Amish Confidential By Chris Burkholder (© 2005 Argyle Publishing, ISBN: 0977268004)

 

This book has enjoyed recently a flurry of notice and popularity in the Amish heartland of the Midwest. The author, raised in the home of an Amish bishop, claims that this is a true story of his childhood in northeast Missouri.  The large numbers of Amish in this region of Missouri and Iowa are the subject of interest, speculation, and rumor by the “English” (non-Amish) residents. This book is a quick read but not a pleasure-filled one. The contents depicted extremely disturbing descriptions of child abuse, sexual exploration by juveniles, incest and bestiality.  Some of the tenets and habits of the Amish are related here but not in a way that is flattering to this community of Christians.  This young man struggled for years to understand how a religion that emphasizes that  there is “no defense for a misdeed and no justification; only acknowledgement of sin and acceptance of punishment to rectify the wrong” can free the believer at death to move into the new home in heaven.  

 

Americans may believe that the lifestyle of the Amish represents an attempt to return its believers to a better and simpler way of life apart from the stresses of modern life. Instead they practice rigid authoritarian discipline, violent and sudden punishment, abuse of women and children, and revenge for any slight or shame.   It was disheartening to think that such criminality, violence and brutality could be linked with any group who claim that they are Christian. 

 

This author had only an 8^th grade education (and probably poor at that) and may have had a great deal of help with this book.  But even that help has not erased the primitive writing and editing style.  The narrative is so filled with painful memories that some naivety is understandable and forgivable.  A reader might speculate that the author purposely exaggerated or even lied about these events in order to boost sales of his memoir.  This might be true, but concerned readers will fear that it is not.  Anecdotal evidence from a number of sources points to a closed society, exempt from scrutiny, that practices abuse across a wide spectrum. 

 

There is a startling similarity between Mr. Burkholder's allegations and incidents related in an article published in the web magazine Legal Affairs.  This similarity is not in the incidents told but in the Amish practice of confession of any sin no matter how grievous, followed by a short period of “shunning,”  and then full reinstatement of the sinner into the fellowship with forced forgiveness required of all members of the fellowship, even the victims of what would be criminal offenses in most courtrooms.  No other penalty or punishment from the outside or “English” world is tolerated. (See:  Legal Affairs)

 

 Readers interested in further exploration of this issue may also find David Yoder’s Internet published book entitled Amish Deception of interest. (See: Amish Abuse)

 

This story is a much needed light shining into an exceptionally dark corner of religious cultism that has withdrawn its members from the mainstream of life and culture in the United States. Even more importantly, they have withdrawn from the freedom, forgiveness and grace found in Christ Jesus. The author ends the book with his determination to begin a life in search of these. My heartfelt prayer is that he finds them. 

      by Rose Marie Smith