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- [00:01]
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- [01:00]
Mark Gagnon
They look like they're stuck in 1693, but they are one of the fastest growing populations in America. They reject smartphones, TVs, even electricity from the power grid. But research suggests their rates of depression, anxiety, and certain cancers are actually among the lowest in the developed world. They limit formal education to the eighth grade. And yet, when their kids turn 16 and get a taste of the modern world in full, I mean, phones, cars, parties, the whole thing, over 85% of them choose to come back. Today, we're talking about the Amish, and almost everything you think you know about them is probably wrong. We're going to trace the Amish from a single bloody moment in the 16th century in Switzerland when their ancestors were drowned in rivers for crimes of believing the wrong thing about baptism, all the way to the quiet farms of rural Pennsylvania and Ohio and Indiana. We're going to talk about who they actually are, what they actually believe, and the different kinds of Amish that you probably never heard of and what a normal day in their life actually looks like. We're also going to talk about Rum Springer. Define what it actually is. Spoiler alert. It's not what reality TV has showed you. And we'll even show what happens when someone actually tries to leave. And underneath all of that, we're going to ask the question more and more that modern people can't stop asking themselves. What if the Amish are actually right? So sit back, relax, and welcome to Religion Camp. What's up, people? And welcome back to Religion Camp. Happy Sunday. My name is Mark Gagnon, and thank you for joining me in my tent, where every single Sunday, we explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from every religion from around the world, from all time, forever and today we have a fascinating episode from a religious community that we have never spoken about on this channel. But before we jump in, I want to say thanks to you. Yeah, dude, I want to say thanks to you or lady for tuning in to this channel every time you click on an episode. Comment. Like any of that stuff, you help. You keep the lights on in the tent, and you help keep the fire burning here at the campsite. Now, I also want to give a big shout out and a thanks to my pal Miles. Yeah. Yes. We got Miles in the tent today because Christos is probably off gallivanting with models on a private yacht outside of Mykonos, where he typically spends his time, and he's abandoned us. But fortunately, I have my good pal from college, also the producer of the flagrant podcast, Miles Media, hanging out with me. How are you, my friend?
- [03:20]
Miles Media
Dude, I'm so good. I'm excited to talk about Amish.
- [03:22]
Mark Gagnon
We're talking about the Amish today because, one, you strike me as Amish, and also, there are many Mennonite that live in your community in South Florida.
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Miles Media
Yeah, yeah. Sarasota has a large Amish and Mennonite community.
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Mark Gagnon
And so I figured, who better to help me break down this complicated and fascinating topic than my good pal Miles himself?
- [03:40]
Miles Media
They're fascinating people.
- [03:41]
Mark Gagnon
And you said you're fine doing this episode because if we say anything offensive about the Amish, no hate comments. They're not gonna see it.
- [03:48]
Miles Media
Yep. They can't find it, so you're free.
- [03:50]
Mark Gagnon
Dude, we're kind of insulated. Is there anything negative you want to say about the Amish before we begin?
- [03:55]
Miles Media
Nope. Not a. Not a single thing. I've only had positive experiences with them, except for they drive really slow.
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Mark Gagnon
Well, yeah, they're horses. One horsepower. Yeah, that's gonna do it.
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Miles Media
Yeah.
- [04:04]
Mark Gagnon
I have nothing bad to say about the Amish either, because, to be honest, I don't really know much about them. I mean, outside of this research, which thanks to our pal Sophia for putting a lot of this together, I have only ever bought furniture from the Amish, and it's been extremely well made. I've seen them build barns. And I was just the other day, we were talking as a group, and I was like, what. What are the Amish? What do they believe? Where do they come from? Right. Like, here in New York City, we have Hasidic Judaism, which is, in a. In a way, sort of similar. You know, it's kind of like a very insular group of Jewish people that live in, you know, parts of New York City. And, you know, they kind of reject modernity. They don't really have smartphones. They keep to themselves. And I was like, we kind of have that in Christianity, right? We have the Amish. And I was thinking, are the Amish even Christian? What. What is going on with them? And that is what I'm here to clear up today. So right off the bat, we got to clear up some confusion, because most people, when they hear the word Amish, they're just thinking of one thing that's like a guy with a beard, no mustache, he's got a hat, and he's got a horse and a buggy driving down a country road somewhere in Pennsylvania. And to be clear, that's not wrong. It's just not the whole picture. The Amish are, I guess, at its core, a Christian religious community based primarily in the United States, with smaller communities in Canada, and there are roughly 390,000 of them in North America today. And this is the part that surprises people. Their population is doubling roughly every, like, 20 years. Think about that. While most religious groups in America are shrinking, the Amish are growing at a rapid rate. And it's not because of conversion or migration or anything like that. It's just because they have massive families and very few people leave. It's primarily internal growth, generation after generation. Now, if you're, you know, in Pennsylvania, Ohio, or Indiana, you're probably familiar because that is where the largest populations in the United States are. I mean, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, is probably the biggest one that everyone's heard of. That's the postcard version with, you know, the buggies and, like, the quilts. But Holmes County, Ohio, is actually the largest Amish settlement in the world. Now, what's interesting is that they speak a language at home called Pennsylvania Dutch, which to them, you know, despite the name, it's actually not Dutch. It's actually a dialect of German. The Dutch is actually a corruption of Deutsch, which means German. And they learn English in school, and then they use a more formal version of German that they call High German for their religious ceremonies. So a typical Amish person grows up, like, bilingual, sometimes trilingual. And yes, they are Christian, or more specifically, like a type of Christian. Specifically, they belong to a branch called Anabaptist, and that's a very important word. And we're going to get more into that in just a minute, because the entire reason the Amish exist in the first place is because of their conviction to their faith. And here's the thing that I think is overlooked. The Amish aren't like a weird American invention. They're not a cult that started, like, in the 50s in America. Like, the roots go all the way back almost like 500 years to one of the most violent and misunderstood moments in the history of modern Christendom. I mean, we're going back to the early 1500s to a time when all of Europe was a mess, which, I mean, for the last 2,000 years is just Europe. But specifically the 1500s, religiously, politically, literally was on fire. So 1517, you probably heard of a German monk, as my mom would say, a heretic named Martin Luther. And he is said to have nailed his 95 theses to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany, and kicked off the Protestant Reformation. Now, his basic argument was that the Catholic Church had drifted away from the Bible and needed to be Reformed, hence the name of the whole movement, the Reformation. So within a few years, that argument had spread across Europe, and it really split the continent of Europe into Catholic and Protestant and ignited a chain of conflicts from the German Peasants War through, you know, the wars of religion, and then eventually the catastrophic 30 years war that would kill millions of people before it was all said and done. And that is the world. That is the religious, you know, paradigm, the sectarian split that the Amish faith was born into. But what's interesting is that the Amish didn't actually come from Luther. They came from a group of people who looked at Luther and they were like, yeah, Luther, you're doing a good job here, but you're actually not going far enough. So that brings us to Zurich, Switzerland, in the year 1525. News of this Reformation had reached the city in Zurich, and you have a group of young reformers who are, you know, getting together and studying the Bible together. And they're led by a guy named Conrad Grable, along with a guy named Felix Mons and of course, a few others. And they like a lot of what Luther is saying. They're picking up on his whole vibe. They like, you know, how he's kind of reforming the church and, like, really taking the Bible literally. But they keep getting stuck on a specific issue, and that issue is baptism. So in the Catholic Church and even Catholics to this day, like, I'm included in this as a Catholic. We are basically all baptized as babies. If you're born to the faith, you're baptized as an infant in the first few weeks of life. Now, of course, if you convert later to Catholicism, you're baptized whenever you convert. But if you're born into it, you're baptized as A little kid. Now, Luther also baptized babies. And pretty much every Christian in Europe baptized babies. And it had been doing this for thousands of years. But Grable and his friend read the New Testament and they noticed something in the Bible. People were getting baptized as adults, adults who made a conscious choice to follow Jesus. Not infants that are too young to even understand what is happening to them. And so they made a decision that doesn't sound that crazy to us today. But in 1525, it was like an earth shattering moment. They decided to baptize each other as adults, but by choice. Their thought is like, hey, these little infants, they don't know what is happening to them. This is a thing that's being done to them. Whereas baptism should be a choice you make as an adult when you have agency. So on January 21, 1525, at a house in Zurich, they poured water over each other's heads in basically what it's now considered the founding act of the Anabaptist movement. And that word Anabaptist literally means like re baptizer, because everyone in that room had already been baptized as a baby and was now being baptized again. Now, just to pause right here, because this seems like a pretty mild theological dispute, right? It's like, okay, some people are getting baptized twice. Like, why does that matter? Well, a lot of people cared and it mattered to a lot of people. Like, a lot. And this issue literally explains everything that comes next. So in order to understand basically 16th century Europe, infant baptism wasn't just a religious ritual. It was the legal foundation of European society itself. So when you baptized a baby, you were officially making them a citizen of the Christian nation of, like, large scale Christendom. I mean, baptism records were basically a birth certificate. The church and the state were not separate at this time. They were welded together. And so to reject infant baptism wasn't just a theological position or an interpretation of the Bible. It was to reject the entire social order. Like, to them, with church and state so interconnected, to reject infant baptism is basically to reject your nation. It's almost like a kind of treason. And the punishment for treason is death. So within two years, the Zurich city council issued an edict. Anyone caught performing adult baptism was to
