The Amish?

[Publisher]

I have never experienced rudeness from any member of the Amish community, either male or female. It is possible that what is being interpreted as rudeness is the reserve that they display.

Neither have I. While my experience with the Amish is limited, I have only had the pleasure of meeting the family of some Mennonites who attended our Meeting as there was no Mennonite church around.

Their parents and grandparents were Amish, and came for a visit. We had them in Meeting for two First Days and had dinner with them. Very kind gentle people…they were from Indiana. My Mennonite friends chose to not join the church after Rumspringa, but instead chose to seek baptism in the Mennonite Church, they were childhood sweathearts…they knew each other all their lives and decided to leave the community in search for a different life. Since they had chosen to NOT be baptized among the Amish, but Mennonites, they had close family relationships as the “ban” was never imposed upon them for breaking their baptismal covenant.

The grandparents were…very reserved…almost gruff when first you meet them…but during dinner, their face lit up and they laughted quite a bit…they didn’t seem so ‘gruff’ from that time on.

 

[DebChris]

Neither have I. While my experience with the Amish is limited, I have only had the pleasure of meeting the family of some Mennonites who attended our Meeting as there was no Mennonite church around.

Their parents and grandparents were Amish, and came for a visit. We had them in Meeting for two First Days and had dinner with them. Very kind gentle people…they were from Indiana. My Mennonite friends chose to not join the church after Rumspringa, but instead chose to seek baptism in the Mennonite Church, they were childhood sweathearts…they knew each other all their lives and decided to leave the community in search for a different life. Since they had chosen to NOT be baptized among the Amish, but Mennonites, they had close family relationships as the “ban” was never imposed upon them for breaking their baptismal covenant.

The grandparents were…very reserved…almost gruff when first you meet them…but during dinner, their face lit up and they laughted quite a bit…they didn’t seem so ‘gruff’ from that time on.

I did not develop any friendships with members of the Amish community when I lived in WI. I mentioned a little about my interactions in earlier posts.
When I was working in the local factory, a woman who only spent a short time there thought I was “stuck up” until she came to know me. This view came from my own “reserve.”
Most of the people in the Catholic Church to which I now belong are likewise reserved. It was last year when I finally realized the depth of the friendships that have developed in my time belonging to the Church. I prefer these deep abiding friendships more than those that seem instantaneous.

 

[BarbaraTherese]

God is Great and God is Good!
I noted last night with real surprise and much joy that every Sunday on our local ethnic free channel, The Amish will be featured giving household tips to the handyman as to how to do jobs around the house. I am hoping that it may stretch to other type tips, including for housewives for cooking etc. I only saw the end of the advertisement - so Sunday should tell me more.

Apparently it was said of early Christians “see how they love one another” and it does seem to me that the Amish not only live under similar living conditions to the very early Christians, they also have similar impact.

 

[mercygate]

I just wanted to comment on the Amish. I feel very sorry for them.

I went to PA and visited the Amish. All women/girls are forbidden to have buttons or zippers on their clothing - they must secure their outfits with plenty of straight pins. So they often get pricked depending on how they move or if they try to hug their mom or daughter. The men however are able to have buttons.

Women are required to wear black after they marry - although that’s understandable, I would mourn too for the rest of my life if I had to be married to an Amish man. Generally young women are given in marriage to old/older men.

I found that the Amish men were very rude to women (unless you had money to give them - then they were just civil).

It’s such a sad culture built on extremely bad theology.

What Amish community requires women to wear black? Iowa “Beachy” Amish? My Amish friends wear colors: medium-to-dark blue, violet, green, grey, brown . . . These colors are popular in Lancaster County, Pa also. And they have snaps and hooks-and-eyes to fasten their clothing as well as straight pins.

Buttons on men’s trousers are covered by a placket.

And they do NOT marry young girls to older men. Marriages are contracted between young people – usually in their early 20s – sometimes late teens. No “child” marriages. They have strong family supports and are “bred” to be ready for marriage earlier than our kids.

 

[Skip_Wiley]

Biblical means whatever Protestants want it to mean.

And to a Catholic, Biblical means whatever their church tells them it means.

 

[ChristinaM]

We should be careful not to idealize the Amish lifestyle. Getting away from the complications of modern life sounds great to us, but keep in mind they also do not have things like modern healthcare.

