The Amish Way by Donald B. Kraybill, Steven M. Nolt, David L. Weaver-Zercher Read Free Book Online Page A

assume that birth implies pain and hard work. The “miracle of new birth takes place in nature all around us countless times every year,” says one minister. “The small calf or the small colt gasps for its first breath and thrashes around until it can stand on its own feet.” Birth is “a struggle that is anything but easy.” 6
     
    Some Christians who use the born again label also emphasize the assurance of salvation, the concept that those who confess their faith in Christ can be certain of their salvation right now, before God’s final judgment. The Amish consider such a claim presumptuous. To them, salvation is a judgment that only God can make at the end of one’s life. For that reason, they prefer to talk about a “living hope” rather than assurance of salvation. In the words of Eli, a midwestern Amish bishop, “We have a living hope. . . . We are in God’s hands. We defer to God.” For the Amish a living hope means a quiet confidence that in the end God will be a merciful and just judge.
     
    Of course, references to a living hope also show that Amish people have confidence in their community’s view of salvation. Although Amish are loath to judge the eternal destiny of others, some, such as Bishop Eli, are willing to explain their approach to salvation.
     

A One-Track Gospel
     
    We sat in Eli’s home one August evening, listening to the sounds of katydids outside his kitchen window. Obedience to the teachings of Jesus, he explained, is the reason why he rejects a “two-track system of salvation.” By “two-track system” he means a theology that separates belief and obedience, placing personal faith on one track and matters of lifestyle on another. For Eli, salvation is personal but not private. He doesn’t regard church-defined guidelines related to dress, technology, and leisure activities as optional add-ons. “I just don’t like the two-track view of salvation that separates grace from ethics.”
     
    Even as Bishop Eli disapproves of a two-track approach to salvation, some non-Amish Christians criticize the Amish for trying to “earn” their salvation.These critics claim that the Amish way—mandating compliance with church teachings that ban electricity and owning cars, for example—distorts the notion that salvation is God’s gift. Only God’s free grace can save, the critics say, not obedience to the church’s rules. The harshest critics think the Amish risk going to hell unless they embrace a different view of grace.
     
    The Amish argue that such critics have a “narrow view of grace.” Amish people see God’s grace as “inseparably woven into the entire fabric of His relationship to His children—conviction, repentance, conversion, justification, a holy life, discipleship, yieldedness.” 7 Another writer in the Amish magazine Family Life describes the Christian life as a stone arch holding up a bridge. Perhaps the “priceless verses in the third chapter of John . . . which tell us of the New Birth” are the keystone. But “we need the complete Gospel, not just a part. Start removing the stones in a bridge and the whole structure will soon crumble into a useless heap,” he explains.
     
    “There is much said today about accepting Christ as a personal Saviour,” the writer continues. “Many even say that is absolutely all that you have to do to be sure that you are saved; nothing else. If we would follow such a gospel, we could live just about as we pleased. But salvation is not that cheap.” Accepting “Christ as a Saviour from our sins” is necessary, he concludes, but it is just as necessary to “obey His commandments.” 8 Although the Amish certainly see Jesus as their savior and friend, they are uncomfortable with a view of Jesus that overlooks obedience to his teachings.
     
    The Amish view of salvation ultimately reaches back to the biblical understanding of the fear of God, a profound sense of respect for a transcendent and holy God. For them, reducing