In my constant search for “clean” reading material to keep me from getting bored in my bedridden state at some point I came across the genre of “Amish romances”. They present life in an Amish community as an idyllic, God-fearing life with a quaint language (Pennsylvania Dutch), marred only by the occasional natural disaster, buggy accident, the quandary of who to court and get married to, and the occasional tension with the “Englische” (the surrounding non-Amish).
On the face of it, that certainly is attractive to me, an Evangelical Christian with some ties to the Anabaptist tradition and a fascination with language, but it very quickly struck me as “too good to be true”.
Not only does wider reading reveal that in many Amish communities and for many Amish people the focus is on tradition and strict conformity to the “Ordnung” (the community’s rule book) rather than on personal faith and discipleship, but of course the Amish, like everyone else, are all sinners, and all manner of sin exist in their communities including jealousy, adultery, failed marriages, dictatorial leadership, domestic abuse and violence, etc., which sometimes even make secular news headlines.
And, as a recent search for “Amish” in Amazon revealed, there is not just the genre of “Amish romances” but also a plethora of books with titles like “Hex and Spellwork: The Magical Practices of the Pennsylvania Dutch“, “Folk Religion of the Pennsylvania Dutch: Witchcraft, Faith Healing and Related Practices”, “Der Volksfreund: Hex Signs, Folktales, and Witchcraft of the Pennsylvania Dutch”, etc. — most by authors with clearly Amish names.
This brings home to me the fact that we should not idealize or idolize any group of humans, for “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Likewise, we should not idealize any past era, because, again, people have always “sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
And everytime we put a man or woman, or a group of people, on a pedestal, they will sooner or later fall off that pedestal and fail to meet our expectations.
Nevertheless, I shall continue to enjoy them, as a welcome counterpoint to the real world with all of its conflicts, division, and violence.