- [11:27]
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Mark Gagnon
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- [12:24]
Mark Gagnon
Fit for all times by drowning yes, this is sort of funny and kind of ironic, but the historical record makes this joke explicit. The council reportedly said in effect, hey, you want to get a third baptism? Yeah. You want to get baptized an adult? We're going to give you a baptism that you're not going to wake up from, like kind of on like some mafia vibes. So Felix Mons, one of the guys we talked about before, one of the reformers who started this movement, he was the first to die on January of 1527. He was bound by his hands and his feet and they rode him out to the Lamont river running through Zurich, and they pushed him into the freezing water while his mother stood on the shore and shouted at him to stay strong in his faith. Truly like a brutal and morbid moment. And he was just the beginning. Over the next century, thousands of Anabaptists were basically hunted down and burned and drowned and beheaded across Europe by Catholics. But let the record show, it was also by other Protestants. I mean, the Anabaptists were very unpopular in their time and they were considered too radical even by the reformers who had inspired them. Keep in mind, Martin Luther was baptizing babies like he was on that wave. So these guys were even more radical than the guy that created this giant split between Catholics and Protestants. So by 1660, an Anabaptist named Thelamon Van Brockt actually compiled a massive book that he called Martyr's Mirror and cataloged the stories of these executions in horrifying detail. And to this day, Martyr's Mirror sits on the shelf of nearly every Amish home, like right next to the Bible. And they do not forget it. Which is another important detail. Like the part of the reason I do this show is to explain the people that we cohabitate this country and this earth with. And if you walk into An Amish house. You might see the Bible and then you might see martyr's mirror, and you'd be like, what is that about? Well, now you know. And it's also important to note that, like, every religious community that exists, like, in the world is acutely aware of their prosecution. You know, like, they're aware of all the things that were done to them. It's funny, like, even talking to, like, my lds, like, AKA Mormon friends, they're always like, oh, yeah, the LDS church, we're the most prosecuted, you know, religious group in America by far. And it's just funny because everyone has this internal idea, knows all of the things that were done to them. Just as a funny aside, it's also important to keep in mind when talking to people, they're aware of their, you know, the things that have been done to them. But anyway, a few decades into this persecution, a Dutch Catholic priest named Menno Simons read about the Anabaptists and then converted and became one of their most important leaders. And his followers eventually took on his name. Now his name, Menno Simons. The followers of him eventually became known as the Mennonites. And for about 150 years, that's what they were called. One persecuted Anabaptist family scattered across Europe, hiding in mountain valleys and rural villages, trying not to get killed. And then in 1693, they split. Hey, guys, we're going to take a break really quick because I want to talk to you about gld. This is an awesome new company that we're working with that I am actually wearing right now. Now, here's the thing. You probably have the basics right. You always have, like, the shoes your go to shoes you always wear. You always got the jeans you always wear. You got that one black tee that makes your biceps pop. You know, we all got, like, the one fit that we feel nice in, but most dudes are missing the final piece. Talking about the Jesus piece. I'm talking about the jewelry that brings the whole fit together. Yes. And that is where GLD comes from. I actually got this crucifix right here. And honestly, even just getting it, you know, sometimes, like, when you work with some companies, you're like, all right, I really hope the product is good. This one is. I. I wear it all the time. This is actually like the new crucifix. I lost my last one at a bath house. Literally, at a sauna. I lost my crucifix, which is maybe God's way of telling me something, but I got a new one from gld. And I've been rocking it non stop. My wife likes it. And it's got, like, a nice weight to it. The detail actually look better in person. The clasp is, like, super solid. It doesn't feel like something you bought, like, in Times Square from a random dude. It doesn't feel like something you ordered from, you know, some sketchy website on teemu. Like, this is the real simple, clean crucifix. And they've got a bunch of stuff. It's not just religious. Like, I throw it on and it just makes me feel like I have, like an actual outfit. I just. It makes me feel good. Now, if I haven't convinced you yet, let me sweeten the deal a little bit. All right, For a limited time, be listeners of this program, Camp Gagnon, Religion Camp, History Camp, and the entire camp universe, you're getting a crazy deal. If you use the code Camp C A M P. When you check out, you're going to get 40% off your entire order@gld.com and after you purchase, they're going to ask where you heard about gld. Tell them you heard about them from, you know, the good folks here at the campsite, Mark and Christo sent you. And whenever you do that, it really helps, you know, support the show. And thank you so much to GLD and thank you to you for tuning in. Let's get back to the show now. The man at the center of this whole split was a guy named Jacob Am, and he was a Swiss Mennonite bishop, probably, like in his 30s. And he was worried about what he was seeing. In his view, the Mennonite communities of his time were too comfortable. They were too cozy with the outside world, too willing to compromise on this strict separation that, in his view, the Bible demanded something of his people. And his specific complaint was about something called shunning. So the idea of shunning comes from a few passages in the New Testament where the apostle Paul tells the early Christians not to associate with members who have been formally excommunicated. It says, do not even eat with such a one. Paul writes, and the Mennonites already practiced excommunication, which, if you don't know what that is, it's basically kicking out people from the church, specifically unrepentant sinners. But Amman thought that they weren't taking things far enough. And he argued that excommunicated members should be strictly shunned. I mean, not eating at the same table, no doing business, not accepting gifts, even if the person was your husband, your wife, your child, the shunning had to be total. And the point wasn't to be cruel. It was. It was to put so much pressure on the individual that they would repent and eventually come back. An older Mennonite leader named Hans Gais disagreed basically with Amman. And he disagreed so strongly that he thought Amman was being too harsh and was being crazy and that this type of strict shunning would tear families apart and cause entire families to leave the church. So the two men met up, and they argued. Amman demanded that Reist agree with him, and Reiss refused. So Amon excommunicated Reist on the spot. And just like that, in 1693, the Anabaptist movement itself split into two, and the followers of Hans Reist remained Mennonites. Now the followers of Jacob Amon became known as the. The Amish. So for the next few decades, the Amish stayed in Europe, mostly in Switzerland and Alsace and parts of Germany. But they kept on getting harassed. Local authorities still didn't like them. Local Catholics and local Lutherans had a hard time trusting them. And for many of the Amish, life was hard. And then word comes from across the ocean. In Pennsylvania, an English Quaker named William Penn had founded a colony built on radical ideas. And one specific idea caught their attention. Religious freedom for everyone. No state church, no persecution, just land, peace, and the right to worship however you wanted to. Whoever. And so for people who have been hunted across Europe for 200 years, this was like, I mean, literally a gift from God. So Starting in the 1730s, Amish families began boarding ships and sailing for Pennsylvania. And they settled in the rolling farmland of what would become Lancaster County. And when they got there, they got to work quietly and, you know, carefully and, you know, refusing basically on principle to assimilate with the larger Pennsylvania colonial society. And here's the crazy part. The initial migration was tiny. The initial migration was just like a few hundred families. And a second wave came in the 1800s. Almost every Amish person in North America today descends from those two waves of settlers, with only the rare convert mixed in here and there. Five centuries of unbroken Anabaptist lineage multiplying generation after generation in the American countryside. But what exactly were these people protecting? What did they believe that was worth dying for, worth fleeing for, and worth refusing to change their life and their lifestyle for half a millennium? Well, let's look at their theology and their beliefs and why they are so strict to not assimilate. So, like I said before, the Amish are Christians. And what does that mean? They believe in the Trinity. They believe that Jesus is the Son of God. They believe in the Bible as the inspired word of God. So if you walked into an Amish church, you know, and you listen to the service, the basic content of what's being preached there would be recognizable to basically every other Protestant Christian. But where they diverge is on a lot of, like modern American Protestantism. So most evangelical churches today emphasize a very straightforward, almost kind of like a very transactional version of salvation in a way. And I don't mean that as a pejorative. I just mean it as like a part of speech. Like you believe in Jesus, you accept Jesus as your personal savior, you get saved, and now you're done. You're saved. That's