Extended families gather to celebrate birthdays and Christmas; adult siblings help one another harvest vegetables, clean in preparation for hosting church, cut rags for weaving rugs, or construct an addition to a house or barn. Much visiting also occurs spontaneously when relatives drop in at one another’s homes or meet at reunions, auctions, quilting parties, picnics, or holiday gatherings.
“We need this mingling of the generations,” one grandfather muses. “It’s tremendously gratifying for the elderly to walk and talk on an everyday basis with those they hold dear. . . . We have few greater joys than to see our children work side-by-side with one of their grandparents.” He then derides the modern impulse “to pigeonhole everything” into a “streamlined system that can be as cold as it is efficient, [with] the old and infirmed placed in homes for the elderly,” while everyone else goes his or her own way.
17
This web of intergenerational relationships—children growing up next to grandparents, with aunts and uncles all around—is one aspect of Amish life that many outsiders envy, and perhaps idealize. Amish people would be the first to admit that living close to so many family members presents its share of challenges. Along with those challenges, however, come spiritual blessings, because mingling across the generations reinforces the distinctive beliefs, practices, and affections of Amish life.
By living with, talking to, and observing their parents and grandparents, Amish children learn about devotional practices, Sunday routines, gender roles, and many other aspects of the Amish way. As we will see in the next chapter, they even learn about the realm of possessions—what to buy, what to wear, and what to forgo entirely.
CHAPTER NINE
Possessions
We say “no thanks” to the dishwasher.
B
rimming with many children, most Amish homes produce eight or more sets of dirty dishes three times a day. That means at least twenty-four glasses, dozens of plates, and countless pieces of silverware, not to mention pots, pans, mixing bowls, platters, and serving utensils. Just the perfect place for an automatic dishwasher, right?
But you will not find a dishwasher in any Amish home. “We don’t believe in dirty dishes,” writes Elmo Stoll, explaining why these laborsaving devices are missing from Amish kitchens. “We just work a little harder to get the task done.”
The Amish ban dishwashers and other standard appliances for four reasons, according to Stoll in
Strangers and Pilgrims: Why We Live Simply
. First, he says, Amish people see themselves as travelers on a journey, headed toward eternity. “If we meant to stay here, it would make sense to accumulate and enjoy all the earthly comforts. [But] this is vanity. We came into this world with nothing, and we are going to leave it the same way.”
Love for neighbor provides a second reason for living a simple life. “How can I eat cake, when my neighbor does not have bread?” Stoll continues. “How can I discard serviceable clothing because it is not in style, when my neighbor is shivering from cold? In short, how can I live in luxury when my neighbor lacks the necessities?”
Jesus’ example provides Stoll with a third reason for simple living. “When Jesus was here, he left us an outstanding example of simple living. . . . Not only did Jesus set a personal example to inspire us and guide us, he also gave us many teachings . . . [about] the danger of material possessions and the importance of trusting God on a daily basis for our food and clothing.”
Finally, writes Stoll, forgoing a dishwasher provides work for his children, so they “have something to do.” Doing dishes, he says, is “much better for their character than being idle, or expecting others to do things for them all the time.” Plus, he notes, if his family bought a dishwasher, they’d need to get their house wired, and then “we might as well get all those other laborsaving appliances and devices . . . a vacuum cleaner, a dryer, a toaster, a blender, a microwave, and on and on.” For all these reasons, “We say ‘no thanks’ to the dishwasher.”
2
Jesus, the Ordnung, and iPods
Many religious traditions make connections between spirituality and material possessions, but few make these connections as clearly or as frequently as the Amish. Would any of us, for example, consult a pastor, rabbi, or other spiritual leader before buying a BlackBerry or a flat-screen TV? From dishwashers to clothing, from televisions to tractors, Amish spirituality intersects with the material world at almost every turn.
Amish religion is not only broader in its reach but also more collective in its application.
Ordnung
guidelines on technology and other possessions supersede personal choice. Amish society is not a communal society in the sense of holding property in common (there is no community-owned property, not even church buildings), but the community does hold sway over what individuals may and may not own.
Jesus did not give advice on dishwashers, iPods, or DVDs, of course. As new technologies appear, Amish people observe their impact on people and communities in the larger society. Those that seem harmless—chain saws, gas barbecue grills, trampolines, for example—are accepted with little concern. Those that directly threaten religious values and family life, however, are discouraged, if not completely banned. “It is not that the plain people oppose all new ideas and practices,” says an Amish author. “There is a need to choose only those that will be of genuine benefit, and to reject those that break down the values we uphold. This would apply to modern appliances and household gadgets, many of which have the potential to change our family and community-oriented way of life in ways we may not realize until the damage has been done.”
3
As we noted in Chapter Four, the
Ordnung
consists of the church’s collective interpretation of issues the Bible doesn’t directly address. The rules of the
Ordnung
pertaining to technology, dress, and lifestyle shape the Amish way of life. These understandings—whether to play musical instruments, wear neckties, install wall-to-wall carpeting, and so on—are Amish applications of biblical principles for daily living. Because the Amish believe that the Bible speaks directly to such issues as fraud, murder, divorce, and fornication, the
Ordnung
is not needed for them. Nor does the
Ordnung
address things the Amish consider obviously wrong, such as gambling, or clearly harmless, like eating pizza.
