Mennonite Weekly Review

On my desk is An Amish Paradox: Diversity and Change in the World’s Largest Amish Community, by Charles E. Hurst and David L. McConnell, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2010, 356 pages, $30.

Levi Miller

Most of the flood of books about the Amish have been based on the Lancaster County, Pa., community, and recently on Indiana. Almost 50 years have elapsed since a book-length study has been made of the largest and most diverse Amish community: the Holmes County, Ohio, settlement (which includes Wayne, Tuscarawas and Coshocton counties as well).

Sociologist Charles Hurst and anthropologist David McConnell reflect on Amish diversity and change during the past half century. In the 1960s there were mainly the Old Orders and a conservative Sam Yoder minority, today known as the Swartzentrubers. Today, in addition to the majority Old Order church districts (140), there are Andy Weavers (30), Swartzentrubers (14) and the small but influential New Orders (18). As a point of comparison, altogether with the smaller groups, the Holmes County settlement has 221 church districts, compared to Lancaster’s 175 and Elkhart-LaGrange’s 136.

The newest are the New Order groups, which emerged in the 1960s and contribute to Amish life a more expressive Christianity with explicit evangelical beliefs and a greater emphasis on Bible study, such as instituting Sunday school on alternate Sundays.

The second contribution of the New Orders was to reform the behavior expectations among members, eliminated smoking and chewing tobacco and reduced youthful rowdyism and traditional customs of bed courtship. The authors note that these New Order innovations can be seen as more conservative than the Old Order traditionals, even though the New Order is more liberal regarding the use of modern technology — one of the many Amish paradoxes.

The New Order schisms emerged out of theological and mission impulses, and eventually the New Order identity also became pronounced in material ways: more colorful dress of men and women; telephones in the house; and use of buggies with rubber tires and sliding doors (as opposed to steel rims and curtains for doors).

The Swartzentrubers rejected such innovations, but the larger Old Order groups have incorporated elements of the New Order agenda: for example, greater expressiveness about beliefs such as a new-birth experience and assurance of salvation, and increased activity in mission and outreach — albeit mediated within an Amish economy.

The authors draw special attention to how the Amish deal with internal and external change. In the 1950s, for example, the Amish were mainly farmers. Today they thrive on three main businesses: farming (recently gaining in organic); manufacturing (especially furniture); and tourism. Less known may be the fact that Amish have ventured into diverse new businesses, such as dog breeding, deer farming, salvage stores, greenhouses, produce auctions, real estate, accounting and auctioneering.

The authors observe Amish interchange with North American culture. Large and thriving Mennonite congregations such as Berlin, Kidron, Walnut Creek and Martins Creek are in the Holmes County community. This book can help readers understand the deeper Anabaptist context of these congregations.

Hurst and McConnell point out that the traditional Swartzentrubers remain a kind of standard or point of reference for the other Amish groups. Perhaps, in a similar way, the Amish themselves serve as that kind of model for many Mennonites, especially in regard to biblical virtues such as humility, thrift, equality, nonresistance and community. The authors quote a successful Amish businessman, who said appreciatively of the Swartzentrubers’ influence: “They help us keep the brakes applied just because they are here.”

Levi Miller, a former editor at Mennonite Publishing Network, grew up in Holmes County, Ohio.