all it takes. You know, it's purely sola fides. A belief in faith alone can save you. So the Amish would tell you that's not quite enough for them. So for the Amish, salvation comes through Christ, of course. But they place an enormous emphasis on obedience and humility and discipleship and a life that is, from the outside, visibly shaped by their faith. So for them, faith without a life backed up by it isn't faith at all. It's just words. And that conviction is built on a handful of key concepts. So the first concept is called Ordnung. And Ordnung literally means order. And it doesn't refer to some big rule book. There's no central, like Bible of Amish rules. Instead, basically, each church district has, you know, a local Amish congregation, usually like 20 or 40 families. And it has its own Ordnong. And it is the unwritten code of conduct that governs daily life in that specific community. And that means like, what kind of clothes you wear, what color your buggy can be, whether you can have a battery powered flashlight in your barn, whether you can use gas powered washing machine, whether teenage boys can wear suspenders or have to use buttons. Super minute sort of lifestyle, things like that. The Ordnong is not the same from district to district, though. One Amish community might allow rubber tires on farm equipment. But just a couple streets over, the next community might not. One community might let you have a phone in a shed on the edge of your property. But then the town north of you might forbid phones entirely. And that's why you can't really make a blanket statement about the Amish, because the Amish themselves don't operate under the same specific rules from town to town. Literally, each different community or district will have a different Ordnung and they Try to work together and decide as a community what is best for them. And then twice a year, once before the spring communion and once before fall Communion, every baptized member of the district gathers together and reviews the ordinance. They talk about changes, they affirm their commitment to it, and then they take communion together. The second key concept is what they call Gelassenheit. And this is where Ordnung can be called a lifestyle core. Gelassenheit is the spiritual core. Now, gelassenheit roughly translates to yieldedness, or, like, submission. It's the willingness to surrender your individual will to God, to, you know, the community, and to tradition itself. So it's the opposite of the modern value of self expression. If you think about modern cultures like, you know, you're an individual, Go find yourself, follow your dreams, be authentic to who you are. Like, that is what, like, modern American society kind of preaches this idea. This Gelassenheit is the exact opposite. It literally is like, quiet down, be humble, let go of your ego, and submit to something that is bigger than you. Now, the third concept is called demut, which literally means humility. And it is the opposite of pride. So the Amish read passages in the New Testament, like Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount, and they conclude that Jesus is deadly serious about humility, about not drawing attention to yourself, about not putting yourself above others. And that is why the Amish dress so plainly and so uniformly. Bright colors and fashion and jewelry and, you know, flashy clothes and all of that stuff is what they call chochmut, which is the opposite of demut. And all of that basically says, look at me. The Amish believe that Christians should be saying, don't look at me, look at God. And tying all of this together are two primary verses from the Bible. The first is Romans 12:2, and it says, be not conformed of this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. The second verse comes from James, chapter four, verse four. And it says, friendship with the world is enmity with God. And the Amish take these two verses super seriously, as in, like, literally the world, what they call the English when referring to non Amish outsiders. Which is kind of funny, though. Like, whether you're me or you're like a Mexican dude or like a black dude, you are just the English. And basically, you know, when they are referring to the world, they're talking about everyone else. And in their reading of Scripture, a place actively hostile to a faithful Christian life is everyone else. So the goal isn't to engage with it or transform it or evangelize it, you know, it is just to kind of remove yourself from it. Now, that doesn't mean that they don't witness. You know, they still will try to speak to people about their faith. And they absolutely do believe that they are a witness. They just don't go door to door. They don't do, you know, revivals or try to, like, argue you into the faith, you know, argument for them. And their, you know, testament to what they believe is just in the way that they live. And this brings us to the single biggest misconception about the Amish. Most people think that the Amish reject technology because technology is evil and the car is sinful and electricity is the devil and da, da, da, da. That's not true. The Amish don't think any of those things are inherently evil. What they're asking every single time a new technology arrives in the world is a different question they ask themselves. What will this technology do to our community? The car isn't evil, but a car lets you travel 50 miles an hour, which means you can leave your community very easily, which means you might stop relying on your neighbors, which means that the bonds that hold the community together will start to fray. So most Amish communities say no to owning cars, but they'll ride in a car if a non Amish neighbor is driving and they need to get to the airport or something. And that's not hypocrisy. It is the ordnance. That is the order that the community has come together and basically decided for themselves. The community draws the line at ownership because ownership changes who you are, fundamentally. So electricity from the grid, for example. Oh, they don't use electricity because it's evil. No, that's not it. They don't see electricity as evil. But being connected to the grid means being connected to the outside world's infrastructure and the rhythms and the dependence on the outside world. So most Amish communities say no to grid power. And, you know, they'll use propane to run a refrigerator, or maybe they'll use a diesel generator to power like a milk cooler. And maybe they'll even use, like, battery powered tools. The question isn't, is electricity evil or not? It's just, you know, does the specific use of electricity make us more dependent or more separate from the world? And every yes and every no to what they allow in their lifestyle is a calculation about community and humility and separation. And again, it varies differently from community to community. And it's all decided at these communal meetings right before the spring communion. And The Fall Communion, where they decide on that meeting's ordinance. And there's actually one more pillar of Amish belief that we haven't talked about yet, and that's the one that more than any other, have gotten the Amish people thrown in jail. Now, the Amish are part of what's sometimes called the historic peace church tradition, and alongside the Mennonites and the Quakers. And at the center of their faith is a doctrine that they call non resistance, but it comes straight from the Sermon on the Mount. They interpret it directly from the words of Jesus Christ that every mainstream Christian accepts, as, you know, the words of Christ. And it says in typically the translation that they use, but I say unto you that ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other.
- [29:26]
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- [29:57]
Mark Gagnon
Anglin Washington, host of Snap Judgment, the award winning storytelling podcast from kqed. And every week, Snap deals a new card, like jumping on Rihanna's private plane or the accidental bank robber or even the man who was swallowed by a hippo. What? Pick a card, any car tap to listen. Now to Snap Judgment from KQED on Spotify. So you've heard the phrase, you know, turn the other cheek. Most Christian traditions have read passages like this as ideals. You know, like, they're beautiful and it's a great way to, you know, kind of situate your soul. But most Christians don't take that literally. Now, the Amish read them as commands, and they take it as literally as you possibly could. So the Amish don't serve in the military, they don't carry weapons, they don't fight wars. And historically, they would rather, you know, be killed than to kill. They also refuse to swear oaths not because, like, they're shifty or conniving, but because Jesus said in that same sermon, swear not at all. Let your communication be yea, yea, nay, nay, which is just a very funny translation of the Bible. That's not the one I read. I'm assuming this is King James Version, which is kind of funny. So what does this mean, though? Swear? Not at all. So that means no oaths in court, no pledges of allegiance, no swearing on the Bible. Which you would think, if these people love the Bible so much, why wouldn't they swear on the Bible? Well, it says in the Bible not to swear at all. So they're saying, we don't swear on anything. We don't do oaths. We don't pledge allegiance. That's not what we do. And that commitment has cost them. So take World War I, for example. The United States introduces the draft, and hundreds of young Amish and Mennonite men just say, we're not going. The American government at the time had no formal conscientious objector system. So many were sent to military camps anyway. Some were beaten, and some of them were just straight up thrown in prison. And a handful of them have even died in custody. And then During World War II, things were better. I mean, the government had created the Civilian Public Service Program, which let conscientious objectors do alternative service like firefighting or forestry or working in a mental hospital. So thousands of Amish men served in CPS camps instead of going to war. And Vietnam kind of offered them the same pattern. But the most haunting example of Amish non resistance actually happened in the 21st century. So on the morning of October 2, 2006, a man named Charles Roberts walked into a one room Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. He carried a gun, chains and lumber. He sent the boys outside and he bound 10Amish girls who remained between the ages of 6 and 13. And he opened fire. Five of them died. Five more were critically wounded. And then he took his own life. Now, what happened next stunned the entire country. Within hours of the shooting, members of the Amish community went to the home of the shooter's family, not to confront them, but to comfort them. They told the killer's widow that they forgave her husband and they even attended his funeral. They set up a fund to support that man's children. When donations poured in for the Amish families who had lost their daughters, those families redirected a portion of the money to the killer's family because they believed that his