The Amish fervently believe in the Sermon on the Mount: “The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) also plays an important role in Amish Christianity, as Amish derive their beliefs and practices of forgiveness, nonresistance and non-violence from the Scripture.’

"We must not think evil of this man"

An deranged gunman killed five Amish girls in a schoolhouse in Pennsylvania in October 2006. 

State Police lead the carriages to the cemetery.

After a deranged lunatic drove to an Amish schoolhouse in October 2006 and shot and killed five young girls and wounded five others, a grandfather was overheard instructing the young members of his family in this way, as related later by a Catholic nun,

But it was not the violence suffered by the Amish community last week that surprised people. 

Our newspapers are full of brutal and barbarian violence day after day after day -- both national and personal.

No, what really stunned the country about the attack on the small Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania was that the Amish community itself simply refused to hate what had hurt them.

"Do not think evil of this man," the Amish grandfather told his children at the mouth of one little girl's grave.

"Do not leave this area. Stay in your home here." the Amish delegation told the family of the murderer. "We forgive this man."

Joan Chittister, OSB, “What kind of people are these?” National Catholic Reporter, October 9, 2006

Think of these words,

“Do not think evil of this man.”

“We forgive this man.”

Many Americans were shocked at the reaction of this passive Amish community in Lancaster County. After the horrible scene of the crime was investigated by police, the Amish tore down the building and forgave the man. 

Americans were shocked. They should not have been because this is part of the root of the Amish religious tradition. 

The Amish tradition

The Amish are a simple people who have a core belief in the simplicity of life and focus on the words of Jesus Christ as found in the New Testament. 

The roots of that tradition can be traced back to the Protestant Reformation more than 500 years ago. The group that the Amish look to for direction are the Anabaptists,

The Amish are one of many Anabaptist groups that trace their roots to the Anabaptist movement in sixteenth-century Europe at the time of the Protestant Reformation. Other groups include Mennonites, Hutterites, the Brethren in Christ, and Brethren groups that began in Schwarzenau, Germany, in 1708.

The Anabaptists emphasized a literal interpretation of the teachings of Jesus, especially the Sermon on the Mount. They sought to practice the teachings of Jesus in daily life, and they gave greater allegiance to the Bible than to civil government. 

“Amish Studies, Anabaptists,” Elizabethtown College, 2013

Anabaptists have been persecuted by Catholics and Protestants

Some of the beliefs of the Anabaptists were not accepted by many Christian groups, 

They were, in fact, some of the earliest proponents of the separation of church and state.

The Anabaptists also rejected infant baptism, arguing that baptism should signify a voluntary adult decision to follow Jesus—and on that basis, they proceeded to baptize one another into the movement. Because these radicals had all been baptized in state churches (Catholic or Protestant) as infants, their detractors called them Anabaptists, meaning rebaptizers.

The Anabaptist call for a voluntary church separate from government oversight infuriated Catholic and Protestant religious leaders as well as civil officials and brought severe persecution.

 

“Amish Studies, Anabaptists,” 

Elizabethtown College, 2013

What do the Amish believe?

The Amish believe in non-violence which is why the brutal killing of five young girls was difficult to accept. They will not fight in wars, serve in the military, and recognize no civil government, though they have learned to live with the latter. 

The sermons that Amish preachers use almost always reflects readings from the New Testament,

Though readings come from both the Old and New Testament, Amish worship leans heavily on the New Testament and the Gospels. As described in The Amish Way: Patient Faith in a Perilous World, “Preachers make frequent allusions to Old Testament stories and psalms, but sermons are mostly based on New Testament texts” (see The Amish Way, Appendix II: Amish Lectionary, p. 205).

On the Gospels, “there is an obvious preference for texts from the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John, all of which present the teachings of Jesus. Of these Gospels, Matthew receives the highest priority” (The Amish Way, Appendix II: Amish Lectionary, p. 205).

The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) also plays an important role in Amish Christianity, as Amish derive their beliefs and practices of forgiveness, nonresistance and non-violence from the Scripture. An Amish minister quoted in Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy observes: “Forgiveness is all about Matthew 5 and the Sermon on the Mount and loving our enemies” (Amish Grace, p. 88).

“Which are the most popular sections of the Bible in Amish 

Church?” Amish American, December 23, 2019

They follow the Anabaptist tradition of regarding the readings of the Bible literally, and that is true of the Sermon on the Mount,

Congregations in the Anabaptist traditions have long held that living out the Sermon on the Mount is doable and that, furthermore, it is our calling. We’ve cherished some assumptions about that notion. One is that it takes a community, a church that is voluntary, visible, and in which there is mutual accountability in order to make the Sermon a way of life. We cannot do this on our own.

Another assumption is that it takes a peculiar people, a sectarian understanding, to live the way of the Sermon …

Ulrich Luz challenges those assumptions. Luz is a German scholar who has taken Anabaptist traditions far more seriously than any other commentator I know. In his sections on the history of interpretation he almost always includes Anabaptist perspectives. In his comments on the Sermon on the Mount, however, he takes Anabaptists to task for assuming that the ethic of the Sermon is only for sectarian groups. In fact, he says, the ethic of the Sermon is not only for the entire Christian church but for the whole of the world God created as well. The church in all its forms is held directly accountable by the Sermon, but the world is also held accountable to the Sermon, if indirectly. The Sermon is, without equivocation, the standard for human behaviour and human attitudes.

Mary Schertz, “The Sermon on the Mount: living it out in 

mind and heart,” Canadian Mennonite, June 30, 2015

I wrote earlier about the man who found his dead son in a field after being brutally gunned down for no reason. He simply said this after praying the Our Father and listening to the words about forgiving our trespasses,

Whoever did this, I forgive them.

Sister Helen Prejean, words of Lloyd LeBlanc in “Dead Man Walking.”

The Amish absolutely believe in that and literally practice the words of the Sermon on the Mount. 

Conclusion

Some people have difficulty understand the Amish and their simple religious ways. However, when placed into the context of the Sermon on the Mount, they actually live the words. Most of us who believe strongly in those words in Matthew just read them and try to incorporate them into our lives. 

Here, the Amish incorporate them into every aspect of their lives — and that is exactly what Jesus asks of all of us. 

That is why I write about them every week. We must learn for forgive even those whom we have no respect for or any regard for them in life. We may believe them to be despicable — and often, they are — but we must still forgive them and live a peaceful, non-violent life. 

Why is that so difficult?