Original subtitles

[city noise]

[horse and buggy sound]

>>Narration: 2017.

A year of growth and innovation

technology, global commerce, the world moves forward

driven by visions of financial success and perhaps fame.

[horse and buggy sound]

[horse and buggy sound] [music starts]

2017. The Five Hundred year anniversary of a seemingly small event in Germany.

October 31, 1517. Martin Luther was trying to start a debate

with 95 Theses, or premises, that he wanted to address.

He believed with a bit of honest debate some of the errors

he had found within the Roman Catholic Church could be corrected.

The debate as he imagined it never really happened.

Instead, Luther's writings went out and became fuel for the Reformation fires throughout Europe.

The Reformation Era had a huge impact and far reaching influences

Today, there are churches, schools, and hospitals

bearing the names of the Reformers throughout the world.

In Switzerland there is a Reformed State Church in almost

every village and town.

The proof of every movement is the fruit that it leaves for the next generations

What was the fruit of the Reformation Era?

For this film project we will examine the effects of the Reformation Era through the lens of

one particular sub group that came from Switzerland as a result of the Reformation

the Old Order Amish of America.

[horse and buggy sound]

[music]

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[music]

[music]

[music]

[music swells and ends]

Can time stand still in small pockets?

How is that in the middle of one of the most technologically advanced

nations in the world there are still people that look like they

stepped out of another century.

The Amish are a people apart, right in our midst.

They work with their hands, denying themselves most modern conveniences.

I actually grew up among the Old Order Amish.

In many ways the Amish are my heritage and my people.

My father was an Old Order Amish minister

I would like to take you deeper into the Amish world

The Old Order Amish meet for Sunday church services every other week.

[in German] Can you remove your bonnet?

The families arrive in their horse drawn buggies.

They take turns hosting the church services in their homes.

The ladies and small children go inside while the men gather outside by the barn.

[talking in Pennsyvania Dutch] [hoof beats]

[quiet Pennsylvania Dutch conversation]

By 9 o'clock every one has filed inside and found

their places on the wooden benches.

The Amish use an old German hymn book.

called the Ausbund.

And they sing all their songs with a Gregorian chant.

[Gregorian Chant begins]

[Gregorian Chant]

[Gregorian Chant]

[Gregorian Chant]

[Gregorian Chant]

[Gregorian Chant]

In an Amish Church service, everything is in German

the songs, the Scripture reading, and even the preaching

is in a dialect of German.

A religous group is usually defined by the holy books they use.

For the Amish this is Martin Luther's German Bible

[German] ...wenn sie Brot essen.

This is not just any German Bible. It is a reprint of the

1535 version of Luther's German Bible.

In Germany today the old script has been dropped almost entirely.

The original Bibles are now museum pieces. But among the Amish in America

they still use the old German script.

The script that Germany itself doesn't use anymore. And the Amish themselves don't

actually speak the old German. At home they use a dialect of German

called Pennsylvania Dutch, and in their business dealings they use English

How is it then that the Amish still use the old script of the German Bible?

[string music starts]

The Amish and the Bible translation they use is an

example of history repeating itself.

[music]

After the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the church was born on the day of Pentecost

when the outpouring of the Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles

Peter preached a memorable sermon. He showed that Jesus Christ

had fulfilled the prophecy of the Hebrew Scriptures.

From that very first sermon, the Holy Scriptures enlightened by the Holy Spirit

became the guiding force of the Christian church.

These Jewish Scriptures that Peter and the early church inherited

form the Old Testament of the Bible. Each book was originally written

in a language well known to the people.

They also inherited the Greek translation of the Scripture, called the Septuigant.

It had been translated from the Hebrew to the Greek so that more people could read

the law of God in their own language. In the next

several decades the Apostles and church fathers penned the New Testament

books of the Bible through the revelation and inspiration of God.

These were written in languages common to the people.

By the second century some of the early church fathers were saying

that to the best of their knowledge the Gospel had been taken

to all of the known world. >>Polycarp: Believe in Him who raised Jesus from the dead.

>>Joseph: This brought new challenges. In some areas they couldn't read

or understand the languages the Bible was written in. For example,

In the 4th century Bishop Ulfilus was trying to win the Goths to Christ.

In order to overcome the language barrier he created an alphabet for them;

taught them to read and translated the Bible

into the Gothic language.

[quill scratching] [music]

In other parts of the world the church would continue to use the Greek, Aramaic, and Syriac

versions of the Scripture for hundreds of years.

But in Rome the common people no longer spoke Greek. Latin had become the common language.

Early in the 5th century, Jerome was commissioned to translate the Bible

into Latin so the common people of Rome could read the Bible

in their own language. In the middle of the 9th century, two brothers

Cyril and Methodius were sent to Moravia as missionaries.

