The Amish see this attitude and habit of
uffgevva
exemplified by Jesus Christ, who willingly surrendered his life for the sake of others. “Christ was a king who lived and acted as a servant,” explains Kline. “He submitted himself to God so completely that he never tried to do his own will by using his power to manipulate and force others.” For Kline, “It is the church’s intention and calling to give this principle bodily form by living it out in everyday life.”
The way sermons are delivered also demonstrates the value the Amish place on submission. Amish ministers begin their sermons by confessing how unfit they feel to preach. And they conclude with a similar act of humility: asking the other ordained men present to correct any errors in their homilies.These customs, followed by ministers in every church service, signal that all members, including leaders, must submit themselves to some other authority.
The importance of submitting to others reveals itself in other ways as well. As worship concludes and members reassemble for a noon meal, they take their seats at tables in an order prescribed by gender, age, and seniority (in the case of leaders).The children watch and learn. Unlike many American children, they do not race to the front of the food line but wait patiently for their turn. Except for the very young, who are served fairly quickly, children eat after the adults have finished. The lesson of waiting has been ingrained in children long before they’re teenagers, for training in
uffgevva
begins at an early age.
At occasions such as funerals, weddings, and community gatherings, where people’s ages may not be known, men and women whisper, “You go first,” “No, you,” as they quietly defer to others. Even when traveling to church services, one mother noted, “It’s an unspoken rule to never pass another buggy if you get behind a family with a slow horse. We are taught to be patient and not rush ahead of others.”
The habits of humility mean that Amish people usually show reserve in their interactions with others. They often hesitate a moment before answering questions, resist posing for individual pictures, and decline to be quoted by name in newspaper stories lest they stand out or seem to be speaking for others. “In no way, whether in dress, behavior or attitude may a person raise himself above his fellows,” Kline explains. “Only in this way is he able to be a part of a brotherhood.”
Boxer Shorts or Briefs?
The Amish emphasis on
uffgevva
helps explain their practice of plain dress. Deacon Kline put it like this: “Most people in the world wear their clothes to enhance their reputation or to show off their bodies or to demonstrate their wealth.” But doing this, he said, “is an expression of self-will” in which a person “tries to raise himself above his fellows. Our dress should show self-surrender.” Of course, “every individual could decide his own standard of plainness, and some churches do this . . . [but] self-will must be yielded. . . . If it would be each individual’s idea, then it would still be of the self.”
Our explanation of
uffgevva
should not be carried too far. Although Amish society discourages individualism, it certainly does not extinguish all individual expression. Amish people have distinct likes and dislikes, personal preferences, and sometimes strong opinions. There is room aplenty for individual expression and creativity in the way a garden is planted, for example, or the colors and pattern chosen for a quilt. Hobbies such as woodworking or bird watching can be forms of individual expression. And competitive streaks often surface in a game of volleyball or ice hockey.
“The church doesn’t tell us to wear boxer shorts or briefs, to go to McDonald’s or Burger King,” Jesse said. In fact, in his mind, “the idea that Amish give up all freedom of choice and let the community decide everything is a myth. Even if you do decide to let the church decide, that in itself is a choice.”
But the message of self-denial is strong enough that ministers sometimes need to remind members of their individual worth. “Just as the autumn landscape needs all the colors to complete [its] beauty,” one preacher writes, characteristically drawing on an image from the natural world, “in the same way God needs all of us, every single one of us to make His plan complete. He needed someone just like you in His creation.That is why He made you looking like you do, and having the talents that you have.”
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So although Amish people do not expect everyone in their community to look, act, and think exactly alike, the range of individual expression is narrower than that of mainstream society. This communal orientation and these habits of submission shape their beliefs, practices, and affections—even their notion of salvation.
Born Again?
A few weeks after the story of Amish forgiveness at Nickel Mines circled the world, we had a call from a non-Amish friend. “Do you think the Amish are saved?” she asked. “Some members of my church think they aren’t, and I want to know what you think.”
Many religious traditions promise salvation—a way for individuals to be saved from the perilous conditions of this world and to attain life after death. From its beginning, Christianity has located salvation in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Today many Christians, especially evangelical Protestants, describe salvation as being “born again.”
The term
born again
comes from a conversation reported in the New Testament’s Gospel of John between Jesus and a Jewish religious leader named Nicodemus. Jesus told him, “Verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” A bit later, Jesus explained that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:3, 16).
Many Christians believe that these verses present the concept of salvation in a nutshell: those who believe that Jesus is God’s son are “born again” and thus saved. Some Christians, in fact, pose the question, “Are you born again?” to determine the spiritual status of others. When Christian neighbors confront Amish people with that question, the Amish respond in bewilderment. “Of course,” some say, “we teach the new birth all the time!”
f
The Amish use of “new birth,”
die Neugeburt
, in place of “born again” points to a distinctive understanding of Christian salvation.
