Plain Answers About the Amish Life (15 page)

Where did our obsession with all things Amish come from?

According to Umble and Weaver-Zercher, this fascination “is not an inevitable, let alone accidental, result of differences between the Amish and the English. Rather, this fascination has been created and sustained to a large degree by the media.”
¹
No doubt, our ideas of the Amish people, what they believe, and how they live are greatly influenced by the tourism, film, television, publishing, and news industries.

When was Amish life first depicted in popular culture?

In 1985, the Peter Weir movie
Witness
became a worldwide hit. Set in the midst of Amish country, the movie, which starred Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis, earned two Oscars and almost $70 million at the box office. To this day, many people's knowledge about the Amish is limited to this single film.

Does
Witness
accurately depict the Amish?

Witness
has been criticized by many Amish as being inconsistent with their lifestyle and culture. This shouldn't be too surprising. The purpose of a romantic drama, after all, is to entertain, not inform.
Filmmakers have always taken liberties with the truth in order to create more exciting stories. Unfortunately, a person whose entire knowledge of the Amish comes from feature films like
Witness
—not to mention
For Richer or Poorer, Kingpin
, and others—is at best underinformed and at worst sorely misinformed.

What about documentaries? Do they give us a more realistic perspective?

Documentaries often fall at two ends of the spectrum, what Umble and Weaver-Zercher call either “sympathetic, myth-enhancing pastorals like
A People of Preservation
or myth-busting and highly entertaining but narrowly focused and nonrepresentative sensationalism like
Devil's Playground
.”
²
Neither of these two films plays fast and loose with the facts, but both provide specific angles on certain facets of Amish life. This, in turn, causes many people to apply those narrow truths to the Amish as a whole, which is a mistake.

If feature films and the documentaries aren't getting it right, how about reality TV?

In July 2004, the reality show
Amish in the City
debuted, featuring five Amish youth on
Rumspringa
in a modern home where they lived for a time among five non-Amish youth. By filming the inevitable culture clash, the producers hoped to highlight the similarities and differences between two such disparate worlds. In the end, the series was criticized as exploitative and offensive. It also didn't do much to advance the cause of truth about Amish life.

Now with the latest offerings in this genre—the reality shows
Breaking Amish
and
Amish Mafia
—things seem to have gone from bad to worse.

Are the Amish accurately represented by mainstream news media?

The news media cannot always be counted on for accuracy or balance when it comes to the Amish either. News reports still need a hook, after all, and the hooks that come from an Amish drug bust or a travesty of violence have less to do with the incidents themselves
than with our image of who the Amish are and how the incidents relate to that.

How did media respond to the Amish school shooting at Nickel Mines in 2006?

One need look no further than the media coverage of this incident to see how shockingly fast the big story turned from the violence perpetrated on a group of schoolchildren to the “larger issues” of Amish forgiveness. I would contend that the news media did both the Amish and the non-Amish a great disservice by focusing their reports on the forgiveness angle rather than on larger, more important issues, such as school violence, child safety, and mental illness.

If movies and TV are getting it wrong, where can I go to find truthful, helpful information about the Amish?

By drawing information from the following sources, one can leave fallacies and agendas behind and instead focus on the fascinating, complex, and
true
world of the Amish.

Academia
. Thanks to esteemed authors and scholars such as Donald Kraybill, David Weaver-Zercher, John Hostetler, Richard Stevick, and Steven Nolt, numerous resources are available for those who want to get an accurate, balanced view of the Amish.

Fiction
. Certainly, Amish fiction authors bring to any story their own slant and agenda, but most authors of Amish fiction seem to be taking pains to get their facts correct and present them in a balanced manner. By setting fictional tales in realistic worlds, Amish fiction authors are inviting readers to a fuller understanding of Amish life in all its shades of black, white, and gray.

Historical societies and information centers
. Many historical organizations offer accurate and interesting information about the Amish and other Anabaptist groups. In some regions, these places offer helpful volunteers, printed resources, and even tour guide services. Should you choose to visit a region of Amish tourism, you would do well to begin your visit not with a flashy simulated “Amish experience” but with the local historical society or tourist information center. See the Resources section near the end of this book for more information.

How did Amish fiction first come about?

In 1997, a literary genre was born with the release of
The Shunning
, author Beverly Lewis's fictional tale of Amish life based on her own grandmother's experiences. As more books from Lewis and other authors followed, readers were able to get an inside peek into Amish life, and the genre's popularity has continued to grow.

Why is Amish fiction so popular?

According to Associated Press reporter Eric Gorski, these books are a hit with those “attracted by a simpler time, curiosity about cloistered communities and admiration for the strong, traditional faith of the Amish.”
³

As a writer of Amish fiction myself, I know that part of the allure is the ability to explore a world so foreign to us and yet for some reason so appealing. Through the lives of characters on a page, we can all become Amish for a while, even if only in our imaginations.

Some fiction authors depict the Amish in a positive light, while others present a somewhat negative view. Which is more accurate?

The Amish experience can vary between various settlements and districts. As far as I can tell, both angles have some basis in fact. The Amish are human, after all, and while they have their share of problems, there is also much to admire about their values and lifestyle.

As an author, I try to present a balanced picture of the Amish in my fiction, neither idealizing nor demonizing them but instead creating characters and situations that are realistic and compelling.

How do the Amish feel about Amish fiction?

