For generations, the Amish have lived in central Pennsylvania, an hour or two by car west of my home, tending their farms on some of the most fertile soil in the United States. This sect originated in Switzerland, where its members were severely persecuted for their religious beliefs. They started emigrating to the United States in the early 18th century, initially to the colony of Pennsylvania because of its reputation for religious tolerance. They brought with them an essentially 17th century European rural agricultural society, which they maintain to this day.
By any definition, the Amish are religious extremists. They reject nearly all of western technology and culture. They use no electricity. They dress plainly in homemade clothing. They have no phones, no cars, and no mechanized farm equipment; the sight of families traveling the highways and back roads in their horse-drawn buggies and farmers plowing their fields with teams of horses are iconic images from "Amish country" in Pennsylvania. They do not believe in insurance, nor do they accept social security. They never seek or accept public assistance. They do not engage in political discourse. They neither exploit nor care about their considerable "tourist value." They distance themselves from outsiders whenever possible, and defy the peculiarly American notion that anybody who looks "primitive" must also enjoy being photographed by tourists. They worship in their own homes, in small religious communities. There are a number of sub-sects, with differences that seem inconsequential from the outside but are clearly significant from the inside. Male and female roles are strictly defined, with limited options. Their religious leaders, always men, exercise a great deal of power. Young Amish are discouraged from leaving their faith and rarely do so. Amish rarely marry outside their faith and only very rarely allow outsiders to join their communities.
Their religion is centered around an unshakable belief in the intervention of God in human affairs – that the world functions according to the will of God even if humans cannot discern its meaning. They school their own children, teaching them little more than what is required to study their faith and run their farms, homes, and small businesses such as woodworking and harness making. Their teachers are always Amish – almost always young unmarried women. At least in Pennsylvania, these schools and their teachers are permitted to operate without state regulation or oversight, a stunning feat of official tolerance in a country where public education for all children is universally mandated and highly regulated by local, state, and federal government.
In Pennsylvania and a few other states, the "Plain People" have lived for generations, in peaceful and mostly gracious coexistence with their neighbors. (It is still annoying to be stuck behind a horse-drawn buggy in heavy traffic.) But, they remain certainly the most unassimilated community in the country. Their insular way of life is totally foreign to almost all of the rest of us, and is much more mysterious than the cultures of those other "outsiders" of whom our country is currently so suspicious.
In response to the contemporary world, I can't help but note how much this embedded but separate culture has in common with Islamic extremism – from its "God's will" world view, to its embracing of strict religious and cultural practices that separate its adherents from the rest of society in a multitude of ways, both externally obvious and internally unfathomable, to its schools, which serve essentially the same purpose as madrassas in Islamic culture.
How do these parallels fare in 2006? A week ago, a local non-Amish man from a small, predominantly Amish community in Pennsylvania went to a one-room Amish school, held all the girls hostages, planning to sexually molest them, and ended up shooting 10 of them, of which 5 have died at the time I write this. According to one of the survivors, one of the older Amish girls asked this man to shoot her first and spare the younger children. He did so, but didn't spare the others. Although the man was an outsider, he was well known in the community, as he collected milk from Amish farmers and delivered it to dairies for processing (remember that the Amish do not drive). He was a "family man" with children, tormented by memories of the death of his premature first-born daughter several years ago and who knows what other internal demons. When authorities arrived (passersby called the state police from cell phones – remember that the Amish do not use phones), the man shot and killed himself.
What was the response of this community of religious extremists? Did they exact revenge by attacking and killing their non-Amish neighbors and destroying their farms? Did they declare a holy war against "the English" and demand the death of their leaders and the obliteration of their communities? Did they rant against the depravity and violence of non-Amish culture and insist the rest of us must embrace their way of life? Did they demand a separate Amish state on the land where they have lived for generations? Did others have to beg them to consider living with their neighbors, even if only in a state of barely suspended warfare?
No.
The first and nearly only response from the Amish community was forgiveness. (Their only other public response was to ask to be left alone.) Their religion teaches simply and absolutely that all humans are sinners and that forgiveness of others is a prerequisite to attaining God’s personal forgiveness. It is hard for me to believe that all reactions from individual Amish were equally charitable, as they, too, are human. (For all I know, I am wrong about this.) But, forgiveness in action, not just in words, was the community response. Amish representatives visited the wife of the killer, asked what they could do to help, and assured her that she and her children were welcome to stay in the community. In cooperation with the local volunteer fire department (a cherished and influential institution in rural America) relief funds have been established both for the Amish victims' families (who will probably not accept the funds for themselves because of their deep-seated commitment to self-reliance) and for the killer's family. Dozens of Amish attended not only the funerals of their own children, but also the killer's funeral. The image in our local newspaper of a long line of horse-drawn Amish buggies traveling to this funeral is stunning in its quiet beauty and power.
Forgiveness is a hard concept for us to wrap our minds around in the 21st century. It is a notion simple in theory and fundamental to Judeo-Christian and other cultures. But, in a world dominated by the relentless sysyphian struggle to "get even," it seems hopelessly naive and quaint. One searches in vain to observe it in practice, in individuals or communities, with or without a religious gloss. It is nearly impossible to contemplate coping with the recent events by offering forgiveness as the first step toward moving beyond tragedy. Nonetheless, this is what is happening. It is an event that should reverberate around the world, but almost certainly won't. If it did, the world would be an immeasurably better place. If it doesn't, the world is thereby impoverished by its inattention.