Religious freedom meaningless for Amish teens who are shunned by family and community for making wrong 'choice'
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 02:06PM The Telegraph - U.K. July 23, 2010
Amish teens: pious, prudish - yet remarkably tolerant
Members of the sect have come to the UK for a C4 series. The results are surprising, says Catherine Gee
by Catherine Gee
It’s hard to imagine that there are people living in the USA who have never heard of John Lennon or Marilyn Monroe. But there are – in their hundreds of thousands. The Amish are a strict religious sect, Swiss in origin and now based in the American Midwest, famous for their prudish dress sense, big beards and eschewing of most modern technology. They largely cut themselves off from the rest of society to live in their own communities, devoting their lives to their Christian faith.
But when an Amish child turns 16 they embark on “rumspringa” – a rite of passage that allows them to leave their strict world to experience life on the outside. They then choose whether to be baptised as an adult into the Amish church – to refuse is to be cast out from family and community to live a rather more regular American life. Rumspringa can take years and ends only when the individual believes they are ready to make the choice. It can prove extremely eye-opening for someone so young, sheltered and uneducated as an Amish adolescent – as we see in Amish: the World’s Squarest Teenagers, a new four-part Channel 4 documentary series beginning on Sunday.
In it, a pair of siblings, Leah and Andrew Miller, and Leon Lehman, Becky Shrock and Jerry Miller, each from different Amish communities, all aged between 18 and 23 and all on their rumspringas, are allowed to travel to Britain (planes are usually a no-no) to experience life with four UK families.
Their first visit is to a black family from Kennington, a rough area of south London. The family live in fear of gang violence and drugs, factors outside the experience of the Amish. “I’ve never heard of an Amish person doing a crime,” says Leah, 22, in the film.
Suddenly away from the vast, green open spaces of their homes, the Amish are surrounded by tall buildings and noisy traffic. The sight of the sex shops and brothels in Soho is particularly eye-opening. “It’s hard to understand how people can be so open about something which is so sinful,” remarks Leah, whereas Becky, 18, describes it as “the devil’s territory”.
The group also attend a memorial service for a boy who was stabbed, and visit a group of street dancers who use their hobby to keep themselves away from gang crime. Initially the Amish are shocked by what they see as a rather provocative method of dance, and are fearful of its “rhythm”, but as they spend more time with the other teenagers they become increasingly accepting. “At first I wasn’t sure it was something that I would support,” says Leah. “But I admire them for choosing something that isn’t [about] being a violent person. I think they’ve made a noble choice.”
This position of curiosity, tolerance – and praise, even – is present much of the way through the series, and comes in surprising contrast to the clichéd image held by many that sees members of the sect as obsessively conservative and opposed to every aspect of the modern world. These young people seem remarkably non-judgmental, even when they are shocked.
The series’s producer-director, Claire Whalley, corroborates this by pointing out that there was only one occasion when the teenagers decided not to participate in an activity, and even then it was only two of them. “They were taken to a nightclub in Cornwall and that was the only time that the girls asked to leave,” she says. “There were many incidents where they felt uncomfortable but they chose to stay. For them it was a positive challenge that confirmed their faith and their sense of being Amish.”
This open approach pays dividends – both sets of adolescents, British and American, get on very well. “They play videogames and watch TV, and I’m out in the barn playing with horses but I think it’s great that two people that much different [sic] can still get together and have a blast,” says Amish Jerry, 23.
Their hosts also discover a real respect for the Amish. As one of the Londoners comments, “They’ve taught me there’s more to life than money and girls.” Whether any of the Amish group will choose to abandon their way of life by the end of the series remains to be seen, but it looks unlikely. Indeed each new experience appears only to strengthen their beliefs. Even visiting the majestic Rochester Cathedral proves reaffirming. “I prefer our little church,” says a slightly overwhelmed Jerry. “A big church doesn’t get you to heaven. It’s what you believe in.”
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Reader Comments (1)
The reporter refers to the Amish rite of passage, “rumspringa”, as providing Amish teens with the ability to experience the outside world and then make a choice whether or not to be baptized into the Amish church. However, any choice that is restricted by conditions, punishments or prior indoctrination is not a true choice. What kind of choice is it when they are told that if they choose not to be baptized they will be forever shunned by their own family and community in which they have lived their entire lives? It certainly is not a free choice.
It seems to me that the Amish are comfortable with allowing older teens and young adults the ability to experience the outside world because they have been so thoroughly indoctrinated and isolated throughout their childhoods that they can only experience that outside world through the veil of dogma. As the reporter writes: “each new experience appears only to strengthen their beliefs”. Their indoctrination prevents them from freely analysing those experience with a truly open mind and so they will see only what their dogmatic worldview permits.
Although the reporter describes those Amish teens as "remarkably tolerant", some of their comments illustrate just the opposite. Two are judgmental of “sinful” people in “the devil’s territory”, while another self-righteously boasts that she’s “never heard of an Amish person doing a crime”, which of course means that they never do. (see the Related Articles above)