I recently came upon an article about an Amish bank run in the Wall Street Journal.  The article revealed about how modernity is creeping into Amish culture.

This is particularly interesting because the Amish set up their religious practice around the idea of separation from the world.  They don’t think technology is evil, but they value community and its influence on faith; thus, they have sought to control what technologies they adopt and how they interact with the world.

Mervin making mattresses out of a workshop on his property.

As the price of land has gone up, the Amish moved more and more into manufacturing positions, originally in home-based woodworking but then more started working at nearby manufacturing plants.  Earning upwards of $50 an hour and working 12 hour days, they became affluent and – naturally – fell into consumerism, buying things they didn’t need or acquiring extravagant things like homes in Florida or velvet lined carriages.  The article mentions how as affluence and consumerism has gone up, community – such as the value of helping neighbors and sharing either one another – has languished.

This highlights to me the failure of “religion” - religion being defined as “practices” that people must follow.  Ultimately, that’s merely legalism; it seeks to control behavior but does not get at the heart.  I know, because I’ve fallen into this many times!  The Amish tried to control behavior in order to protect the heart of their people (which is admirable), but their hearts naturally still fell into sin and yet still hold to their legalistic standards (as the Bible predicts, see Romans 7).  Thus, we have Amish people still driving horse and buggy but decking it out with velvet and LED lights.  They are abiding by the rules but totally missing the heart behind why those standards were set.  They probably think they are justified BECAUSE they are following the rules, being completely ignorant of the sin of their heart.

This highlights what the Bible declares as most important: our relationship with God. Christianity is NOT about following specific practices: doing this or not doing that.  Nothing we DO earns our way to God; we can never perform perfect enough to reach God.  It’s about loving Jesus because He first loved us and gave His life to bring us out of our sin and into God’s holy presence.  If we really believe that and strive for that, it totally flips our understanding of “religion”.