Shunning Sarah by Julie Kramer

today I was low on patience.
    “None,” I answered his joke about the Amish and light bulbs. “Amish don’t believe in electricity.”
    “That’s right. They believe God will provide light unto the world.”
    “I’m more familiar with their self-reliant lifestyle than their piety, Father. I’m hoping to get a deeper sense of their faith at Sarah Yoder’s funeral. Providing my boss gives me another chance with the story.”
    Funerals often reveal secrets about murder victims and their lives. Who showed up and who didn’t says a lot. Sometimes the police even videotape the attendees, looking for clues, even suspects masquerading as mourners.
    “That’s not going to happen this time,” Father Mountain said.
    “I know, no cameras for this funeral, but I’d be content just to sit quietly in the back of the church and assimilate.”
    “That’s not going to happen either,” he said. “Amish services are held in homes, not chapels. They believe in simplicity. They would consider our formal churches to be opulent and a deterrent to true worship. The same with dressing up in fancy ‘Sunday best’ attire. Believe me, none of them are going to let you hide in a corner and watch them pray.”
    Father Mountain was right about one thing. In order to stand a chance of mingling with the Amish, I needed to learn more about their religion.
    “So how do Amish differ from Catholics?” I asked. “Are they a Protestant sect?”
    “Heavens, no,” Father Mountain said.
    As I crunched cornflakes, he took me through the history of the Amish church, starting with the sixteenth century. But as hislecture became engaging, I traded spoon for pen and made some scribbles in my reporter’s notebook.
    He explained that while Martin Luther was leading the Protestant Reformation, another significant movement was also attempting to change the Roman Catholic Church.
    “Anabaptist reformers rejected what they considered the corruption of both the Catholic and Protestant religions,” he said. “From this, Amish tradition grew.”
    “So what are their core beliefs?” I asked.
    “Back then, Riley, adult baptism was considered a crime.” He spelled out that among their prime tenets was that only adults should be baptized—hence the name Anabaptists. “They also believe lay people are just as capable of interpreting scripture as clergy. And that forgiveness of sins can be attainable by faith alone.”
    “Personally, I like those last two ideas,” I said.
    “Those messages resonated with the peasant class, which alarmed status-quo theologians. So almost from the start, Amish brethren were persecuted by mainstream religion.
    “In fact,” he continued, “considering the Amish and their reclusiveness, many scholars believe their withdrawal from society came from having to worship in secret because of this oppression.”
    “So much for religious tolerance,” I said.
    “That’s a fairly recent concept, Riley. And why the Bill of Rights assuring freedom of religion was so novel. Note what our forefathers put up at the very top in the First Amendment: ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion …’ ”
    I gave a short laugh. “This is a new twist, Father. I’m used to you quoting the Bible at me, but not the Constitution. Maybe there’s a little bit of politician as well as priest in you.”
    “Running a parish requires some degree of political skill, Riley.”
    “So does working in a newsroom, Father.”
    He told me the Amish residents in southern Minnesota were Old Order Amish, the most conservative, allowing the least technology and other frills. Their clothing sported hooks and eyes rather than buttons. And while they could ride in automobiles, they could not own one. No telephones in their homes, either, but they could use an English neighbor’s phone or even share a community phone with other Amish.
    “I don’t understand the distinction between using versus owning,” I said. “That seems