widow and his children were also victims. I mean, truly, like a profound level of humility that is almost difficult to comprehend. And this wasn't like this happened 500 years ago. This happened in 2006. Reporters who came over to cover the tragedy didn't know what to do with what they were seeing. There was no candlelight vigil with, you know, political demands about gun violence. Or securing our communities. There was no calls for revenge, no lawsuits, just five coffins and a community that somehow was hugging the shooter's mother on the day of the funeral. And that is literally what non resistance looks like in practice. Now, we should be careful here. Some scholars who've studied Amish life have pointed out that the speed and uniformity of that response also reveals something that can be complicated. There's pressure sometimes inside Amish communities to forgive quickly and sometimes before survivors have even processed anything. And as a result, forgiveness, depending on the paradigm, can become its own type of obligation. And, you know, the picture here is real and the intentions are obviously very good, but the reality is that it's not always, you know, that simple. Hey, guys, crazy story. So the good people at Brunt Workwear sent me boots. They actually sent me two pairs. And I'm not making this up. They said, hey, wear them to an actual job site, beat them up, and if you don't like them, just send them back for a full refund. I was like, there's no way that's true. One for a few reasons. First off, I don't work on a work site. I do stand up comedy. So these have been in pristine condition, I will say, but I gave some to a friend of mine who's a carpenter. He just works with his hands all day and just destroys his shoes. And he literally hits me up two weeks later and goes, these are the most comfortable boots I've ever gotten. Thank you so much. So I'm probably going to charge them for him. But regardless, what I'm saying here is that Brunt Work wear has maybe the most comfortable, durable boots ever right out of the box. They last super, super long, they're super comfortable, and they look great. So here's the deal. This guy Eric, he's the founder, he grew up blue collar. And his buddies in all the trades kept telling him how, like, the big boot brands, you know, the ones I'm talking about, they became like these fashion companies and they stopped doing the product that they all needed. So he was like, fine, I'm going to build one that actually works. And he named everything after actual tradesme he really grew up with. So they're waterproof, they got a safety toe, they got a soft toe, they got pull up, lace up. You got all the options that you need. Now, right now, if you go to bruntworkwear.com, you're gonna get $10 off. If you use the code camp, so you can save money, you can buy boots, wear them to work. And if you hate them, here's the crazy thing, you just send them back. There's literally nothing to lose. If you don't like them, you send them back for a full refund. That is the Brunt Guarantee. So go to bruntworkwear.com camp, that is C A M P camp and use the code camp. Save money, buy the boots, wear them to work, and if you hate them, you're going to get a full refund. Just send them back and they'll give you your money back. There's literally nothing to lose. I don't see why you wouldn't just give it a try. I mean, my friends love them, I love them, but I mean, I'm not doing manual labor, but they still look great. Anyway, that is bruntworkware.com camp. Use the promo code link is in the description and tell them that the good people here at the campsite sent you. Let's get back to it. The core conviction here goes back to the schleitheim confession in 1527, the foundational Anabaptist document which already said almost 500 years ago that Christians should not bear the sword, should not swear oaths and should not return violence for violence. The Amish have just kept saying it ever since, through wars and through massacres and through school shootings. And that conviction doesn't just shape how they respond to conflict, it shapes how they live every day of their life. So just for a second to really understand and really put it in like concrete terms, let's go through the life of a normal Amish person. And again, there is no such thing as the singular Amish person's day. Because again, different communities and different individuals within the community might operate in different ways. But this is a broad sort of overgeneralization to give you an idea. So if you're an Amish person, you know, you might wake up at 4:30 in the morning. You wake up, it's still dark outside, your bedroom is freezing cold. Potentially most Amish upstairs bedrooms have no heat, just a wood stove that's downstairs. You might have a wind up alarm clock that goes off and then the man of the house pulls on his dark pants and his plain shirt and his suspenders and lights a kerosene lamp and then starts the stove. By 5am you're in the barn. If you're a dairy farmer and many Amish families still are, you're milking the cows either by hand or with a vacuum powered system, run off a diesel engine and the cows have to be milked twice a day, every single day, including Sundays. There's no off day when you're literally tied to livestock. Now your wife is in the kitchen. By now she's starting breakfast on a wood fire or a propane stove. And you're probably going to eat like, eggs, bacon, sausage, fried potatoes, biscuits, coffee. And Amish families work hard physically, and they eat accordingly. And then by 6, 30 or 7, the whole family is at the table. Kids, often 6 of them, 8, 10 of them. They're all washed and they're dressed. The meals begin with a silent prayer, and then the food is passed. And then there's conversation, but there's no TV in the background. There's no phone that you're peeping underneath the table. Just a family and food and the morning sunrise. And then by 8am the work day has already started. So for the dad, it might be field work, plowing with a bunch of horses, planting corn, repairing a fence. But here's something that a lot of people don't realize. Most Amish men today are no longer full time farmers. And we'll come back to that in a minute because the Amish economy has actually had a bit of a transformation the last 50 years. But back to the family. So for the mom, the day is just as busy. I mean, cooking and cleaning and laundry. And Amish laundry for a family of 10 is a massive project. So she might have a, what they call a wringer washer in the basement powered by like a small engine. And then of course, you have clotheslines that are stretched across the yard even in the wintertime. And then there's gardening and canning and baking and sewing. Almost everyone in the family eats and wears something that was made by hand. Now the kids are at school until about 3pm and Amish children attend school roughly only through the eighth grade. And then after that, they're done. This was actually upheld by a U.S. supreme Court decision in 1972 called Wisconsin vs. Yoder, where the court ruled that Amish parents could legally pull their kids out of high school to protect the religious community. Now, after eighth grade, kids transition to working alongside their parents. So boys will go work with their fathers in, you know, the workshop or in the field. And then girls will then work with their mothers in the home. And that's basically their high school. It's these apprenticeships in the life that they will inevitably lead forever. And then by noon, the family will reconvene for lunch. You'll have a silent prayer and then sandwiches or last night's leftovers. And then Back to work. And then by 4 or 5pm the chores begin. So the cows are milked one more time, the animals are fed, the barn is then cleaned. And then you have dinner at 6pm and this is often the biggest meal. This is where you're going to get, you know, meat and potatoes and vegetables from the garden and maybe a bread or a pie. And once again, the family will sit and they'll eat and they're, they'll talk with each other and maybe a neighbor will stop by. Then afterwards, there's reading and sewing and simple games and sometimes singing like a hymn from the Ausbund, which is the Amish hymnal that dates back to the 1500s and typically contains a lot of songs written by imprisoned Anabaptists that were awaiting execution. And then by 9pm the house is dark, there's no TV, the people are up watching, there's no phone to scroll on. And you got to go to bed early because you're up the next morning at 4:30am to start it all again. And that is basically every single day except for Sunday. Now, Sunday is a little different because church services don't happen in church buildings. The Amish don't really have them. Instead, services will rotate through individual personal homes. So every Sunday a different family will host and their living room, or if it's nicer weather, maybe their barn. And that will actually become the sanctuary. Benches are then brought in and the service will literally last like three hours. Once again conducted in High German and Pennsylvania Dutch with hymns sung at this extraordinary slow, like, almost like a meditative pace. Sometimes like one verse will be like 10 or 15 minutes. And these church services happen every other Sunday. And then the Sundays in between are called a visiting Sunday. There's no church, just family visits, slow meals, conversation and rest. And this is basically the cadence. Day after day, week after week, year after year, generation after generation. But here's something that I think gets overlooked a lot when looking at the Amish, that the people inside this life are also building businesses and building things for each other and quietly running one of the most fascinating economies in modern America. So, you know, this is what I was mentioning earlier. Amish men today, many of them are not full time farmers. For most of the 20th century they were. But as farmland prices started to climb and family sizes stayed massive, the financial math kind of stopped making sense. I mean, you can't subdivide a hundred acre farm amongst eight sons and then do that again and again and again. So Starting in the 1970s and the 80s, Amish men started to move into other trades and it turns out they were really, really good at them. So today Amish owned businesses are everywhere, in places like Lancaster and Holmes counties. And you'll have furniture shops that are literally like handcrafting these solid wood tables that they'll sell for thousands of dollars. Construction crews building barns and houses for the English clients across half a dozen states. Remember, in this context, English is just non Amish. And you'll have bakeries and harness makers and blacksmiths and machine shops and buggy repairs and even a few small manufacturing operations. So multiple studies have actually found that Amish small businesses have an extraordinarily high survival rate compared to the average American small business. And some estimates would put it even above 90%. So why are these Amish businesses working so well? Well, there's a few reasons. There's first off, very low overhead. There's no corporate