Are Amish racists?

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Thanks very much, Probably an Aspie!

Splitting over bonnet string color? And I thought we Lutherans had divisions over the damnedest insignificant things!! !! !
(We Lutherans argue over dumb things, like, did Moses really right the first five books of the Bible.)

They are very insular people, so it would be difficult to pinpoint if they're intolerant in any way.

Um, TimTex, there are so many layers to it that it is impossible to pin down whether or not they are "intolerant." It is totally a moot point.

If you want to belong to the Amish or Mennonite church, you have to follow the rules of the church. So in this, they are "intolerant." If that is the label you want to assign to it. But *any* group has rules of inclusivity or exclusivity. If you want to belong, you follow the rules. Whether you want to belong to a religion or the Lions' Club. Or the Boy Scouts or the fire company. You name it. If there were no rules or parameters, what would be the point of membership in anything?

Do the Amish and Mennonites exclude a particular race intentionally? Just because of race or skin color? No, absolutely, not ever, in my experience. Have I experienced the whole of the Amish and Mennonite community around the world? No. but I do have more experience with them than the average John or Jane Q. Public, and I have a more objective view of the whole culture (IMO, anyway) due to not being totally inundated in Mennonite and/or Amish culture anymore.

My educated opinion is that the Amish and Mennonites are in no way racist. You can read my previous posts on this thread to see my experience and decide whether I seem to know what I am talking about. I believe I do.

I've gone to areas that have large Amish and Mennonite populations. I never got the impression that they were anything but private, and that they liked to stick to their community. It has more to do with religion and tradition than anything else, as far as I can tell.

They interact with non-Amish to do business, but that's about it. They were always polite and seemed very reserved, but not unkind. I'm not sure why anyone would think that they are racist.

You're welcome. This kind of stuff brings out the historian in me. Educating the WP world one post at a time. Lol.

[quote="Kraichgauer

Splitting over bonnet string color? And I thought we Lutherans had divisions over the damnedest insignificant things!! ! ! !
(We Lutherans argue over dumb things, like, did Moses really right the first five books of the Bible.)[/quote]

Actually, IMO, authorship of the Bible is pertinent discussion in church. But that is beside the point--what happens in the plainer churches is that the Bible passages about submitting to authority are taken to the N-th degree. To mean that the church members must be completely submissive to the decisions of the church leadership. So all it takes is one minister or bishop who has a strong opinion, strong personality, and the ability to effectively split hairs. And he has the Bible on his side, according to what they are teaching.

I was indoctrinated with the Mennonite theology as a child--I would call it Christianity but not Christianity strictly speaking, due to the fact that the Bible is often secondary to Mennonite tradition and used to support the traditional Mennonite theology. As an adult I have become a searching Bible scholar in order to separate the baby from the bath water without throwing both out in one fell swoop. I do believe in the Bible--as for Mennonite culture, I also think there is value to it. But I do not buy Mennonite theology or culture hook, line, and sinker.

I could go into what passages they are using, how these are cherry-picked and taken out of context to support the theology that they deem important, and how it is used to keep people in the church and get families to raise their children in the church. (Because, for the perpetuation of a society, that is what you have to do if you do not have a lot of new people coming in.) But that would take another extremely long post.

The broader Mennonite church which is less conservative does have more new converts; the plainer Mennonite churches who keep to themselves and encourage their members to only marry within the church need to keep their members and members' families in the church or it will die out. The practice of little or no birth control is pretty effective. Some kids leave but many stay. Or they "sow their wild oats" during their Rumschpringe, or "running around" years, and then become church members when they get married and have children.

My husband had several plain Mennonite buddies he worked with who got rid of their cars, cellphones, and other "worldly" stuff to replace it with horsepower for farming and transportation, straw hats, and suspenders. One of the guys told me it was a hard decision and terribly hard to give up his car which he loved, but he wanted to raise his children in the church because it was "the right thing to do." I could identify. For the longest time after leaving my plain dresses behind and wearing jeans, cutting my hair, and other "worldly" vices...I felt like I was doing wrong. Playing hooky from school or something. I have gotten over it by now, but the pull of the culture is strong. I still sometimes feel awkward around plain Mennonite people, except for a few friends who are very close and don't care that they are plain and I am not.

Actually, IMO, authorship of the Bible is pertinent discussion in church. But that is beside the point--what happens in the plainer churches is that the Bible passages about submitting to authority are taken to the N-th degree. To mean that the church members must be completely submissive to the decisions of the church leadership. So all it takes is one minister or bishop who has a strong opinion, strong personality, and the ability to effectively split hairs. And he has the Bible on his side, according to what they are teaching.

I was indoctrinated with the Mennonite theology as a child--I would call it Christianity but not Christianity strictly speaking, due to the fact that the Bible is often secondary to Mennonite tradition and used to support the traditional Mennonite theology. As an adult I have become a searching Bible scholar in order to separate the baby from the bath water without throwing both out in one fell swoop. I do believe in the Bible--as for Mennonite culture, I also think there is value to it. But I do not buy Mennonite theology or culture hook, line, and sinker.

I could go into what passages they are using, how these are cherry-picked and taken out of context to support the theology that they deem important, and how it is used to keep people in the church and get families to raise their children in the church. (Because, for the perpetuation of a society, that is what you have to do if you do not have a lot of new people coming in.) But that would take another extremely long post.

The broader Mennonite church which is less conservative does have more new converts; the plainer Mennonite churches who keep to themselves and encourage their members to only marry within the church need to keep their members and members' families in the church or it will die out. The practice of little or no birth control is pretty effective. Some kids leave but many stay. Or they "sow their wild oats" during their Rumschpringe, or "running around" years, and then become church members when they get married and have children.