Some issues are not easily or quickly resolved. On contentious matters, such as telephones, which one grandmother claimed were “on probation” for several decades in her
Gmay
, decisions evolve slowly. Once a practice gels, however, it becomes wedded to religious tradition when the church ratifies the
Ordnung
. This endorsement makes the
Ordnung
rather resistant to change. Nonetheless, the
Ordnung
does flex, albeit slowly, and new convictions are grafted into it as needed.
Because the final say on the
Ordnung
rests with each
Gmay
, the dozens of different answers to the same question create a zigzag pattern of practices across Amish groups. The answers to the question of how to chill food, for example, range from using gas refrigerators to using iceboxes, depending on the community. These practices, passed on by oral tradition, become “the way of our people.” An Amish leader sums it up like this: “Our everyday life cannot be separated from our religion.”
4
Enemy Territory
Amish people see life as a spiritual struggle. As baptismal candidates kneel and confess their faith in Christ, they renounce three things: their self, the devil, and the world.This trio threatens the spiritual well-being of the community: selfishness produces pride and disobedience, the cunning devil with his bag of tricks can lead members astray, and the lure of worldly things can pollute the purity of the church.
“The world,” in the Amish mind, means the values and vices of the dominant society. The deep reservations the Amish have about the world did not begin with them or even with their sixteenth-century Anabaptist ancestors. They originated in the Bible, in texts that leaders often cite, including “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world” (1 John 2:15), “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:17), and perhaps most important, the apostle Paul’s admonition, “Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2).
Stoll, describing Christians as pilgrims on a journey to heaven, writes, “We are in enemy territory, and we dare not linger.”
5
Not all Amish people would call the world “enemy territory,” but most do believe that Satan is an active force for evil in the world. The worldliness of mass society is dangerous precisely because Satan controls it. “Rules of a Godly Life” describes Satan’s cunning tactics to “ensnare” people and control them like a “fowler can hold a bird by one leg.”
6
Amish minister Ben Blank describes how Satan shapes popular culture through music. “Many [people] are filled from early morning to late night with the satanically inspired music of lust and greed,” Blank writes. These sounds “saturate and keep good thinking out of our minds,” which soon “become filled with this garbage, pushing out the good.”
7
Separation from the world, according to the Amish way of thinking, means keeping a cautious distance from the evils of mass culture: violence, promiscuous sex, abortion, war, greed, fraud, divorce, excessive consumption, and so on.
This brings us back to possessions. In the Amish view, possessions and certain types of technology can harm the spiritual well-being of members by luring them into worldly practices. Although a particular possession may not be sinful in itself, an overriding desire for it may interfere with one’s affections for God. Having the possession may also enable its owner to pursue other evils that wouldn’t be possible to pursue otherwise.
Are Cars Immoral?
Although Amish people associate spiritual consequences with certain technological gadgets, they are not anti-technology, nor do they consider technological devices sinful. “A car is not immoral,” a bishop told us, “it’s what it will lead to that’s the problem.”
What do cars lead to? In a word: fragmentation. Explains one Amish writer, “[The car’s] social effect on the American family has been profound, with members heading off in all directions and leading essentially separate lives.” If the
Gmay
were to allow car ownership, “the structure of the community [would] change. Members of the same church may live ten, twenty or even fifty miles apart, attending church faithfully, and yet being totally unattached to the life of the community.”
8
In contrast, horse-drawn transportation holds communities together by slowing the pace and limiting mobility.
Beyond splintering communities, the car, an icon of contemporary Western life, symbolizes speed, independence, status, and power—values that fly in the face of Amish aspirations for community, humility, and simplicity. Indeed, the most defining aspect of Amish identity is their rejection of the car. “It’s the first thing people get when they leave the church,” noted one member. “The automobile has claimed a prominent place in people’s lives,” said an Amish leader, “and men are known and judged by the automobiles they drive. Is it not expedient to remain apart from such a culture as much as possible?”
Because cars are not considered immoral in and of themselves, members often ride in them, hiring non-Amish owners of cars or vans to take them to funerals in faraway communities, on vacations, to out-of-town doctors, and for business travel at home. This use-but-don’t-drive policy strikes some outsiders as hypocritical, but it reveals Amish assumptions about technology. First, major technological decisions rest in the hands of the church, not individuals. Second, because technology is not inherently evil, it can be used with caution. Third, keeping technology at arm’s length is a continual reminder of the dangers lurking near it. In sum, technologies like the car aren’t inherently sinful, but they do pose spiritual perils. In the face of such perils, the church’s wisdom is the best defense.
Pulling the Plug
If, as the Amish claim, cars expose their owners to worldly perils, so too does the electric current pulsing through modern homes. Significantly, one of the chief Amish concerns about electricity echoes their concern about the car: fragmentation. “The unlimited use of electric current puts a world of power . . . at our fingertips that is not good for us,” writes one Amish leader, because the conveniences it runs “tend to disperse the family throughout the house in the evenings instead of encouraging togetherness and communication.” The Amish also know that electric current would likely bring an avalanche of household conveniences—computers, televisions, microwaves, and many other items—that would disrupt their lives. Because hooking up to the public grid would connect Amish people too directly to the outside world, very few of the eighteen hundred Amish congregations allow tapping electricity that way.