debt. You know, you have a workforce of family members that are willing to work for, but sometimes no money at all. And you have a brand. You have this quality, handmade, traditional brand that, you know, English, AKA non Amish consumers are happy to pay a premium for. Which leads kind of like to a sort of an ironic kind of ripple to this whole thing that even the Amish are aware of, that many Amish communities survive economically not by avoiding capitalism, but by kind of selectively engaging with it. Right? Like they're not assimilating to the modern world, but they are selling to the modern world world. And so, you know, someone like you or me, to them, the English will buy the table and the quilt and maybe they'll, you know, pay 20 bucks for a ride on a buggy. And the Amish then use that money to keep their world intact. And according to their own ordung, this is, you know, participation but not reliance. And the deeper economic story here isn't about business. It's actually more about like a, what they call mutual aid. So the Amish don't carry commercial insurance, they don't have health insurance, they don't have homeowners insurance. Like if your barn burns down, your barn burned down and you announce it to the church and then what happens next is one of the most interesting things in rural America. Dozens, maybe hundreds of Amish men will show up at your property the next day and they're going to bring tools and they're going to bring wood and lumber and the women are going to bring meals and the kids might play around. And in a single day, sometimes two, they're going to rebuild your barn. Frame, walls, roof. All of that will be done before the end of the weekend, and you'll be back in business by Monday morning. I mean, it's pretty crazy. You should watch videos of the Amish building barns, and you can see, like, how quickly they do it over a time lapse. Literally within 48, 72 hours, they went from no barn to a full functional barn. Now, the same thing happens with medical bills. So, like, if a child needs a surgery or a family racks up, like $400,000 hospital bill from a complicated birth and they have to go to the hospital and they save the baby, but the baby's in a NICU for six months. Well, the church absorbs that cost. Every district maintains an informal fund for things like this, like their own kind of insurance. Sometimes neighboring districts will even contribute to it. If the need is that dire. And if the bill is enormous, an Amish aid network steps in to spread the crisis cost across multiple different settlements. No one is left to drown in medical debt, and no one loses their farm because, you know, someone's grandma got cancer or something. And this is what they mean by community. It's not just like hanging out together, you know, having a drink. It's not just, oh, we believe in the same God. It is an actual functional safety net, one that doesn't depend on the government or the insurance industry or a financial system. It is truly an internalized support system and kind of like health insurance and homeowners insurance, all built into a high trust society. And when you hold it up against modern American life, where, you know, you get into a car accident, break your leg, or you get a bad medical diagnosis and it wipes out an entire family savings, you can actually see what the Amish are protecting, like all, you know, like, they might have been onto something that all of us kind of missed. But for all this unity, the Amish are not one group. So, like, we've already established, you know, there's different types of Amish communities that can decide on different rules for themselves. Well, specific rules, you know, that or dung. But Amish communities can be even more diverse than just that. So when most outsiders are picturing the Amish, they're picturing a specific kind. And that is what they call old order Amish. So that's going to be your black buggies, your dark clothes, beards on married men, prayer caps on the women, no electricity from the grid, no cars. That is the iconic version. And in fairness, it is the largest subgroup. But spread across America, there is a spectrum of Amish communities ranging from super strict to, like, borderline modern. So at the most conservative end, you have what they call the Swartzentruber Amish. And these are the folks that make the Old Order look progressive. So the Swartzen troopers reject indoor plumbing. They use outhouses. They don't, you know, put the orange slow moving vehicle triangles on the back of their buggies, even though it's legally required in most states because they consider that bright orange to be too worldly and, you know, too individual. And they regularly will get fined or straight up arrested because they refuse to comply. They speak the most archaic form of Pennsylvania Dutch. They are by far the most isolated and the most resistant to change. And they often live in their own separate settlements, even away from, you know, Old Order Amish. And then less strict than that, you have what they call the Andy Weaver Amish. And, you know, then the Old Order Amish that most people are familiar with. And then you cross a significant line and you reach what they call the New Order Amish. And this emerged in the 1960s after we split over things like Sunday school for kids and a more evangelical emphasis on personal salvation and your personal relationship with Jesus. So the New Order Amish look a lot like the Old Order Amish from the outside, right? Like, they still drive buggies, they still farm, but they're way more open to certain things, like having a phone inside the home, having indoor plumbing, having, you know, modern farming equipment. And then you cross another line and you get what they call the Beachy Amish. Now, these guys are named after a guy named Moses Beachy. He is a bishop who split from the community in 1927 over, surprise, a disagreement about shunning, literally, the thing that kind of started the Amish off in the first place. This guy Moses Beachy was like, hey, this shining thing is crazy. So the BG Amish do allow cars. They allow electricity from the grid. They use modern technology in their businesses. And some of them even have, like, straight up church buildings. And from a distance, if you didn't know better, a Beachy Amish person might look like a more conservative Mennonite. You know, they might have plain clothes, like a modern lifestyle, but they're gonna have, like, a minivan instead of a buggy. And then beyond the Beachy, that's when you cross into Mennonite territory where things get way more modern and all the way to, like, liberal Mennonites who are basically indistinguishable from, you know, the broader American society, aka, like, their English neighbors. And the crucial thing to understand Here is that there is no central Amish authority. There's no Amish pope. There's no general conference of all the Amish, there's no bishop of all the Amish bishops. Like, each church district will quite literally make up its own decisions. And the bishops and the ministers in each district are chosen. But what's interesting is they're not chosen by election or by a council, but basically just by drawing lots, like a lottery where candidates will select hymnals. And the one with the slip of paper inside of the hymnal is now the new minister for life. And it's really interesting to see how the Amish can be so simultaneously, like, unified in kind of how they look and their philosophy about baptism, things like that, but also so diverse. Like, every community shares the core Anabaptist beliefs, but at the same time, each district has its own little ecosystem and its own rules. And, oh, you can use a phone, but these people can't. And they have, you know, a modern drill, but these people got to drill stuff by hand. And they each have their own little personality and their own way of drawing the line between the community and the outside English world. But across every single one of these subgroups, there's one experience that every Amish person goes through and the one word in their language that you've probably heard of before, and it's actually maybe the most misunderstood part of this entire story, and that is rumspringa. Now, whatever you've heard, it's probably a little different than that. Now, the TV version, popularized, like, you know, by reality shows like Breaking Amish and Amish in the City, it's. This is probably the version you're familiar with. You're 16 years old. Amish teenagers are sent out into the world to go party, and they go do drugs, and they get drunk, and they hook up with a lot of men or women, and, you know, they basically experience everything that they've always been denied. And, you know, they do this right before they have to make a choice about whether they come back home and be Amish forever or they leave their family. Well, that's mostly not true. Here's what rumspringa actually is. The word means running around in Pennsylvania Dutch, and it starts when an amish teenager turns 16. But there is a actual theological reason why this exists. Because, remember, the Amish only baptize adults. So before baptism, what usually happens between, you know, ages 18 and 22, a young person is not yet under the formal authority of the church. So rumspringa is essentially that in between period, you're old enough to have more freedom from your parents. You know, you're old enough to, you know, potentially go on a date or you're able to drive like a buggy or to go to like a youth gathering without, you know, like your parents watching you. Or sometimes what they call singings, which are essentially like an Amish teen social with like hymns and snacks and stuff. So you're old enough to start figuring out who you are and what you want your life to be within a spectrum. But, you know, for some Amish teenagers, especially in certain communities, Rumspringa does involve experimenting with the outside world. So some will, you know, buy cell phones and hide them or they'll go party with English friends. And a small minority might drink or smoke or even try drugs. But, you know, for the most part, that's not exactly how it is. Some of them might even have a car for a little bit before giving it up. There's actually a famous documentary called devil's playground in 2002 that focused on this side of Rumspringer. And that is where most of the public perception originally came from. But the truth is that is a tiny, tiny minority. Most Amish teenagers spend their rum spring at doing Amish stuff. Like they'll go to supervised youth gatherings with other Amish, you know, teenagers or, you know, doing volleyball games and singing and, you know, church sponsored activities. They're not throwing crazy parties. They're hanging out with the same kids that they grew up with, just with a little bit more freedom. And then comes the decision. So at some point, usually in their late teens or their early 20s, this young person has to choose. They can either choose to be baptized and formally join the church and commit to the Ordnong for the rest of their lives, or they can leave. And here's the part that is crazy. Between 85 and 90% of Amish young people choose to stay.