They find our interest in them baffling, but many of them read these books themselves. In my experience, they enjoy those authors who present the Amish faith in a balanced, positive light but often take umbrage with those who do not. As an Amish woman once commented about a work of fiction she had read, “It was upsetting, to say the least. The bishop in that book was a monster, but my bishop is the dearest, kindest man I have ever known.”

30

TRAGEDY AND FORGIVENESS

The Amish are known for their forgiveness. Why is this so?

Because they take very seriously the biblical admonition “Do not judge, or you too will be judged” (Matthew 7:1). They forgive others so that God will forgive them of their sins.

But what about extreme situations when forgiveness seems impossible?

Their goal is still complete forgiveness, no matter what. Certainly, in horrific situations such as the Amish school shootings at Nickel Mines in 2006, this takes a nearly heroic effort to accomplish. But as one Amish man told me, forgiveness in a case like this isn't necessarily a onetime thing but is instead an ongoing pursuit, a matter of original forgiveness and then
re
-forgiveness, as needed.

What happened with the shooting at Nickel Mines?

One of the most tragic events in Amish history was the shooting of innocent children on October 2, 2006, in the town of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. On that otherwise quiet Monday morning, a local non-Amish man entered a one-room Amish schoolhouse, surprising the students and teachers and taking them hostage at gunpoint. He forced the adults and boys out of the building and then barricaded himself inside with the girls, whom he lined up along the chalkboard and bound at the ankles with wire and plastic ties.

Though police responded promptly to the event, they were unable to stop the gunman from opening fire on the girls and then himself. In the end, the incident left five Amish girls dead and five more in critical condition. Also dead, by suicide, was the gunman himself, whose
motives have never been fully understood. Experts think he may have been struggling with mental illness. He was a resident of the area and reportedly had no grudges or ill will against the Amish.

Did the Amish community really forgive him? How could they do that?

The Amish, though heartbroken, astounded the world by responding to the event by offering nearly immediate forgiveness for the gunman and comfort for his surviving family members. Beginning just hours after the shooting, members of the Amish community started visiting the family, about 30 Amish attended his funeral, and Amish church leaders even set up a charitable trust for his widow and children.

How did the world respond?

Surprisingly, such rapid and complete forgiveness in word and deed drew harsh criticism from many directions. Opinions were expressed in public forums by writers who, lacking full knowledge of Amish culture or firsthand familiarity with the event and its aftermath, blasted the Amish community's act of grace, often putting it in the wrong context. One
Boston Globe
columnist wrote, “Hatred is not always wrong, and forgiveness is not always deserved…I would not want to be like [the Amish], reacting to terrible crimes with dispassion and absolution.”
¹

Had the reporter been there himself, he would have seen absolutely nothing dispassionate about the Amish response to the Nickel Mines tragedy. The sadness of the Amish was searing and deep. Their grief was overwhelmingly painful. Even now, years after the event, their heartache over the situation is sometimes palpable. Amish experts say that the act of forgiving the killer was not a dispassionate act, as the columnist claimed, but instead “a habit that's embedded in a way of life anchored in a 400-year history” and “the first step toward mending a social fabric that was rent by the schoolhouse shooting.”
²
These far more accurate descriptions were provided by preeminent Amish scholars Donald B. Kraybill, Steven M. Nolt, and David L. Weaver-Zercher in
Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy
. That book sums up the “forgiveness controversy” with these words:

In a world where faith often justifies and magnifies revenge, and in a nation where some Christians use Scripture to fuel retaliation, the Amish response was indeed a surprise. Regardless of the details of the Nickel Mines story, one message rings clear: Religion was not used to justify rage and revenge but to inspire goodness, forgiveness, and grace. And that is the big lesson for the rest of us regardless of our faith or nationality.
³

For the Amish families involved, how are they doing now? Have they fully recovered from the incident?

I recently dined in the home of one of the families whose lives were directly impacted by the shooting. Though the tragedy itself was not mentioned, I couldn't help but notice the sadness that still lingers in the mother's eyes, the heavy feeling of loss that permeates the entire family.

Certainly, they have continued on in the world of the living. Their gleaming floors, healthy animals, and overflowing gardens attest to that. For the most part, family life seems back to business as usual, their youngest child laughing at the dogs' antics, their teenager flashing a shy smile at his girlfriend.

But despite the years that have passed, the family is obviously still learning to adapt to what psychologists call a “new normal,” one where children can be victims of a senseless crime but life goes on anyway. For this family, and indeed for all the Amish families touched by the tragedy, forgiveness is something they did in the beginning, yes, but as someone close to them once told me, it is also “something they must do over and over, sometimes each new day.”

Is it true they don't like to talk about it?

Yes. Among the Amish, the tragedy at Nickel Mines has come to be known as “The Happening.” They don't discuss it much anymore, at least not with outsiders. The schoolhouse has long since been torn down, its replacement built in a different style at a different location.
No longer the Nickel Mines School, it has been christened New Hope, a name that resonates with optimism for the future despite the past.

Of the five victims who survived the shooting, one lives with lingering medical issues, they have all had numerous surgeries, and one suffered extensive brain damage and is confined to a wheelchair. All five are currently living at home with their families, going on with their lives. My best impression of how the incident has impacted the Amish community at large came from a conversation with another Amish woman, one who wasn't directly connected to the victims or their families but grieved nonetheless. She and I weren't even talking about the shooting but about the
Ordnung
and infractions of rules and differences between districts. According to her, Nickel Mines put everything into perspective.