GUEST COMMENTARY: Forgiveness the Amish Way

c. 2006 Religion News Service (UNDATED) The blood was hardly dry on the bare-board floor of the West Nickel Mines School when Amish parents sent words of forgiveness to the family of the man who had killed their children. Forgiveness? So quickly and for such a heinous crime? Why and how could the Amish do […]

c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) The blood was hardly dry on the bare-board floor of the West Nickel Mines School when Amish parents sent words of forgiveness to the family of the man who had killed their children.

Forgiveness? So quickly and for such a heinous crime? Why and how could the Amish do such a thing so quickly?


The Amish are better equipped to process grief than many other Americans. Their faith sees even tragic events under the canopy of divine providence _ having a higher purpose or meaning hidden from human sight at first glance. Such religious resolve enables them to move forward without the paralysis of analysis, letting that rest in the hands of God.

Second, their historic habits of mutual aid, such as the barn raising, arise from their understanding that Christian teaching compels them to care for each other. This is why they reject commercial insurance and government-funded Social Security.

In moments of disaster, the resources of this socio-spiritual capital spring into action. Meals are brought to grieving families. Neighbors milk cows and care for other daily chores. Hundreds of friends and neighbors visit the home of the bereaved to share quiet words and simply the gift of presence. After the burial, adult women who have lost a close family member wear a black dress in public for as long as a year to signal their mourning and welcome visits of support.

Make no mistake: The pain of death is sharp, searing the hearts of Amish mothers and fathers like it would any other parents.

But why forgiveness? Surely some anger _ at least some grudge _ is justifiable in the face of such a slaughter.

A frequent phrase in Amish life is “forgive and forget.” That’s the recipe for responding to Amish members who transgress Amish rules, if they confess their failures. Amish forgiveness also reaches to outsiders, even to killers of their children.

Amish roots stretch back to the Anabaptist movement at the time of the Protestant Reformation in 16th-century Europe. Hundreds of Anabaptists were burned at the stake, decapitated and tortured because they contended that individuals should have the freedom to make decisions about religious faith. This insistence that the church, not the state, had the authority to decide matters like the age of baptism laid the foundation for our modern notion of religious liberty and the separation of church and state.


Anabaptist martyrs emphasized yielding one’s life completely to God, even to death in the face of torture. Songs by imprisoned Anabaptists, recorded in the “Ausbund,” the Amish hymnbook, are regularly used in Amish church services today. The 1,200-page “Martyrs Mirror,” first printed in 1660, which tells the martyr stories, is found in many Amish houses and cited by preachers in their sermons.

The martyr testimony springs from the example of Jesus, the cornerstone of Amish faith. Like other Anabaptists, the Amish take the life and teachings of Jesus seriously. Without formal creeds, their simple (but not simplistic) faith accents living in the way of Jesus, rather than comprehending the complexities of religious doctrine.

Their model is the suffering Jesus, who carried his cross without complaint, and who, hanging on the cross, extended forgiveness to his tormentors: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Beyond his example, the Amish try to practice Jesus’ admonitions to turn the other cheek, to love one’s enemies, to forgive 70 times 7, and to leave vengeance to the Lord.

Retaliation and revenge are not part of their vocabulary.

As pragmatic as they are about other things, the Amish do not ask if forgiveness works; they simply seek to practice it as the Jesus way of responding to adversaries, even enemies.

Forgiveness is woven into the fabric of Amish faith. And that is why words of forgiveness were sent to the killer’s family before the blood had dried on the schoolhouse floor. It was just the natural thing to do, the Amish way of doing things.

Such courage to forgive has jolted the watching world as much as the killing itself. The transforming power of forgiveness may be one redeeming thing that flows from the blood that was shed in Nickel Mines last week.


KRE/LF END KRAYBILL

(Donald B. Kraybill, distinguished professor at Elizabethtown College in Lancaster County, Pa., has written numerous books on Amish life, including “The Riddle of Amish Culture.” He can be contacted at news(at)newhouse.com.)Editors: To obtain a file photo of Donald Kraybill, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.

A version of this story is also being transmitted by Newhouse News Service.

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