- [54:14]
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- [54:59]
Mark Gagnon
which is just wild to think about, right? Like, these kids have no smartphone tv, barely high school, no cars, no Internet. They spent their rum Springer, like, you know, with the freedom to get a taste of the outside world. Obviously, to varying degrees, they have an idea of what's out there and what they're missing out on. And the overwhelming majority of them walk away from it all and commit for life to one of the most restrictive forms of Christianity in America. And you might be asking why? Well, to me, it's fairly obvious, right? Of course you're going to have your family, and that's a massive part of it. Leaving the Amish world means leaving your parents and your siblings and your grandparents and everyone you've ever known your entire life. You got to leave it behind. And then, of course, some of it is faith. They genuinely believe that their way of life is what God wants for them. Some of it, people could say, is that they've been conditioned to reject the outside world. So even though they're technically able to choose, it's like, you know, the religious and social pressures they grew up in almost always certainly prevent them. But some of it is very simple. And something that's kind of uncomfortable for a lot of us that live in the outside world to admit some of it is that they look at the outside world and they don't want to be a part of it. You know, for 10 to 15% of them who do leave will, what happens to them? Well, there are definitely some serious and traumatic consequences about leaving the Amish community. So remember that term maidung, the strict shunning that Jacob Amon split from, you know, with the Mennonites way back in the 1600s. Well, that's still practiced today, and it's still very serious. But here's a key thing to understand. Shunning only applies to baptized members who leave. So if you're a teenager who never got baptized and you walk away during or even after Rumspringa before getting baptized, you're technically not shunned. Your family's gonna be sad about it, but they can still eat with you and they can hug you and you can still see them and you can do business with them, there's no formal break. But if you get baptized and you basically accept this duty in front of your entire community and you are now in the Ordnung, and then you leave, well, that is a different story, because in the strictest communities, maidung basically means total separation. Your parents cannot eat at the same table as you. Your siblings can't give you a Christmas present. Your old friends can't do business with you. And if you come back to visit, you have to sit at a separate table for meals. Some former Amish have described showing up to their parents funerals and not being allowed to ride in the car with their family. And of course, like with anything, enforcement is going to vary dramatically district by district. Some communities are super strict, and they treat a shunned person as if like they're dead. Others are going to be way more relationally flexible. They're going to let family members hug you and talk to you, even share certain meals. As long as the technicalities of the rules are observed, there's no single Amish experience of being shunned. And to demonstrate this, you should hear the story of a man named Ira Wagler. Ira was born in 1961 into an old Order Amish family in Aylor, Ontario. He left as a teenager, came back, got baptized, and then left again once he was a baptized member, which meant that he was now under formal shunnings. He spent years trying to find his footing in the English world, and he eventually wrote a memoir called Growing Up Amish, and became, to many, ex Amish, one of the most recognized public voices of that experience. Now, what Wagler describes and what dozens of other ex Amish, you know, memoirs will describe is something way more complicated than either, you know, Amish life is terrible or Amish life is amazing. He loved his family, and he genuinely missed his community, but he could not, no matter how hard he tried, believe what they believed. And he left because he had to. And he dealt with that inner turmoil and that grief for decades. And that's really the cost. Not just the practical loss, like the language and the family and the safety net, but that permanent heartache of being formed by a world that you never were a part of and you can never really go back to because you were never really in it. And you can also never fully escape it because it is everything you've ever known. So, like we mentioned earlier, that theological intent of Maidung, that shunning, it's supposed to be redemptive. The idea is that by cutting the person off from everything they love, you'll create enough pain to bring them back. And repentance is always possible. At any moment, if a shunned person returns and asks for forgiveness, the community is supposed to receive them with joy. But for many of them who leave, the return never really comes, and they do their best to adapt and to assimilate into the modern world, which, as you can imagine from growing up in their community, can be super difficult. Right. Think about the Amish education. It ends at 8th grade. So many ex Amish leave with no high school diploma or a college degree or a driver's license or how to even like negotiate rent or like get a credit card or anything like that. And you know, there are now organizations like Mission to Amish People and various ex Amish support networks that exist specifically to help people make this tradition. And some ex Amish, of course, will survive. Some go to college and build careers and some, you know, start families in the modern world. But many will describe that ache, that sense of having been cut into two, that they can never fully be Amish again and that they can never fully be English. And they live kind of in this liminal space in between. And maybe they're watching right now. I'm so curious what your experience is, what your experience of this is if you are ex Amish. But think about that. That community is only 10 or 15% of them that do a rum spray up because that other 85, 90%, they stay. Which for me does raise a question. Why are these kids choosing the buggy and no electricity generation after generation? Well, that question is being asked more and more by modern outsiders like journalists and sociologists, because for a long time the Amish were kind of treated as like a, like a cute little antique, this living history exhibit, and people who made like a quaint choice to live like it was the 1800s and good for them. But you know, that doesn't matter. Well, that's not how the conversation is now because in the last 20 years, as the modern world has spiraled into a mental health crisis and a loneliness epidemic and you know, social media boom and the AI on the horizon, that's going to destroy everyone or whatever, people have started looking at the Amish and they've noticed patterns. Studies have found reported rates of depression and anxiety amongst Amish are significantly lower than the general American population. Reported rates of self harm appear to be lower. Certain cancer rates, particularly those linked to like smoking and processed food, those are substantially lower. Obesity, extremely rare type 2 diabetes, basically unheard of. And they eat a heavy diet of carbs and meat, but still they seem relatively healthy. And researchers attribute this to the physical labor and the lack of processed food. Even ADHD diagnosis is basically non existent in Amish kids. Now this is an important caveat. Those numbers come from a lot of caveats that the headlines will miss. So mental health conditions in Amish communities are almost certainly undiagnosed to an extent. So like, going to a psychiatrist for help is kind of culturally frowned upon. So reporting standards will differ. Right, like your access to proper diagnostics will differ. So when you see the Amish have no depression, part of what you might be seeing is the Amish have very low rates of reported depression because, you know, saying you're depressed is very frowned upon. And the picture is really real. Like, I think that they're probably generally happier, but I don't think framing it as like a perfect utopia is also fair. So the same caution might apply to like, cancer diagnosis. The Amish do have lower rates of certain cancers specifically tied to like tobacco and lifestyle. But cancer is a bunch of different diseases. And the Amish might actually have higher rates of some genetic disorders, including some childhood cancers, because the gene pool is so small. And in some cases, inbreeding can become a real issue. So again, you know, no one should walk away from the conversation thinking that the Amish have a cure for every modern disease. They don't. But they do have a very different set of trade offs that from our side as the English is, you know, very appealing. On the social side, though, the pictures, I mean, I think the Amish probably got it figured out. You know, Amish elderly almost never end up in nursing homes. They almost always live with extended family in a kind of attached apartment that they call the gross dadi house or the grandfather house. And this is where they basically will live until the day that they die. Amish children grow up surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins and siblings and grandparents. Divorce is very rare. Childlessness is very rare. The structural conditions of loneliness, right, like being isolated and online all the time and focused on individuality, these things don't exist. So that means Amish individuals never are really that lonely or alienated from their community. They absolutely can feel lonely at times, but the architecture of their life pushes so hard in the opposite direction that it's just much more rare now the rest of America, that's not the case. I mean, we have record levels of loneliness and antidepressant use is at an all time high. Teenage mental health is collapsing. You know, fertility is plummeting. We're, I think, at like a negative, you know, reproductive rate. I mean, there's overdoses and alcoholism and all of this climbs higher and higher every single year. Whereas for the Amish, that's not really the case. The Amish who 200 years ago were dismissed as like these Backward holdouts are now doubling their population every two decades, while modern America, at this rate, is barely able to replace itself. So what do they understand that we don't? And, I mean, maybe one of the best answers actually comes from the sociologists that study them. The Amish, the argument goes, have retained the answer to an ancient problem that every modern society kind of forgot. And basically that is how to make sacrifice socially meaningful. Modern life asks you to sacrifice all the time. You know, your time, your sleep, your attention, your relationships, mental health. But it asks you to sacrifice them for nothing. I mean, like, you're sacrificing your energy for a job that you hate. You're sacrificing your attention for a screen that makes you sad. You know, you're sacrificing so much that doesn't really contribute to anything bigger. It just leaks out of your life and disappears for profit for some other company. But the Amish, they sacrifice, too. They give up a ton. They don't have cars or electricity or education to a degree, or modern medicine or even self expression. That is all a sacrifice. But every one of those sacrifices is visible to everyone else around them. And every one of them is for something. It's either for the community or for the church or for your kids or for your God. And that sacrifice has a destination that, you know, seems like it contributes to the health of their whole lifestyle. And that more than the buggies or the bonnets, that, I think, is the actual secret. It's not rejecting the modern world. It's. It's, you know, when they give something up, it's for the purpose of gaining something that is way more important. And that thing is almost always belonging. Now, I know it sounds like I'm glazing the Amish here, and I kind of am, but the truth is that Amish life might not be for everyone. And that doesn't mean that everyone inside of it is thriving. Right. Like, I just want to be fair and clear that, you know, the lack of high school education or college will limit options for the people that leave. And there are issues in some communities with, of course, like abuse going unreported, partly because the cultural norm is to handle problems internally and, you know, distrust of outside authorities. And, of course, mental health issues exist but are often suppressed because you can't talk to anyone about it. And, you know, women's roles are super traditional and Amish women can't serve as bishops or any of that stuff. And, you know, marriage is, you know, very much enforced by the social dynamic. And, you Know, there's all sorts of stuff that are issues, but that's not the point of the show. Okay? But I do want to just show that there are. It's not a perfect utopia, okay? There are just trade offs. So not everyone inside Amish life has, you know, perfect experiences of peace and fulfillment. And some see it as extremely restrictive, and some leave for reasons that are, you know, way more painful than curiosity. It might be like abuse or theological doubt or anything like that. It's not a utopia. There are real issues, but, you know, they're still living on the same earth that we are, so they still have problems. But when you hold up those costs next to the costs of modern life, the trade off is not super clear, you know? And when looking at the state of modern American society, on certain days, you might be like, hey, I think the Amish got this figured out. Now, that doesn't mean I'm about to go give up everything to go live on a farm in Lancaster. But there is a party that's like, they got. They have something that we forgot. And maybe as Americans, we tore down some fences without realizing why they were put up in the first place. And there is something else that I keep coming back to when we're talking about the Amish, that 500 years ago, the Anabaptists start their movement, and for that, they were persecuted across Europe and literally drowned and killed, beheaded for centuries. But at the end of the day, the Amish kind of won because they kept going. I mean, Felix Mons that we talked about before, he drowned in the limat river in 1527, but his spiritual descendants, the Mennonites and the Amish, they're still here, and they're still meeting up in barns, and they're still singing the same hymns written by their ancestors in prison cells, and they're still not assimilating. Meanwhile, the modern world, the version that you and I are in, that we call normal, with screens and suburbs and prescription pain meds and insurance companies that are all, you know, ripping us off, that's been running for, like 70 years. You know, like the smartphone era at this point is like, barely old enough to go to college. Whereas The Amish have 500 years of results, we have, like a couple decades. And the numbers so far, I mean, I don't know about you. I don't know if the numbers are great for us. So when you think about the Amish in comparison with the world that you and I face today, remember, that's a family who doesn't really pay attention to who's president. They don't really care about, you know, the Tesla or SpaceX, IPL. They don't know who Kim Kardashian is. They don't really care. They don't really know about aliens. They're living on the land that their ancestors literally died trying to get to, doing almost exactly what their ancestors did and raising children who will do it after them. And in a hundred years, statistically, the Amish are going to be fine. And the rest of us, I mean, I hope we're still here to look at them. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a brief history about the life, lifestyle, and theological beliefs of the Amish. I mean, what a fascinating group of people. I mean, I am enamored by them. And it does tickle the little natural part of my brain that's like, that is really what we all need, you know? And it's funny, too, because all these super liberal people always make, like, their own utopias where they're like, let's make a commune where we farm. It's this radical idea where, like, we all help each other. And it's like, you're just doing what the Amish did, but without God and more sex. That's basically all it is. The Amish figure this out. So I'm like, also, we don't.