My husband had several plain Mennonite buddies he worked with who got rid of their cars, cellphones, and other "worldly" stuff to replace it with horsepower for farming and transportation, straw hats, and suspenders. One of the guys told me it was a hard decision and terribly hard to give up his car which he loved, but he wanted to raise his children in the church because it was "the right thing to do." I could identify. For the longest time after leaving my plain dresses behind and wearing jeans, cutting my hair, and other "worldly" vices...I felt like I was doing wrong. Playing hooky from school or something. I have gotten over it by now, but the pull of the culture is strong. I still sometimes feel awkward around plain Mennonite people, except for a few friends who are very close and don't care that they are plain and I am not.[/quote]

I doubt I'd make it a whole day in the Mennonite faith.
For instance, I disagree with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod's official stance on evolution and gay marriage (and I'm not the only one), but no one expects me to give unswerving obedience, save on specific doctrine, such as Christ's dual nature as God and man, the Trinity, and salvation by grace.
Incidentally, I've never doubted that Mennonites were real Christians.

[quote="Kraichgauer]

Incidentally, I've never doubted that Mennonites were real Christians.[/quote]

I can't presume to know anyone's heart. Only know what I see on the outside. That said, I know lots of Mennonites whom I believe to be real Christians, from what I see of their lives. I grew up with a lot of them in my family.

However, my brother works with some plainer folks--horse and buggy people--who told him that they do not read their Bibles, because they believe we are responsible to God to follow what we know. Therefore, the less they know, the less of their actions they are responsible for. So they don't read their Bibles. Something seems wrong with this reasoning, to me. If I were to question whether some Mennonites are Christians or not...I might be likely to question the ones who see their Christianity in this way.

I'm glad it's not up to me to sift out people's hearts and decide eternal fate.

And believe me, from all of the line breeding through marriage (first cousin to first cousin, etc.), that goes on in Southern Lancaster county, they have plenty of problems in a rapidly diminishing gene pool. I'm surprised autism hasn't cropped up in their genetic makeup. Of course, we're only talking about a small segment of the Amish population, namely the so-called Old-Order Amish. The newer orders of Amish, you couldn't tell the difference between them and the Mennonites. As an aside, at least the Mennonites are willing to give their fellow humans a helping hand in times of disaster.

That certainly is an odd reason not to read the Bible.

I am from a Mennonite family in a small rural community who has married within their local Mennonite church for 150 years until my generation. (I told my husband when I first met him, that if he was in our local history/geneology book tracing my family line that I couldn't date him. It sounded like a joke, but I meant it.) Myself and most of my cousins have married spouses outside of our local gene pool. My brother's wife's family is in our local geneology book though.

My parents are double third cousins (3rd cousins through my paternal grandmother's lineage and also through my maternal grandfather's lineage) and while we are not all diagnosed, it is pretty safe to say there is most definitely autism in our gene pool. I have 1 kid diagnosed and 1 that I suspect but have chosen not to pursue diagnosis for, for various reasons; my cousin has 2 kids with autism; my dad's cousins have at least 2 kids diagnosed with autism (these children would be my 2nd cousins). If you did a study on my dad's family, a good case could be made for my great-grandparents (both my grandmother's parents had aspergers-like symptoms that severely disrupted their lives at times, my grandmother, and at least 5 of her 7 children having some degree of aspergers or high functioning autism. My dad and my youngest aunt seem to be the most severely affected of their generation.

There are doctors who specialize in the genetic diseases of the Amish. I have friends from Amish background whose cousins have been seen by a Lancaster area dr for a liver condition that is prevalent to the Amish genetic pool. I forget his name though.

The cases such as my family do not receive a lot of attention because, in the greater scheme of things, the medical community don't really care or don't see the possibilities. A lot of Mennonites don't go to the dr unless they absolutely need to.

It might be an interesting study, but is it going to help anyone a lot? Well, maybe. My family is not unique to the Mennonite community; I think there are other genetic studies that could be done amongst those of us with straighter family trees. Mennonite communities would be great for this because a lot are interested in history and geneology and there is a lot of data on such things.

I think you're a good, sensible, smart woman.

Your husband is lucky to have you as his wife.

Well, thanks! I am not sure if that is on topic, but thank you for the nice compliment. I think he agrees with you...at least most of the time. Lol.

Meistersinger, I thought the first cousin marriages, even among the Old Order Amish, were nixed by now. As in, legally can't happen. I could be wrong. However, since up till a very few generations ago, they were common, the damage is done for a lot of people.

What we see in a lot of our Mennonite families now are the "double cousins." I have several relatives who fall into this category. A young man sees a young lady who catches his eye, and as the families get to know each other, the young lady's brother sees that his sister's boyfriend has a sister who is young, pretty and unattached. He asks her for a date. Within the next few years, you have two new families with 4 or 5 kiddos each and these kids would be what I would term "double cousins" as they are related on both their mother's and father's sides of the family...not as damaging to genetics of children as first cousin marriages, but still keeps the gene pool small.

Surprisingly, first-cousin marriages are legal in at least some states in the United States--perhaps most states.

I see Meistersinger is from Pa so I am assuming he is referring to his home state. According to the following link that breaks it down by state, PA does not allow first cousin marriages under any circumstances. There are some that do, some that don't, and some that allow it only if there is almost no chance of children resulting from such marriages.

http://www.ncsl.org/research/human-serv ... cousi.aspx

I never looked it up, just was going on my assumption and what I heard others say. It is a topic that comes up from time to time in Mennonite circles (obviously). Now I know.