Keeping up with the Yoder’s

I read a fascinating article about the economic downturn hitting the Amish population, A Bank Run Teaches the 'Plain People' About the Risks of Modernity . You would think that they would be pretty insulated from economic conditions, but like Lot drawn to the bright lights of Sodom, the lure of big paychecks has drawn some of the Amish away from their roots and core values. When the economy started to collapse, they made a run on the local Amish “bank”. The article looks at the way prosperity has impacted their lifestyle.

Like Amish in other parts of the U.S., the Indiana community strayed from their traditional reliance on farming in recent decades as their numbers grew and land prices rose. Many opened family businesses, often in furniture and other wood crafts.

By 2007, more than half of Amish men in these parts were working full time in manufacturing, and earning, on average, $30 an hour, says Steven Nolt, a professor at Goshen College in Goshen, Ind., who studies the community.

The great increase in discretionary income spawned a "keeping-up-with-the-Joneses mentality," says Mervin Lehman, 39, an Amish father of four who says he was making more than $50-an-hour and working up to 60 hours a week as an RV plant supervisor before he was laid off in November.

Some Amish bishops in Indiana weakened restrictions on the use of telephones. Fax machines became commonplace in Amish-owned businesses. Web sites marketing Amish furniture began to crop up. Although the sites were run by non-Amish third parties, they nevertheless intensified a feeling of competition, says Casper Hochstetler, a 70-year-old Amish bishop who lives in Shipshewana.

"People wanted bigger weddings, newer carriages," Mr. Lehman says. "They were buying things they didn't need." Mr. Lehman spent several hundred dollars on a model-train and truck hobby, and about $4,000 on annual family vacations, he says. This year, there will be no vacation.

It became common practice for families to leave their carriages home and take taxis on shopping trips and to dinners out.

Some Amish families had bought second homes on the west coast of Florida and expensive Dutch Harness Horses, with their distinctive, prancing gait. Others lined their carriages in dark velvet and illuminated them with battery-powered LED lighting.

Amish people with tricked out buggies! This paragraph really struck me…

Even the tradition of helping each other out began to unravel, Bishop Hochstetler says. Instead of asking neighbors for help, well-to-do Amish began hiring outsiders so they wouldn't have to reciprocate. "Factory work doesn't eliminate fellowship, but it does not encourage togetherness," the bishop says.

As they grew more affluent, their community suffered. They stopped helping one another, everyone became more concerned with their own well being. Rather than working together, they hired professionals. Hmmm….

On a bright note, many of the Amish seem to have pulled back from the brink:

In Indiana, a back-to-basics movement appears to be taking root. More patches of produce have sprouted behind Amish homes this summer. Restaurants are entertaining fewer Amish customers. Mr. Lehman says neighbors "are more considerate of each other now."

Some men have started their own businesses close to home. Mr. Lehman makes mattresses in his workshop. Harlan Miller, a 34-year-old father of five who was laid off in February, started making fruit butter, which he sells at a local market. Freeman Miller (no relation), 54, who was laid off after 30 years in manufacturing, builds wooden caskets for pets.

"We were all going way too fast," Freeman Miller says. "This has made everybody stop and realize we're just pilgrims here, the Almighty is in charge."

Is there a lesson here for the non-Amish among us? I think that there is. Affluence may do more to kill fellowship and do more harm to the church in the America than heresy. Heresy can be easy to spot by a discerning mind. Affluence is a creeping killer. We prefer to buy our way into orthopraxy. We hire professional, educated men as pastors. We pay “evangelists” to come and preach at revivals. We pay for preprinted Sunday school materials instead of doing the hard work ourselves. We put money in the plate and believe we are carrying out the Great Commission. Very few of us, me included, wants to do the hard work of real ministry. Ministering to people is frustrating and hard and time-consuming. Better to buy our way into good graces.

This is not to decry capitalism as an economic system. In a fallen world where the vast majority of people are unregenerate, capitalism is the best way of incentivizing and rewarding work. That also doesn’t mean that the church should adopt capitalism wholesale with one another. We cannot view one another as competitors for scant resources but as fellow believers redeemed for a purpose. We also cannot equate worldly success with Gospel faithfulness. When we follow the marketing programs of the world and seek the marks of success of the world, we lose the sense of community that we are called to. A life of ascetism may not be the answer but wholesale embrace of the trappings of worldly success certainly is not.