Lenka S. reviewed on 6/28/2013 + 822 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 2

Kraybill knows his topic. He's a prof. at Messiah College, a top-drawer evangelial school with Anabaptist/Brethren roots, located near PA Amish country. He has studied and written on the Amish since the mid-80s. He is also a clear communicator, able to summarize complicated material with ease.

He is clearly very sympathetic to most of the Amish distinctives, though he is able to maintain a critical stance.

To me the Amish are more than simply a curious cultural oddity. They offer some insights into ways for Christians to confront and stand apart from Modernity and materialism. Though Kraybill shows, they may be subtly Modernist in their very rejection of Modernity.

The Amish are also important as an example of an extreme Anabaptist tradition. The 16th century European Xianity can be divided into three groups: Roman Caholics, Reformation, and Anabaptist. Surely the latter, while smallest of the three in the 16th cent., has long been ascending in contemporary America. Anabaptist distinctives -- sectarianism, believer baptism, emphasis on piety over intellect, anticlerical, antisacramental, democratic in church polity, etc. -- are now dominant in American evangelicalism. How important then to understand the Amish, as a fairly well-preserved example of the early Anabaptist tradition.

Anyway, wonderful book. Worth repeated readings.

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