On October 2, 2006, a gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, entered the Nickel Mines School, a one-room schoolhouse for Amish children in Lancaster County, where he killed five girls before taking his own life. When the Amish community responded by emphasizing forgiveness, and offered care to the man’s widow, the action received widespread international attention that continues today. (For a further exploration of this emphasis on forgiveness, see the OUTLOOK review of the book, “Amish Grace” in the September 8, 2008, issue.)
At the same time, there is evidence of remarkable expansion in the past 16 years by the Amish, who are Anabaptists and who stand out because they drive horse-pulled-buggies, shun electricity and live in rural settlements. There has also been strong international interest in the Amish, say researchers at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at the Elizabethtown College.
A Young Center study found that the North American Amish population has nearly doubled since 1992 and now totals an estimated 227,000, found in 28 U.S. states and in the Canadian province of Ontario that borders the United States.
Anabaptists (which means “re-baptizers”) was originally a pejorative term for radical 16th century European Protestant religious reformers and dissenters who stressed the need for believer’s baptism, which meant to baptize Christian believers, even those who had been baptized as infants.
The Anabaptists moved from Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries and founded communities in the U.S. states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana. Their descendants are now found in religious groups such as the Amish, Hutterites, and Mennonites.
“Right after the shootings we were flooded with questions,” Young Center researcher Steve Scott told Ecumenical News International. “And on the subject of forgiveness, we’ve seen even more interest than the shootings,” he said, noting the centre gets constant questions about the Amish concept of forgiveness and it also receives frequent requests for speakers to address the subject.
Scott said in one morning he might, for example, receive a phone call from a government specialist in the state of Washington requesting information about the growth of an Amish community there, another call from a reporter in Pennsylvania asking about the exodus of Amish into other states in search of more farmland, and even a call from a reporter in Japan.
Japanese find Amish compelling because of their emphasis on tradition, work ethic, and honor for the aged, he said.
“The shootings put the Amish in the spotlight like nothing else has,” Scott told ENI.
As well as English, Amish speak a German dialect called Pennsylvania Dutch or Pennsylvania German.
According to the study, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana continue to be the geographic centre for the Amish, accounting for about two-thirds of the faith’s population. They also accounted for more than half of the total population gain. Since 1992, Amish communities have been founded in the states of Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Mississippi, and West Virginia. Meanwhile the Amish population grew 400 percent in Virginia, 200 percent in Kentucky, and 150 percent in Montana.
The Amish growth is due, in large part, to having large families of five children on average. They also have an 80 percent retention rate among their young adults. More than half the Amish population is under 21. Only a small portion of the increase is due to conversions to the faith.
Amish remain attracted to areas with relatively cheap farms, a rural lifestyle, and non-farming jobs such as construction or cabinet making that fit their values and allow them to remain independent.
