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Showing posts from April, 2013

THE AMISH AND LIVING IN THE PAST

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There is something romantic about the thought of living a simpler life.   For the last week we have been in Pennsylvania.  This American state has one of the largest Amish communities in it. The Amish are the decendants of some of the most radical reformers of the Sixteenth century, the Anabaptists. These groups were on the cutting edge of what God was doing back then. They refused to settle for the status quo, to be subjected to the restrictions imposed by the State churches of Europe.  Large numbers fled to the USA in search of a place to practice their faith in freedom and without state interference.  Now there are many Amish communities across the States.  Their radical cutting edge beginnings have locked them in a time warp of the past rather than in the 21st century. Today they are living in the past and resisting change and fighting to keep the modern world at a distance.  This expresses itself by dressing in an old fashioned way, refusing modern conveyances such as motoris