Amish Grace
Donald B. Kraybill, Steven M. Nolt, and David L. Weaver-Zercher. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, 2007.
reviewed by Robert Martens

"You mean some people actually thought we got together to plan forgiveness?"
(49) (Amish grandmother)

The village of Nickel Mines in the Amish settlement of Lancaster consists of nothing more than an auction building, The paper will deal with the Mennonite refugees who after the Second World War came to Canada, the USA, and South America, and with those who were sent back East against their will to suffer in the Gulag of the Soviet Union. It will conclude with some experiences of the Mennonite "Aussiedler" (resettlers) living in Germany today.  a few houses, a crossroads, and a school. The one-room school is a private facility run by the Amish for their children, and is one of many that were built as a counter to the consolidation of large public schools that occurred in the mid-twentieth century. On October 2, 2006, Charles Carl Roberts IV, a thirty-two year old milk deliveryman, parked his truck near the auction building at Nickel Mines. He was carrying with him plastic zip ties, a 9-mm handgun, a 12-gauge shotgun, a 30-06 rifle, a stun gun, and six hundred rounds of ammunition. At 10:15 am, a young Amish teacher named Emma called her students back to class from recess. A few minutes later, Roberts entered the classroom with his pistol and ordered everyone there to lie face down on the floor. Emma and her mother, who was visiting, managed to flee and run to the nearest farm, screaming for help. Roberts tied the legs and feet of some of the girls and ordered the boys and remaining visiting adults to leave. “Would you pray for me?” he asked the girls. Then the police arrived, and a standoff began. Roberts, referring to the death of his firstborn child, turned to the Amish girls and said, “I’m going to make you pay for my daughter.” One of the older students, realizing now what was happening, and hoping to protect the younger girls there, said, “Shoot me first.” Roberts then shot the ten children bound on the floor, killing five, and finally turned the pistol on himself. Five Amish girls survived.

And then the media frenzy began.

“In many respects,” write the authors of Amish Grace, “the last safe place in America’s collective imagination had suddenly disappeared” (16).
Yet, appalling as was the crime, the focus of the media was on the willingness of the Amish to forgive the murderer. “We shouldn’t think evil of the man who did this,” said the grandfather of one of the victims (45). More than half of the mourners at Roberts’ funeral were Amish; several of them embraced the widow, Amy, and told her that they forgave her. The Amish participated in committees and trust funds that extended aid to the Roberts family. “Sometimes some of our people think we should do more evangelistic work...,” said an Amish farmer, “but this forgiveness story made more of a witness for us all over the world than anything else we can ever do” (52). Instead of precipitating a series of lawsuits, as would normally occur, the murders of the children brought the community closer together. How, and why, were the Amish able so quickly to forgive the unforgivable? The authors of Amish Grace have done a masterful job in explaining a phenomenon so foreign to mainstream culture, and indeed to our world in general.
“If we don’t forgive, we won’t be forgiven,” said an Amish carpenter (85). Kraybill, Nolt and Weaver-Zercher point out that the very foundation of Amish culture is forgiveness, that children are raised from childbirth to be humble, surrendering, reconciling. The Amish emphasize the discipleship of meekness and nonresistance based on the New Testament, and particularly on the Beatitudes. The Lord’s Prayer, with its plea to “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” is recited daily. The Amish history of  martyrs who forgave their tormentors, as chronicled in Martyrs Mirror, is a vivid and enduring presence. Gelassenheit, or yieldedness, which implies a respect for authority and the Amish Ordnung (the community order), as well as a striving for a humble and gentle spirit, is the bedrock of Amish “theology.” “My father and mother always tried to make sure the other person got the best end of the deal,” wrote an Amish man for a periodical (115). Amish sermons invariably begin with a statement of personal inadequacy by the preacher. The biannual Communion services, in which the only real sacrament is perhaps the community, are gatherings based on forgiveness of wrongs and on restoration. And, based on Matthew 6:14-15, the Amish invert the normal Protestant tenet that we should forgive because God forgave us: “But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” “We have to forgive [Roberts],” said an Amish woman, “in order for God to forgive us” (45).

 The Amish are not us, say the authors of Amish Grace; in contrast to the extreme individualism of our mainstream society, Amish forgiveness is habitual, a cultural norm, a daily walk, a living thing of flesh and blood. This does not mean that forgiveness for the Amish is necessarily any easier than for the rest of us, say the authors. The book moves deftly from the narrative of the tragedy to an analysis of Amish community, and finally to the question of what forgiveness fundamentally means. Forgiveness is not pardon, the authors claim, either for us or for the Amish, and the evil is not excused. The Amish are a realistic people, not nearly as isolated from the societal mainstream as some might think, and forgiveness is a difficult and intentional process for them even though they are raised to think instinctively in terms of reconciliation. Even after the decision is made to forgive, emotional release from feelings of vengeance may be a long time coming. “We are not always able to forgive,” said an Amish minister, “We have struggles too” (113).

 The authors of this book do not idealize the Amish. They explore the apparent contradiction (concluding it is not) of a culture which readily forgives a child murderer but shuns an Amish woman who marries an “outsider.” They point out that, in cases of spousal or sexual abuse, the frequent Amish response of forgiveness is inappropriate and leads to inaction. And yet, for a world riven by violence, this story of forgiveness is a kind of miracle. “Regardless of the details of the Nickel Mines story, one message remains clear: religion was not used to justify rage and revenge but to inspire goodness, forgiveness, and grace. And that is the big lesson for the rest of us regardless of our faith or nationality” (183).

Amish Grace is available through the House of James.  All proceeds go to the Mennonite Central Committee.