ABC News Highlights Sexual Abuse in the Amish Community

The case in point is that of Mary Byler, formerly of an Amish community in Viroqua, Wisconsin. She testified that three of her brothers committed rape against her and her sister (then four years old), even going so far as to have herself wired for sound as she confronted one of the brothers. All three were convicted and drew varying degrees of punishment. The mother in the case also received a sentence for failure-to-protect. That case is a matter of public record, so there's little reason to doubt its authenticity. But what is clearly missing is a proper sense of perspective.

Forums dedicated to discrediting the Amish have existed for some time, and without fail all have begun trumpeting this case as typical. In addition to specific anti-Amish forums, I have seen commentary on atheistic forums and even on Democratic Underground, where some correspondents draw parallels between what happened to Mary Byler and John Kerry's failure of election this last November.

The photograph of Mary Byler is revealing. I see a typical hard-edged liberal single woman--or perhaps just another former Amish girl who, having participated in rumspringa (literally, "running around", from the German rum about and schpringe to run), decided to stay out in the world. I don't deny the pain she felt, mostly because I doubt that Eli Byler, for example, would have drawn a twelve-year prison sentence on the basis of a made-up or exaggerated story. (I often think it's almost too hard to convict a man of rape, anyway.) But neither do I think that this pain is the sole reason for her leaving the Amish way of life. The evidence as to whether Mary Byler is now officially shunned is scanty at best.

We deal here with two issues:

1. The handling of the Byler case (and possibly other similar cases) within the Amish community, and
2. the perspective on the matter on the part of outsiders and those who have left the community in recent years, before and after this case.

With regard to the handling of the matter within the church: Apparently the church's punishment of the brothers consisted of six weeks of shunning followed by reinstatement upon some evidence of repentance. Incredibly, we hear that one brother started to molest the four-year-old sister of Mary Byler after this mass shunning had run its course. Obviously the punishment didn't "take." That led Mary to seek help from outside authorities. But more than that, this case demonstrates that the Amish do not know how to handle a case of sexual violence within their community. The Amish lifestyle emphasizes prevention of such sin by restricting outside influences. That's certainly commendable. But what isn't so commendable is not having a policy to deal particularly with such sin when it happens.

Part of the problem is that the Amish, as much as I admire their attempt to create a simple lifestyle, clearly preach a "works gospel." To suggest, as they do, that only those who are baptized in their particular church will be saved is no more proper than was the attitude of the Judaizers in St. Paul's day. The keeping of any set of customs, whether of circumcision or of the ordnung of Amish life, constitutes works--and works will never save anyone.

The other problem is that the Amish misapply Scripture. True enough, Paul did say to the Corinthians that a Christian should not bring a lawsuit against a fellow Christian [I Corinthians 6:1ff]. But Paul also said, "Let every soul subject itself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority that is not of God." [Romans 13:1ff]. I would not advise anyone, even a community trying to "keep things simple," to try to keep criminal matters away from outside authorities. Rape is certainly a criminal matter. You don't wash it out by shunning alone. Any sin has its consequences, and if those consequences include a severe sanction by an outside authority, nothing in Scripture says that the community ought not deliver up an offender to face those consequences. Frankly, the Amish community leadership, upon finding out about this cancer in its midst, ought to have called in the authorities themselves. That their ordnung would appear to forbid this practice (which I can't vouch for) is, if true, the most tragic flaw in Amish custom. (And even failing this, I should think that rape merits a shunning for life, not merely for six weeks!)

In sum, an emphasis on prevention is laudable as far as it goes, because a mina of prevention really is worth a talent of cure. But when prevention fails, you must have an adequate corrective or curative policy. I find the Amish lacking in this.

We now turn to the reaction to this case by certain persons, including former Amish who have left the lifestyle, who have various agendae of their own. One such person is Ruth Garrett, who also appeared on the ABC-TV 20/20 program last night with Mary Byler. She cannot discuss the Amish except to condemn them--a view not quite shared by the co-author of one of her books, Born Amish. The other author, Deborah Morse-Kahn, has studied the Amish for years and by at least one account almost wishes she could be one. Morse-Kahn, and also Linda Simpkins, writing in the Sauk Centre Herald, are the only two commentators I have found so far that put the matter into proper perspective: that any community has its good and bad elements. As I've said before, the Amish failure to allow for the possibility of grievous sin in their communities leads to their failure to deal with it, and that can only harm them.

But many other commentators, including, very likely, the producers of 20/20, are looking for any excuse to portray a community of faith as inherently flawed. They will never have the proper perspective because they don't believe that God is even Real. While their criticism of the particular handling of Mary Byler's case might have some justice, I also read of commentaries suggesting that such incestuous rape is the norm in Amish society--and not one person has advanced any statistical or other evidence to suggest that such sexual sin is more common inside Amish communities than out of them.

Indeed, let us remember that the Byler case is as remarkable as it is tragic. It is remarkable because it is rare. Even this site, purporting to exist to publicize cases of criminal behavior in the Amish world ("There is rape, incest and even murder, whith the local law enforcers ignore."), cites only three cases and, by the admission of its webmaster, confines its analysis to one particular Amish order, the Swartzentruber order. (Indeed, a purported link to a page listing multiple Amish "abuse" case records turns out to be broken. The site does, however, list some Scripture that bears on the question of whether the Amish are really well advised to keep criminality in their midst to themselves. That Scripture list does not include Romans 13:1-7, which would have strengthened that webmaster's case. But it does treat the issue of how man-made rules and works do not substitute for saving grace and faith.)

I have left a lot of commentary on this case for two reasons:

1. I doubted before that any such cases would be found. I see now that I am in error.
2. I could have predicted that, as soon as any such case was found, the atheists (both in name and in fact) would make more of that case than it warranted. In this I am not in error.

Bear perspective in mind, before you decide that a society that trumpets sexual expression and subjects its people to constant sexual stimulation would really be better, all other things being equal, than a society that regarded sex as the private matter that it ought to be.