I read a book by a former Amish woman and unfortunately I can’t remember the name of it now. It was very revealing, and sad. She left the Amish community to marry a non-Amish man and was shunned. Their lifestyle only looks idyllic. It can be very harsh. This woman told a story of falling out of a window and breaking a bone as a child. Her parents were so reluctant to take her to an “English” doctor that she suffered greatly and the bone eventually had to be re-broken. Her father was also abusive towards her mother and the children, but because of the structure of the Amish community they had nowhere to turn. They were expected to suffer in silence.

There are a number of Amish communities here in Indiana, down in Shipshewana and Nappanee. Sometimes when you go to Menards you can see the Amish men shopping for lumber and hardware there. When we visited my dad’s cousins in western Wisconsin, we drove past an Amish buggy on the street. That was really neat and unexpected.

 

[mercygate]

We should be careful not to idealize the Amish lifestyle. Getting away from the complications of modern life sounds great to us, but keep in mind they also do not have things like modern healthcare.

I read a book by a former Amish woman and unfortunately I can’t remember the name of it now. It was very revealing, and sad. She left the Amish community to marry a non-Amish man and was shunned. Their lifestyle only looks idyllic. It can be very harsh. This woman told a story of falling out of a window and breaking a bone as a child. Her parents were so reluctant to take her to an “English” doctor that she suffered greatly and the bone eventually had to be re-broken. Her father was also abusive towards her mother and the children, but because of the structure of the Amish community they had nowhere to turn. They were expected to suffer in silence.

There are a number of Amish communities here in Indiana, down in Shipshewana and Nappanee. Sometimes when you go to Menards you can see the Amish men shopping for lumber and hardware there. When we visited my dad’s cousins in western Wisconsin, we drove past an Amish buggy on the street. That was really neat and unexpected.

Amish I know are less reluctant to seek appropriate medical help. One of my friends is diabetic and uses insulin, which he keeps in his refrigerator! The refrigerator is powered by a gas generator in the shed!

I agree that it is not wise to idealize the life, but I don’t think their interpersonal relations are more troubled than anybody else’s. One thing that does plague them is a high incidence of bipolar syndrome and there is a form of dwarfism that runs through their limited gene pool. They started from just 52 families (if memory serves). Since they don’t get much in the way of outside (name removed by moderator)ut, undesirable recessive traits can emerge with greater frequency than in our mongerel population.

 

[ibkc]

We should be careful not to idealize the Amish lifestyle. Getting away from the complications of modern life sounds great to us, but keep in mind they also do not have things like modern healthcare.

I read a book by a former Amish woman and unfortunately I can’t remember the name of it now. It was very revealing, and sad. She left the Amish community to marry a non-Amish man and was shunned. Their lifestyle only looks idyllic. It can be very harsh. This woman told a story of falling out of a window and breaking a bone as a child. Her parents were so reluctant to take her to an “English” doctor that she suffered greatly and the bone eventually had to be re-broken. Her father was also abusive towards her mother and the children, but because of the structure of the Amish community they had nowhere to turn. They were expected to suffer in silence.

Yup to all this.

They also have a higher incidence of deaths among their children because the kids are expected to work from an early age, using equipment that is really not appropriate.

 

[ChristinaM]

Amish I know are less reluctant to seek appropriate medical help. One of my friends is diabetic and uses insulin, which he keeps in his refrigerator! The refrigerator is powered by a gas generator in the shed!

Yes, I should have said that this woman was from a VERY conservative Amish community. IIRC they were considered ultraconservative even by other Amish.

In any case, it was a good book, and it wasn’t at all Amish-bashing. She did have a fairly balanced perspective on her childhood consider what she went through. I just wish I could remember the name of the book…

 

[DebChris]

God is Great and God is Good!
I noted last night with real surprise and much joy that every Sunday on our local ethnic free channel, The Amish will be featured giving household tips to the handyman as to how to do jobs around the house. I am hoping that it may stretch to other type tips, including for housewives for cooking etc. I only saw the end of the advertisement - so Sunday should tell me more.

Apparently it was said of early Christians “see how they love one another” and it does seem to me that the Amish not only live under similar living conditions to the very early Christians, they also have similar impact.

Once I received an Amish Friendship Cake. I followed the directions, sending it on to 6 of my friends. I don’t know how long this cake had been going around. Anyway, one night it exploded and scared my friend’s cat and woke her from a sound sleep.

The Amish follow the Dortrecht Confession of Faith adopted in 1632. The “ban” or shunning is a response to persistent unrepented behavior that recognizes that person’s having separated themselves from the Body of Christ.

As for medical care, the elders are responsible for the members in their community and make decisions regarding the use of modern machinery for healing purposes. It makes sense that they would allow the use of insulin. Injection is a low tech procedure. Even persons who do not live in the Amish community have bones rebroken because they were not set right.