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Mark Gagnon
Hey, sweetie. Your mother showed me this Carvana thing for selling the car. I'm gonna give it a try. Wish me luck. Me again. I put in the license plate. It gave me an offer. Unbelievable. Okay, I accepted the offer. They're picking it up Tuesday from the driveway. I haven't even left my chair. It's done. The car is gone. I'm holding a check anyway. Carvana, give it a whirl. Love ya.
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- [71:00]
Miles Media
No, it could be less sex. Amish might bone.
- [71:02]
Mark Gagnon
They probably. I mean, statistically, yeah, they bang. They got 10 kids. Yeah, I guess it's just. It's literally the same Thing they're doing just without God. Yeah, they're trying to do a commune without God and it always falls apart. Whereas the Amish to it with a very strict version of God and it's lasted 500 years plus.
- [71:20]
Miles Media
Yeah.
- [71:21]
Mark Gagnon
Now, Miles, I know you weren't fully locked in, just absolutely gripped by every detail. But what did you take away? Is there anything you learned?
- [71:28]
Miles Media
Yeah. The Amish are fascinating, and I truly know very little about them. I don't know, they're just fascinating group.
- [71:36]
Mark Gagnon
I think I'm pro Amish.
- [71:37]
Miles Media
Yeah, sure.
- [71:39]
Mark Gagnon
Oh, there's a little bit of abuse that. All right. There's abuse everywhere, dude. I'm not saying that the Amish abuse isn't bad. I'm sure it happens. I'm sure there's some stuff that goes on that's not great. Oh, the gender roles are traditional. All right, I get it, I get it, I get it. But the. I mean, the trade off, everyone has a friend. You're growing up with all your siblings.
- [71:56]
Miles Media
No one goes south and they're gonna like, help you.
- [71:59]
Mark Gagnon
You lose your barn, you get it rebuilt. Your friend gets sick, they cover the medical costs. I'm like, it just sounds nice.
- [72:05]
Miles Media
Yeah. I grew up around Mennonites, so I actually knew nothing about the Amish.
- [72:10]
Mark Gagnon
The lives. The Mennonites are the lives, dude.
- [72:12]
Miles Media
Mennonites were the first ones, so I don't know.
- [72:14]
Mark Gagnon
No.
- [72:15]
Miles Media
Yeah.
- [72:15]
Mark Gagnon
Were you not listening?
- [72:16]
Miles Media
No. Were you not listening?
- [72:17]
Mark Gagnon
Look, I get. Okay, the Mennonites kind of, but like the. The Amish are the ones that actually hold it down. The Mennonites are the way to woke.
- [72:26]
Miles Media
Yeah. Yeah. We had a bunch of different, varying levels of Mennonites in Sarasota, all from
- [72:31]
Mark Gagnon
different districts that probably had different. What do they call it?
- [72:34]
Miles Media
Or Newton's or whatever.
- [72:35]
Mark Gagnon
Nice. We're all getting smarter out here.
- [72:38]
Miles Media
There's a awful, awful television show on TLC called Breaking Amish. No, Suddenly Amish. What is that Suddenly? So back in the day, there was a television show called Amish Mafia. I don't know if you remember this. And basically it like was a very dramatized. They claim it's real, but I actually think it was all just like sort of fake dramatized reality TV show about Amish. And in all of like the conflict, there was like an elder and kick people out. And I'm sure some of it was real, but obviously very dramatized. And then there's this TLC show called Suddenly Amish, and I like, put it on and like the dumbest way, a couple months ago Just like, all right, it's winter New York. I'll watch something dumb. And it's truly awful. They get like, wait, why? They get, like, influencery types, people that, like, want to be somewhat famous. It seems like people looking for attention to go on this show and then become, quote, unquote, suddenly Amish. But they obviously, like, the producers, are very good at their job and are good at finding people that have alternative lifestyles where they Amish be cool with. And also just people who are, like, wildly not tough at handling. Like a night in a hot bar.
- [73:57]
Mark Gagnon
It's like, simple lighting.
- [73:58]
Miles Media
Yeah.
- [73:59]
Mark Gagnon
Yeah.
- [73:59]
Miles Media
But simple. If at least those two. Yeah, but at least those two were, like, in on the bit in a way. This is just awful. And there's, like, one guy that has a hearing device to help him hear. And the Amish are like, no, you can't have that. And I was like, I don't actually know.
- [74:18]
Mark Gagnon
Probably not.
- [74:18]
Miles Media
Yeah. I actually think that's a producer being like, go, cut that out.
- [74:21]
Mark Gagnon
You know what I mean? He has to be deaf the rest of the show. And you're like, I bet you if they all gathered at their local or doing before the fall communion, they would come into a compromise and say, you could have a hearing device.
- [74:29]
Miles Media
Yeah, it was really dumb. And then another guy's just like, it was just a dumb show. And these people are like, no, I want to do this. I want to, like, keep my fake nails on. And they're like, you can't. And they'd, like, cry. And I was like, this is so dumb.
- [74:41]
Mark Gagnon
Yeah. There's something that America does where, like, we really fetishize these small communities and then try to, like, pimp them for content.
- [74:47]
Miles Media
Yeah. We, like, vilified them. And it's like, they seem like great
- [74:50]
Mark Gagnon
secret lives of more wives kind of does the same thing.
- [74:52]
Miles Media
Yeah.
- [74:53]
Mark Gagnon
You have, like, a group of LDS people that all live in the same community. They have, like, a very clear lifestyle. And maybe you like it, maybe you don't. But then you have this other show called Secret Lives that basically doesn't follow or adhere to any of the tenets of the faith at all. It kind of bastardizes the faith, frankly.
- [75:07]
Miles Media
Yep.
- [75:08]
Mark Gagnon
And, I mean, it's entertaining. Sure. Like, I'm not scrupulous or trying to clutch pearls about it, but it is funny to me that, like, we have so many Amish shows of people just being like, aren't they crazy?
- [75:18]
Miles Media
And they don't seem that crazy.
- [75:20]
Mark Gagnon
Well, if you look at the rates of depression, ADHD diagnosis, and cancer it's kind of like, where are the crazy ones?
- [75:25]
Miles Media
Yeah, yeah.
- [75:27]
Mark Gagnon
Like, are. Like, are. Are they crazy? Oh, they love their families and they all take care of each other. Are. They're. That's crazy.
- [75:33]
Miles Media
Yeah.
- [75:33]
Mark Gagnon
They are so crazy that they, like, they pick up each other's medical bills and, you know, help their families and not go on their phones during dinner. That's crazy.
- [75:41]
Miles Media
It's. It's very funny. Some of, like, the controversies that have come up amongst, like, the Amish in history. Like, obviously there was the. You spoke about it. The Supreme Court trial about if they
- [75:54]
Mark Gagnon
need to go to school first. Yoker.
- [75:56]
Miles Media
Yeah. There's other ones which also. That sort of got pushed back in, like, the 90s. There was other Supreme Court. Supreme Court decisions that sort of pushed in different directions based on that. But there's some interesting ones about the Amish people having to put lights on their buggies because they're getting killed at night.
- [76:15]
Mark Gagnon
Right.
- [76:15]
Miles Media
They're, like, going down major highways in, like, middle of Pennsylvania and just getting crushed by, like, a semi.
- [76:20]
Mark Gagnon
Yeah.
- [76:21]
Miles Media
So, okay, you guys have to put lights on them. And apparently the. The compromise was no lights, but they'll
- [76:26]
Mark Gagnon
have the orange reflector.
- [76:27]
Miles Media
The reflector.
- [76:28]
Mark Gagnon
But some refuse it. Yeah, that's the one I was talking about before The. The. The Schwartz. The Schwartzheim. They're like, we're not doing it.
