The Simple, Forgiving Amish

I read a letter to the editor today that made me want to cry. It was about the tragic murders committed in the Amish community in Pennsylvania. It wasn't tears of anger and hatred for the senseless taking of innocent lives that I had,...nor was it tears of grief and sorrow for the loss of those families,....though both were feelings that had coarsed through my veins at one time or another while contemplating this horrible event. My tears were for my sorry, selfish, idea of Christianity. I realized when I completed reading this editorial that I have made my faith, MY faith,....not the faith that Jesus, the Christ taught. I have watered down and approved my American Rights! "Christian" feelings for violence and vengence against the forces of evil and darkness in our world. Things Jesus NEVER taught. I was so humbled by this editorial in today's Fort Worth Star Telegram. I pray that I may have so great a faith to preach more with my actions than my words, as the Amish do.


I wonder if what happened in Lancaster County, Pa., has really been noticed by the American public? Something amazing happened in that bucolic place, so shattered by the murders of its most innocent. It seems that we all could learn something from the people who live there, shunning the modern world to follow their faith.

Only hours after the murders, elders of the Amish community went to the home of the killer to meet with his wife. And what did they say to the wife of the man who had inflicted so much pain on their community? Did they place blame? Did they condemn her to hell? Did they seek revenge? No, they were there to forgive, to offer their support in her time of need and despair. They were there to make real the true message of Christ: forgiveness.

I recall this message of forgiveness from my early life in the church, but during the past 20 years this message has been lost. It's been replaced by those who seek power instead of moral authority.

You know them. They bark at you from television and radio and in the voting guides they place in your churches. They claim moral authority, but in their angry message of hate and nonforgiveness, they seek to place blame instead of promoting healing in the world. They are, without a doubt, demagogues in the public forum, but, more important, they're "demigods" in their own minds.

I wonder if the Revs. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and James Dobson would have been so "Christian" as the Amish? One needs only to recall Falwell's assertion after 9-11 that God was taking revenge on America with that horrible event because of the "gay agenda" and abortion.

In rural Pennsylvania, in the light of a cool fall day, in the fullness of the harvest, and in the midst of horror, true Christianity was shown to us all. Forgiveness, love, hope and charity -- all the things I was taught about my "faith" and all the things my "religion" has forgotten.

We should all humble ourselves before this true Christianity. The Christian right needs to take note of what it really means to follow the message of Christ and, as Americans, we should all learn a great deal from this event. The Christian in me hopes so. The realist has many doubts.

Dwight G. Hartwick, Fort Worth