congregations the people Mullet excommunicated. Mullet’s bitterness over the action of the ad hoc conference led him to reject core Amish beliefs, which further isolated his church. The Bergholz community shrank in size, discontinued church services, introduced novel rituals, and vilified Amish groups. This malice erupted in five incidents in the fall of 2011, when members of the Bergholz group attacked several Amish leaders and, in some cases, their wives, cutting the men’s beards and the women’s hair. Mullet and fifteen of his followers were charged with federal hate crimes, tried by jury, and found guilty in September 2012.
11. Donna Doblick, e-mail to Donald Kraybill, Jan. 19, 2011.
12. Luthy, “Amish Settlements: 1991” and “Amish Settlements: 2008.” Donnermeyer and Cooksey, “Recent Growth of New Amish Settlements,” trace and analyze the growth of Amish settlements from 1990 through 2009.
13. This definition, employed by Amish-owned Pathway Publishers, has generally been adopted by academic writers as well. In Pathway’s definition, a mere two households could comprise a settlement if one household is that of an ordained bishop, minister, or deacon. A single household by itself is never considered a settlement—although it is hard to imagine a single household desiring to move alone or on its own.
14. Donnermeyer and Cooksey, “Recent Growth of New Amish Settlements,” 195.
15. Die Botschaft, Dec. 5, 2005, 19, and June 26, 2006, 47. Also cited in Luthy, “Amish Settlements: 2008,” 6.
16. Diary, June 2010, 39, and July 2010, 44.
17. Settlement failure data derived from Luthy, Amish in America and Why Some Amish Communities Fail. The story of the Honduras settlement is recounted by J. Stoll in Sunshine and Shadow.
18. Luthy offers nine reasons for failure in Why Some Amish Communities Fail. He credits John A. Hostetler for noting that a settlement needs at least eleven families to succeed (19).
19. Staff Notes, Family Life, Dec. 1996, 4.
20. Donnermeyer and Cooksey, “Recent Growth of New Amish Settlements.”
21. Nolt and Meyers, Plain Diversity, 121–41.
22. L. Beiler, Where Mountains Rise, describes the challenges of establishing a new settlement and includes a special section thanking English van drivers who provided taxi service through the years (161–66). See also Johnson-Weiner, New York Amish, 117.
23. Staff Notes, Family Life, Dec. 1996, 4.
24. Luthy, Amish in America, 390.
25. Sources for these numbers tabulated by Stephen Scott include correspondents’ settlement reports in various Amish publications, annual migration reports in the Diary, and informants in various settlements. Migration information is reported for households. The estimated number of people assumes five persons per household. For more detail on migration patterns, see www2.etown.edu/amishstudies/.
26. Luthy, Why Some Amish Communities Fail, 15–18; Peter Applebome, “Faraway Amish Try to Keep Faith,” New York Times, Aug. 25, 1987.
27. “Mad about Manure: Some Residents of SD Town Upset about Droppings from Amish Settlers’ Horses,” Daily Republic (Mitchell, SD), Nov. 10, 2011; “Loyal Adopts Manure-Catching Device Rules,” Tribune Record Gleaner (Loyal, WI), Oct. 29, 2008; and Laurie Stribling, “Road Damage, Manure and Accidents,” KSAX-TV, Dec. 13, 2011.
28. The conflict was resolved in Pennsylvania in 2004 when the Superior Court of Pennsylvania decided in favor of the Amish and in Kentucky by legislative action in 2012.
29. Dave Tobin, “Cortland County Town of Marathon Spl
it over Amish Community’s Demand for Separate School Buses,” Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY), Jan. 1, 2012.
30. Nolt and Meyers, Plain Diversity, 121–34.
31. Johnson-Weiner, New York Amish, chap. 5.
32. O. Gingerich, Amish of Canada, 65–67; G. Fisher, Farm Life and Its Changes, 355, 379–80.
33. Kraybill and Nolt, Amish Enterprise, 166–71.
CHAPTER 11. GENDER AND FAMILY
Epigraph: Adapted from Johnson-Weiner, “Katie.”
1. J. Stoll, “Fireside Chats,” 7.
2. Sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox argues that “religion domesticates men in ways that make them more responsive to the aspirations and needs of their immediate families.” See “Soft Patriarchs, New Men,” on Wilcox’s website, www.wbradfordwilcox.com/book.htm. See also Wilcox, Soft Patriarchs, New Men.
3. 1001 Questions, 101.
4. Kraybill and Huntington, “Amish Family,” 442–45. See also Hostetler and Huntington, Amish Children, 19–35.
5. See “Blessings in Adoption”; “Twenty Things Adopted Children Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew”; “Twenty Things Adoptive Parents Want Their Adopted Children to Know.”
6. “Advantages of Home Birthing”; Allen, “My Birth, My Way”; Campanella, Korbin, and Acheson, “Pregnancy and Childbirth,” 333–35; Hurst and McConnell, Amish Paradox, 222; Lucas et al., “Rural Medicine and the Closed Society,” 49; and Miller et al., “Health Status,” 169.
7. Menno Simons, Complete Works of Menno Simons, 274. See also K. Miller, “Complex Innocence.”
8. Other often-cited Scriptures include Prov. 22:6; Exod. 20:12; Deut. 5:16; and Eph. 6:1–3.
9. J. Stoll, Child Training, 56.
10. Letter from Mrs. L. D. Miller, Family Life, Aug.–Sept. 1982, 3.