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In contrast to the individualistic connotation of being born again, the Amish view the new birth as a metaphor for joining a community—the church—much as natural birth brings a person into a biological family. The new birth can’t take place in isolation. And given their awareness of nature, the Amish assume that birth implies pain and hard work. The “miracle of new birth takes place in nature all around us countless times every year,” says one minister. “The small calf or the small colt gasps for its first breath and thrashes around until it can stand on its own feet.” Birth is “a struggle that is anything but easy.”
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Some Christians who use the born again label also emphasize the assurance of salvation, the concept that those who confess their faith in Christ can be certain of their salvation right now, before God’s final judgment. The Amish consider such a claim presumptuous. To them, salvation is a judgment that only God can make at the end of one’s life. For that reason, they prefer to talk about a “living hope” rather than assurance of salvation. In the words of Eli, a midwestern Amish bishop, “We have a living hope. . . . We are in God’s hands. We defer to God.” For the Amish a living hope means a quiet confidence that in the end God will be a merciful and just judge.
Of course, references to a living hope also show that Amish people have confidence in their community’s view of salvation. Although Amish are loath to judge the eternal destiny of others, some, such as Bishop Eli, are willing to explain their approach to salvation.
A One-Track Gospel
We sat in Eli’s home one August evening, listening to the sounds of katydids outside his kitchen window. Obedience to the teachings of Jesus, he explained, is the reason why he rejects a “two-track system of salvation.” By “two-track system” he means a theology that separates belief and obedience, placing personal faith on one track and matters of lifestyle on another. For Eli, salvation is personal but not private. He doesn’t regard church-defined guidelines related to dress, technology, and leisure activities as optional add-ons. “I just don’t like the two-track view of salvation that separates grace from ethics.”
Even as Bishop Eli disapproves of a two-track approach to salvation, some non-Amish Christians criticize the Amish for trying to “earn” their salvation.These critics claim that the Amish way—mandating compliance with church teachings that ban electricity and owning cars, for example—distorts the notion that salvation is God’s gift. Only God’s free grace can save, the critics say, not obedience to the church’s rules. The harshest critics think the Amish risk going to hell unless they embrace a different view of grace.
The Amish argue that such critics have a “narrow view of grace.” Amish people see God’s grace as “inseparably woven into the entire fabric of His relationship to His children—conviction, repentance, conversion, justification, a holy life, discipleship, yieldedness.”
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Another writer in the Amish magazine
Family Life
describes the Christian life as a stone arch holding up a bridge. Perhaps the “priceless verses in the third chapter of John . . . which tell us of the New Birth” are the keystone. But “we need the
complete
Gospel, not just a part. Start removing the stones in a bridge and the whole structure will soon crumble into a useless heap,” he explains.
“There is much said today about accepting Christ as a personal Saviour,” the writer continues. “Many even say that is absolutely all that you have to do to be sure that you are saved; nothing else. If we would follow such a gospel, we could live just about as we pleased. But salvation is not that cheap.” Accepting “Christ as a Saviour from our sins” is necessary, he concludes, but it is just as necessary to “obey His commandments.”
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Although the Amish certainly see Jesus as their savior and friend, they are uncomfortable with a view of Jesus that overlooks obedience to his teachings.
The Amish view of salvation ultimately reaches back to the biblical understanding of the fear of God, a profound sense of respect for a transcendent and holy God. For them, reducing the Christian faith to just a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ” is inadequate in two ways: it shortchanges God’s demand for holy living, and it discounts the importance of a Christian community to help individuals understand and meet that demand. “In the multitude of counselors, there is safety,” said Jesse, citing Proverbs 11:14.
Reading the Bible the Amish Way
This Amish accent on the community can also be seen in their approach to the Bible, which they consider to be God’s word. They believe its contents are literally true, though they rarely use the terms
inerrancy
or
infallibility
to describe it.
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Like many other Christians, Amish people read the Bible as part of their private and personal devotional lives. Many families have morning and evening devotions together, during which the father reads scripture and a prayer from
Christenpflicht
or another Amish prayer book.
But even though they use the Bible in devotional settings, they understand it to be primarily the church’s book, a resource that—like every other part of life—cannot be properly or fully understood by a lone individual, or even by a small group of individuals apart from their local church.Thus schoolteachers read aloud from the Bible at the beginning of the school day, but Bible classes are not part of the school curriculum.
Even within the congregation, the Bible is an authority to be obeyed more than studied or analyzed. David Troyer, a noted nineteenth-century Amish bishop, epitomized this spiritual posture by concluding his religious essays with a paraphrase of Psalm 94:15: “Right must remain right, and to this all the upright in heart will submit.”
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At least one full chapter of the Bible is read aloud in each Amish worship service—much more than is read in most Protestant or Catholic church services—but members do not carry their Bibles to church on Sunday mornings.
Private devotional reading of scripture for personal inspiration is encouraged, but in-depth Bible study that might lead to individualistic interpretations is not. Those who show off their biblical knowledge or claim special revelation for their acts are seen as haughty and divisive because they turn the Bible on its head, using it as a tool for self-interest rather than as an authority to which individuals must surrender. Occasionally, some individuals study the Bible and declare a private revelation, such as “The Lord led
me
to start a new prison ministry program.” “We are not to make the Bible suit our way of thinking,” one minister warns.
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