- [76:35]
Miles Media
And they find this huge combo like, that went on for months within the Pennsylvania, like, legislature. Talking to these people, having to, like, have dialogue to be like, okay, what if we did one orange triangle?
- [76:48]
Mark Gagnon
And it's funny because Amish come back and they're like, we came here from Switzerland because you said William Penn said there was freedom of religion. And all of a sudden you're saying that we can't get killed by a semi for God.
- [76:58]
Miles Media
Yeah.
- [76:59]
Mark Gagnon
This is bs.
- [77:00]
Miles Media
Apparently, one of the leading arguments, funny enough, was that the horses wouldn't get hurt.
- [77:06]
Mark Gagnon
The leading arguments for who?
- [77:09]
Miles Media
Not leading arguments, but one of the convincing arguments was like, to the Amish. Yeah, to the Amish.
- [77:13]
Mark Gagnon
Which is very funny. Right. This is the issue with religious folks, is that you can't really use their life as leverage.
- [77:18]
Miles Media
Yeah.
- [77:18]
Mark Gagnon
They're like, hey, yeah, I'm going to heaven. I don't care. I am trapped in.
- [77:24]
Miles Media
He'll think I'm a martyr for this. Yeah.
- [77:26]
Mark Gagnon
I'm locked into this flesh machine, waiting to have eternal salvation with Jesus Christ. But then they're like, but your horse is going to die. And they're like, oh, yeah.
- [77:34]
Miles Media
And they're like, well, we can't harm horses.
- [77:35]
Mark Gagnon
My horse don't go to heaven.
- [77:37]
Miles Media
Yeah.
- [77:37]
Mark Gagnon
So we got to protect them. I need to learn Pennsylvania Dutch.
- [77:41]
Miles Media
You ever hear it?
- [77:42]
Mark Gagnon
Oh, yeah, it sounds kind of. It sounds.
- [77:43]
Miles Media
It's.
- [77:44]
Mark Gagnon
I mean, it sounds Dutch.
- [77:45]
Miles Media
It's sing songy.
- [77:46]
Mark Gagnon
Yeah, exactly.
- [77:47]
Miles Media
It's.
- [77:47]
Mark Gagnon
It's kind of like real country Dutch. It's like, if you mix like, southern with Dutch. Yeah, right.
- [77:52]
Miles Media
Yeah, it's a. It's odd. It's sort of German. Some words, like, you can definitely hear, like, German.
- [77:57]
Mark Gagnon
I guess that's what I meant. I meant German. My bad.
- [77:59]
Miles Media
You can hear, like, the German words in it. It's very odd.
- [78:02]
Mark Gagnon
Yeah. I mean, the guy that Theo Vaughn talked to was awesome. Yeah, we gotta get him on here.
- [78:06]
Miles Media
Yeah.
- [78:06]
Mark Gagnon
I wonder what he is. I wonder if he's like the. What do they call the old Order? Amish?
- [78:11]
Miles Media
Well, I mean, he went on television or he went on a podcast, so.
- [78:14]
Mark Gagnon
Well, he's on Rum Springer.
- [78:16]
Miles Media
Yeah, maybe.
- [78:17]
Mark Gagnon
So he's allowed to. He's not baptized yet, so he's got some different leeway.
- [78:21]
Miles Media
I wonder if Amish are good at sports.
- [78:24]
Mark Gagnon
I would imagine, like, some sports, like, I would say rugby.
- [78:28]
Miles Media
Mennonites are good at certain sports.
- [78:30]
Mark Gagnon
I bet you like. I bet you like farm sports.
- [78:37]
Miles Media
Dude, I don't know.
- [78:37]
Mark Gagnon
Mennonites carrying stuff. These boys are strong. Of course boys are strong.
- [78:41]
Miles Media
Some of the Amish, that. And I'm mainly talking about Mennonites, sadly. But they're all have huge forearms because they're always working. They have great farmer stands. You'll see them at the beach with their little bullcuts in the farmer's stands. I was at the beach two weeks ago, a bunch of Mennonite next to me, and they're weirdly good at beach volleyball. Holy shit. You play a bunch of Amish boys at. Or Mennonite boys at beach volleyball and they'll kick your ass.
- [79:05]
Mark Gagnon
Yeah, well, that's one of the things that they'll do during Rome spring is like, they play a bunch of volleyball.
- [79:10]
Miles Media
They're good at basketball, which is like a hilarious.
- [79:13]
Mark Gagnon
That's interesting.
- [79:14]
Miles Media
They play in, like, black pants, shirtless, while not wildly good, obviously, but, like, good at basketball. Like, a couple of them are quite interestingly good. And then, dude, they're really good at spike ball.
- [79:27]
Mark Gagnon
No way.
- [79:28]
Miles Media
Yeah.
- [79:29]
Mark Gagnon
That kind of tracks. I mean, it's basically volleyball.
- [79:30]
Miles Media
Yeah.
- [79:31]
Mark Gagnon
Now, one thing that we didn't address that I actually do know.
- [79:34]
Miles Media
What's that?
- [79:35]
Mark Gagnon
No mustache.
- [79:37]
Miles Media
Something about the Civil War.
- [79:38]
Mark Gagnon
Precisely that.
- [79:39]
Miles Media
Yeah.
- [79:40]
Mark Gagnon
So you grow out your Beard when you're married, and that symbolizes that you're a married man. But the mustache was so associated with Civil War generals and just like American war iconography as well as, like, European war iconography, that they were like, generals and military people have mustaches.
- [79:55]
Miles Media
Yeah.
- [79:56]
Mark Gagnon
We are so pacifistic that we are going to shun this type of military association. So we are going to keep the beer to show we're married and show our pacifism by taking the mustache off.
- [80:07]
Miles Media
Yeah.
- [80:08]
Mark Gagnon
Kind of nice.
- [80:09]
Miles Media
They also have interesting rules. And I don't know if this is exactly with the Amish, but. But with the Mennonites, you could tell by looking at the women what they sort of were based on what they wore.
- [80:20]
Mark Gagnon
Yeah.
- [80:20]
Miles Media
So the bonnet versus, like, the doily versus if the bonnet was tied or untied behind the shoulders, like, it signified
- [80:27]
Mark Gagnon
their status, like, internally, like they were married or a baptized unmarried woman or a non baptized unmarried one. Things like that.
- [80:34]
Miles Media
And then, like, the colors they wore also would let you know, like, at what level of seriousness they were.
- [80:39]
Mark Gagnon
Interesting.
- [80:40]
Miles Media
All black was like, obviously, like, Beachy
- [80:44]
Mark Gagnon
Amish versus, like, Mennonite or whatever.
- [80:47]
Miles Media
Yeah. So, like, it's the same schism or same levels within meta knights. And you would be able to see them, like, on the road. And if they had X, Y and Z, you'd be like, oh, that's a pretty. Like, he's got a cell phone in his pocket. Right. He's got a flip phone. And then there'd be some where you're
- [81:00]
Mark Gagnon
like, none of that interesting.
- [81:02]
Miles Media
Yeah. So I wonder all the rules within, like, the Amish with their dress. Exactly. I wonder if they have outward signifiers. Yeah.
- [81:11]
Mark Gagnon
Well, let me just say, as a. As a. A broad blanket statement to the Amish and the Mennonites included Beachy all the way back to, you know, Old Order Amish. I like you and I respect you. And if you're watching right now and you're Amish or ex Amish or on Rumspringa or baptized. Not baptized, please. I would love to know what you think.
- [81:31]
Miles Media
You got the speaker hidden under your pillow so your parents don't know exactly.
- [81:34]
Mark Gagnon
If you got your little iPhone tucked in between your cheeks right now because you don't want Daddy finding it. I want to know what you think first of this episode. Did I miss anything or get anything wrong? Again, I'm doing this in good faith, trying to try my best to understand the people that I inhabit this earth with. But if there's anything I missed, please let me know, if there's anything I didn't cover that I overlooked, please let me know. And furthermore, if you want to come on this very program, I was just
- [81:56]
Miles Media
going to say we'll fly you out.
- [81:57]
Mark Gagnon
If you're even allowed, we'll get a buggy. We will charter a buggy from Lancaster to New York for you to come and do this podcast if you are so inclined. God bless you all. I appreciate you all for tuning in. If you like history content, because we talked a little bit about history today, you're gonna love History Camp. If you like deep dives and all the craziest stuff going on right now in the world, you're gonna love the main channel, Camp Gagnon. And if you just like to rock with the religion vibe, well, great news. We drop these episodes every single Sunday. So make sure you tune in, subscribe, all that, don't miss an upload, and I will see y' all next time. God bless.
- [82:26]
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- [82:56]
Mark Gagnon
It's Jay Shetty. Are you one of those media strategy people scrolling through spreadsheets, searching for an audience that pays twice as much attention to your ads than they do on social? Let me introduce you to fans. And they're here with me on Spotify. Trust me, I know fans. They don't skip. They stay for hours. They don't move on. They manifest. They're not a demographic group. They're fans. Spotify advertising. You're among fans.