Trouble in Amish Paradise (2 of 6)

when the Amish first arrived they all lived by one set of rules which were based on the Bible but over the years people started to disagree about the best way to live a true Amish life so different groups invented their own rules to set themselves apart from the rest now there are any number of regulations that dictate everything from how wide your hatband should be to the proper way to hold your trousers up Ephraim thinks the whole thing has got out of hand some Amish communities don't wear suspenders some of them wear suspenders somewhere - suspenders down the front somewhere one suspend in the back - suspended as a front somewhere once the spender going from the one side of the back to the other side in the front you know I like with most Amish women do this the sad part is if you're in that church district you have to wear this to spend all the way they say if you don't the next Munich eight you're in the church no the easier Texas condos are wooden that's the sad part of the rules is is they combine church and culture and and that's that's that's wrong you can't do that cannot you cannot do that if that's the way it was supposed to be then Jesus would have made those rules specific and said you got to drive a horse with a green harness or you go to hell hey you didn't say that you when Ephraim first read the Bible in English he started to question everything he'd been taught to believe in particular what happens when you die this is an Amish funeral the Amish believe that to have any chance of getting to heaven they must obey all of the rules laid down by the Amish church anyone who questions or disobeys those rules risks eternal damnation I used to clean this thing thick and span the Craig Yossi Amanda for a rule-breaker like Ephraim a funeral was a terrifying experience I was horrible yeah not knowing where the person is and not knowing where I would go and and just fear of death fear of what if it was me and oh lord please but after reading the Bible he now believes he'll get to heaven simply by trusting in Jesus regardless of whether or not he follows the Amish rules I didn't have hope where now I do have hope if eternal life oh yeah it's an unbelievable difference yeah yeah yeah oh oh yeah I have no fear of death for the Amish farming is absolutely central to their way of life it's how they preserve their old-fashioned values of hard work and simplicity they even call themselves the quiet people of the land how's that house the roof is Ephraim and Amanda are breaking with this Amish tradition they've sold the farm and have a hundred thousand dollars to spend if I was drilling by points I'd probably rip this down like I say the house they're seeing today is small and needs a lot of work they're hoping to buy it outright and not have the worry of a mortgage we had a lot to consider before we decided to move off the farm because the farms worth over a million bucks and big house big shop big buildings and it's a nice place to live but when we moved on the farm we we'd work harder than we did before and when we went to bed at night tired I'd say to my wife what are we here for are we here to pay off this farm and then what buy another farm and pay that one off so we said there's got to be more to life we started searching asking questions we really came to a crossroads by asking so many questions Ephraim is moving further and further away from what it means to be Amish it's now summer Efram and Amanda are moving to a new house just up the road from the old farm they couldn't find the right house to buy so they're renting this place from Ephraim's brother-in-law for now the money they made from selling the farm is staying in the bank I like this pantry as is the Amish custom their families have already moved their belongings up into the new house everybody helped unload and just put it wherever they thought it would go which is great because most of the stuff is right where I want it but I just need to so there's quite a lot that I still do need to change around Ephraim's got a few changes he wants to make as well that aren't quite in keeping with the Amish way of doing things we're gonna have a phone in here just soon Samuel yeah I never have enough a wire I could string one in the house through the tree the Amish aren't allowed to have telephones inside their houses but many get around it by having the phone in a separate building outside I am running a wire to bring my phone I'm a little shanty out back up to the building having his business phone outside is inconvenient so Ephraim's going to bend the rules by installing one upstairs in his workshop I'm not supposed to be in here but I'm here Samuel I'm gonna holler I'm gonna go you and then see the phone works well phone is as simple as you're gonna find that let me ask tell you it is a most simple thing yeah about now what did you say it works yep oh she's done Chris tits eve cambridge having a phone in his workshop is bad enough now he from once a phone in the house it goes against the Amish ban on telephone wires coming into the home a direct connection with the wickedness of the outside world but once again Ephraim's got a cunning solution he's going cordless charging station what he hasn't realized is that it needs power to work but he knows a way round the amish ban on mains electricity it involves some makeshift ingenuity and an old car battery so what i have to do is i have to take these two wires hook them up to a 12-volt battery this could be scary stuff woo if they don't work we're gonna say oh my well works that's cool okay it's not just phones and electricity the Amish have rules for just about everything bicycles with pedals are forbidden the rollerblades are okay and their buggies must be a particular shade of gray all these rules are decided in twice yearly meetings of the elders of the community the Amish bishops they are both leaders of the church and the ultimate guardians of the culture and it's the bishops who punish anyone who doesn't obey I'm putting up a small chicken fence we have 18 chickens from the farm we want to move up we have our own eggs Ephraim thinks the bishops have strayed too far from the Bible wonder if this is how an Amish Bishop feels just put up a another boundary fence I mean if you want to preserve the culture you're gonna have to have culture laws like this fence but that shouldn't come be combined with church should be two separate things but if the church and culture were separate the Amish bishops would lose all their authority

Channel: John Daniel

Views: 423,801

Rating: 4.8000002 out of 5

Keywords: christ, christianity, religion, america

Id: sjU_GzV3OcE

Length: 10min 21sec (621 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 03 2009