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And that's not all. Consider the list of core values of these groups' "Old Order" branches given by scholar Don Kraybill and Carl Desportes Bowman in their acclaimed book On the Back Road to Heaven (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001):

Kraybill and Bowman teach us that whatever odd things we may see on the surface of their culture, whatever riddles of inconsistency they seem to present, Christians in the Old Order branches of the Anabaptist groups mentioned are above all (1) relational, (2) practical, (3) constant, and (4) gentle. All of these values, I'd argue, are distinctly medieval.

(1) For the Old Orders, love is not an individual, subjective, personal feeling, but a matter of "bonds of intimacy in community." Members in these groups use the term "brethren" to refer to their coreligionists. The texture of their life together is one of "spiritual kinship, close relations, and a transparent lack of privacy." This more closely mirrors the loyalty-based social and church of medieval society than it does the atomized society and individualistic churches of the modern West.

(2) As in medieval faith, the Old Orders live the truth taught in the Book of James, that "faith without works is dead." For these practical Christians, "one's manner of living outweighs concerns about proper belief. … One is not saved by grace alone but also and especially by responding to grace through daily acts of obedience." Thus, for example, "religious education occurs through observation and apprenticeship rather than through books and formal instruction," a method that "only works, however, when children live in an extended family ensconced in a stable community."

This is one of the hardest aspects of the Older Order ethos for highly educated, word-centered Protestant Moderns to "get": "Old Order faith is in many ways more a matter of habit than of systematic inquiry or theological reflection." One might say, in a jargon currently popular among academic theologians, that Amish faith is embodied, both in each "member" and in the larger "body" of the faith community.

(3) The Old Orders value constancy above innovation or novelty. They take pleasure in repeated patterns of life, greetings, and rituals: "Dress is old-fashioned, worship patterns are ancient, and songs are old." Compare this to "moderns, who are fascinated by novelty." To the Old Orders, as Kraybill says in another context (The Riddle of Amish Culture, revised ed., Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), "faster looks frenetic, bigger seems burdensome, and novel often appears naïve or unnecessary." This distrust of innovation is another hallmark shared with medieval Christendom.

(4) Finally, the Old Orders discipline themselves in a gentle way of life: As for the medieval monastics, pride is the worst of the deadly sins. Against it, the Amish cultivate a quiet and humble spirit. The loud, emotive displays of modern charismatic worship, for example, would be "unthinkable" among these plain and serious folk. "Elated praises and testimonies of personal religious experience fail to impress them." What does impress them is "gentleness, steadfastness, and devout living."

Comparing the Old Orders to other ethnic-religious communities, Kraybill and Bowman sum up: "Most ethnic groups tend to embrace core American values—individual rights, moral autonomy, competition, success, participation in government, national defense, and the yearning for progress and material improvement. Old Orders, on the other hand, reject the cultural core, calling it 'carnal.'"

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July (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48