Injuries are common on farms, whether those farms are Amish or not. Recently a young girl fell off a harvester that her father was operating. Despite the severity of her injuries, she presented an optimistic face when interviewed on the television. Teaching children from a young age that they can contribute to the welfare of the family is not a bad thing. Would this young girl have been as severly injured operating “more primitive” equipment?

There are good and bad in every community.

 

[ibkc]

Injuries are common on farms, whether those farms are Amish or not. Recently a young girl fell off a harvester that her father was operating. Despite the severity of her injuries, she presented an optimistic face when interviewed on the television. Teaching children from a young age that they can contribute to the welfare of the family is not a bad thing.

Of course it is not. But expecting children to do things that they may not be physically ready or able to do is a bad thing - at least in my world. I must point out that this is one reason we have child labor laws, and also that the Amish have had tendencies to run afoul of those laws.

There are good and bad in every community.

No doubt. This thread has made that amply clear.

 

[Skip_Wiley]

Biblical means whatever Protestants want it to mean.

And for the Catholic, Biblical means whatever the Catholic church tells them it means.

 

[BarbaraTherese]

There are good and bad in every community.

… …Absolutely! And this, I think, is what growth in part is all about, I look at what is positive and what is negative, and then work at developing what is positive and eradicating if possible the negative. Having established that in every way, then growth undoubtedly will point out the positive and the negative in what has been established and the process of developing and eradicating gets underway…ideally speaking…and so on the journey goes…
Actually I don’t know in detail much about Amish people at all and certainly not their doctrines…I simply see in them a very simple way of living and a life in common and great hospitality and that they are admired by many…and that they appeal to me…undoubtedly being a human institution there will be positives and negatives, pros and cons…

 

[oremus]

The Amish don’t accept social security or medicare or any state assistance. They insist on paying all their own medical bills themselves. They are very self-reliant.

They suffered hideously under the Catholics, which were the church in power when they were forming. They were routinely burned alive, mothers in front of their children. An artist of the time recorded their sufferings in one of the most horrible collections of woodcuts that I have ever seen–(I have a friend who is an Amish scholar, who had a copy of these).

The Amish deep these memories alive, by singing songs about their martyrs. They staill have martyrs in the US in modern times. Some Amish men who refused to enlist for WWI died in prison of exposure and pneumonia. The little girls who were targeted and murdered recently.

They are good people.

Get off your high horse.

My mom’s ancestry is loaded with Amish and Mennonites with Amish ancestors who emigrated to Lancaster County in the 1730s, and the first Mennonite bishop in the United States is one of my 7th great grandfathers.

I have anabaptist ancestors back to the early 1500s. One of them, last name Kauffman, was burned at the stake in Switzerland in an area that was Swiss Reformed, not Catholic. There was a show on PBS several years ago about the Swiss Reformed Church and the persecution of the anabaptists.

Like Foxe’s Book of Martyr’s, the Martyr’s Mirror was embellished.

Protestant controlled areas tortured and persecuted anabaptists as much, if not more, than Catholic controlled areas.

 

[oremus]

Anabaptist spirituality reflects the Benedictine origin of some of the early leaders of their faith. Pray and work.

 

[Katie1723]

I would like to “vacation” with the Amish. I think they are wonderful people. They have many the same problems that we do. They one thing they have all over us is the sense of forgiveness. Back in '06, I believe, when there was the Nickel Mines Amish school shooting, within in hours, they were forgiving and caring toward the family of the shooter. Now who among us would have that sense of grace? yes, their lifestyle may be viewed as a bit "odd " but isn’t that what we say when we don’t understand something/someone?
Seems to me back in the day, Jesus was looked on as a bit “odd” by some.

Kathy

 

[1holycatholic]

And for the Catholic, Biblical means whatever the Catholic church tells them it means.

The Bible is a Catholic book, even the lite version preferred by those outside the Church. You are correct in claiming that only the Catholic Church holds the entire deposit of faith. It is, after all, “the pillar and foundation of truth.”

 

[Skip_Wiley]

The Bible is a Catholic book, even the lite version preferred by those outside the Church. You are correct in claiming that only the Catholic Church holds the entire deposit of faith. It is, after all, “the pillar and foundation of truth.”

You need to take some reading lessons. That isn’t even remotely what I said.

 

[1holycatholic]

You need to take some reading lessons. That isn’t even remotely what I said.

Do you deny that the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth?

 

[mercygate]

Do you deny that the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth?

'Nother thread for this, maybe?