Amish,Banking and the economic crisis

On Gods Politics Blog this morning an interesting reflection on one bank in the USA that is having its best year ever - the bank's customers are Amish and the only time they use credit is to buy a farm. According Ryan Roderick Beiler:

This morning, a report on NPR about how the Amish do banking and finance has me asking, “What if the Amish were in charge of the economy? Or the bailout? Or–irony intended–the auto industry? Now I’m fully aware that the Amish are certainly not perfect in all they do, but as many bloggers in our special focus on the economic crisis have pointed out, values of simplicity, frugality, plus a sense of personal and communal responsibility would have gone a long way toward avoiding the mess we’re in. That goes both for folks who borrowed and spent beyond their means and the corporations who predatorily encouraged them to do so while creating the shell-game-hall-of-mirrors-house-of-cards-fill-in-your-own-metaphor-for-unaccountable-lies-and-greed.

And in Australia low to middle income earners are being urged to spend the money just donated to them by the government - we don't care what you spend it on really - just spend... your job may depend upon it. Sadly that may be true but the problem is that such a course of action offers us no way to begin building the habits we need to acquire to get us out of the addictive consumerism that the economy runs on.

Amish as counter cultural?

In the closing appendix on the Amish society, in Amish Grace: How Gorgiveness Transcended Tragedy, the authors draw the following conclusions about Amish society, conclusions that make clear how at odds they are with the wider society.

The conflict between cultures and forms of life between the Amish and the US vision of the good life brings to mind the level of mutual incomprehension that can arise between consumerist Australian society's taken for granted view of the good life and the indigenous account of connection and responsibility to country and kin.

For all their limitations:... the Amish have developed a remarkably stable society. With little government aid they provide care and dignity for the elderly and disabled members. Apart from occasional arrests for alcohol or drug abuse among their youth, Amish communities have avoided many of the blights of modern life. With only a few exceptions, they have no homeless of unemployed members and no one living on government subsidies. virtually no Amish people sit in prison ... (More remarkable in the US than in Australia where 1% of the population are in prison) ... and only occasionally do Amish couples divorce. All things considered, they have created a humane society, despite their lack of high school education, professional training and a full embrace of technology.

The Amish have learned to live within limits. Indeed they would argue that setting and respecting limits on almost every thing is one of the foundations of wisdom. Limits for the Amish are a necessary requirement for human happiness. Without limits, the Amish believe, individuals become arrogant, conceited and self-destructive. To be sure, restraints diminish individual freedom, personal choices and various forms of self-expression.At the ame time some would say they grant greater dignity and security in the individual than the endless choices offered by modern life. (pp.202-3)

The Politics of Forgiveness

Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy
Donald B. Kraybill, Steven M. Nolt, David L. Weaver-Zercher, 2007

This is moving account of the violence at Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, that goes on to explore the practices that underlay the extension of forgiveness by the amish community.

This exploration by sympathetic academics from their ecclesial cousins, the Mennonites raises deep questions about the politics assumptions that underlies the liberal consumerist society.

The Amish, while on some accounts have practised a sectarian withdrawal from contemporary society, have lived out another political option that makes reasoned choices about what technologies they will use and practices of life that make forgiveness possible.

In a culture that places such a premium on buying and selling, as opposed to giving and receiving, forgiveness runs against the grain.

Running against that grain, finding alternative ways to imagine our world, ways that in turn will facilitate forgiveness, takes more than individual will power. ... We need to consturct cultures that values and nurture forgiveness. In their own way the Amish have constructed such an environment. p.182

Forgiveness and violencehttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

The massacre of Amish chldren in the school house at Nickel Mines in October 2006 brought an unusual degree of media focus on this community that has its roots in the Anabaptist strand of the Reformation in the early 16th century.

The early gestures of forgiveness by the members of the community towards the family of the man who committed the murders aroused a response of incredulity from US media in particular.

A year later we have the results of an investigation by sociologists that demonstrates how deeply rooted were the habits and practices of the Amish community that underpinned those gestures of forgiveness.

Following the 2 October 2006 shooting that killed five Amish girls and wounded five others in the USA, three investigators (Dr Donald B. Kraybill, Elizabethtown College, Pennsylvania, Dr Steven M. Nolt, Goshen College, Indiana, and Dr David Weaver-Zercher, Messiah College, Pennsylvania) explored why and how the Amish expressed forgiveness in the wake of the shooting. The research methods involved face-to-face interviews with Amish people to probe their practice of forgiveness. In addition the researchers pursued Amish writings on forgiveness as well as historical examples when Amish people forgave those who wronged them. The investigators also reviewed hundreds of media stories and editorials on Amish forgiveness at Nickel Mines. Finally, the investigation compared Amish practices of forgiveness with broader studies of forgiveness in American society. The research was conducted from 1 November 2006 through to 1 April 2007. The results are summarised below and have been released in the new book Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy (Jossey-Bass, 2007)

A full report of the findings is available on the Ekkelsia Web site:

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/6387

This witness to peacemaking stands as a challenge to the prevailing political cuture that focuses on "being tough" and a church culture that focuses on "feel good meeting of needs"