There they developed an alphabet and starting with the Gospel and Psalms

translated much of the Bible into Slavic.

But then something strange happened.

Western scholars began dropping Greek in favor of Latin.

At the same time the common began dropping Latin in favor of their local languages.

As the Church in Rome consolidated its power in the West

Latin remained the official language even though the common people

no longer spoke or understood Latin.

The candle of the Church in the West was growing dim.

[flame splutters in wind] [music]

Without the light of Scripture it was truly a dark time; but not all was dark.

Even in the worst of times there were always men who loved God

who worked hard to ensure that the common people could

hear the Word of God. Peter Waldo was one such man.

He oversaw the translation of the New Testament into the common language of the people.

He then trained his followers to go from town to town

reading the Bible to the common people.

Peter was called before the Pope to answer for his actions.

His ideas were condemned and eventually he was excommunicated.

Peter Waldo and his followers were forced into hiding.

Known as the Morning Star of the Reformation, John Wycliffe spearheaded

an effort to translate the Bible into English but was posthumously

designated a heretic by the Catholic Church.

The Church had gone from encouraging people to read the Bible in their own langauges

to opposing it; and excommunicating anyone who helped the common people

obtain the Bible in what the Church called "a vulgar tongue"

Latin had become the only approved language for the Bible.

And Church leaders were the only ones trained in Latin.

[somber music]

[flame splutters]

In the Fourteen hundreds

while the Incas were building Machu Picchuu in Peru,

Johannes Gutenberg from the German city of Mainz was inventing something

that changed the course of history. His full name

was Johanness Gensfleisch zum Laden zum Gutenberg.

He was a blacksmith, goldsmith, printer, and publisher. But the crowning achievement

of his career was the invention of the moveable type printing press.

By 1450 he had perfected it, and shortly thereafter

he began printing the Gutenberg Bible, also known as the Latin 42 line Bible.

Latin Bibles began to flow out into the hands of many

church leaders and scholars who had never had a Bible of their own.

>>Doug Grandon: Someone asked me at the end of my lecture on the

Reformation last week why it was when they were growing up that the Church

discouraged the reading of the Bible? And I said,

The sad fact, the unbelievable fact,

is that the Catholic Church, which had

experienced unity other than the breaking

away of the Eastern Catholics from the Western Catholics to create the Orthodox Churches

The Catholic Church was so

scandalized by what happened in the Reformation as a

result of various people reading the Bible and coming up with

a 1001 different interpretations which created

a multitude of new churches. That the Catholic Church sadly

clamped down on the reading of Scripture by ordinary people

for nearly 500 years. [music]

>>Joseph: Church leaders had so long been unable to read the Bible in their own languages

that the truths of Scripture were receding into the distance background

of the Church. Papal Bulls and decrees of other church leaders

carried more weight than obscure Scripture. But now

with the new technology of Gutenberg's printing press, things were about

to change.

In the late 1400's while Columbus was sailing

the ocean blue and discovering the Americas and DaVinci was painting

the Last Supper, Thomas Linacre was a humanist scholar and physician

at Oxford. He was one of the first English men to study Greek

and eventually read some Gospels in Greek and compared them to a

Latin version he had. He was shocked at the differences he found.

He wrote in his journal concerning the Greek manuscript

"Either this is not the Gospel, or we are not Christians."

Erasmus was well versed in Latin and later went to England where he studied under Thomas Linacre

After several years of studying Greek, he set out to prepare a new edition

of Jerome's Latin Bible translation.

The Renaissance was in full swing. Michelangelo sculpted a statue of David,

DaVinci painted the Mono Lisa

During a July thunderstorm in 1505 Martin Luther was returning to the University

after a visit home. Then in one blinding moment his life was changed forever.

As lightning struck near him, the young Martin Luther vowed

that he would become a monk. [chanting]

By October 1512, the same year that Michelangelo was finishing the painting

in the Sistine Chapel, Marting Luther was installed as the Doctor of the Bible

at the University of Wittenberg. From this position, Martin Luther presented his 95 Theses

and started the debate that turned into the Reformation in Germany.

Meanwhile Erasmus in an effort to

help the Church correct some of its errors, had been working on his Latin translation of the Bible.

In order to let scholars see the accuracy of his work

he included the Greek script alongside his Latin text

His goal had been an improved Latin script, but many scholars bought his work

because they wanted the Greek text. This Greek text went through several revisions

and eventually became known as the Textus Receptus.

While Cortes was discovering the Aztec empire

and getting ready to import Chocolate to Europe, Martin Luther was using Erasmus' 2nd

Edition to translate the New Testament into German.

Then in 1526 William Tyndale completed an English translation of the Bible, and

by 1531, Ulrich Zwingli and Leo Jud had completed the German Froschauer Bible in Switzerland

[Latin Church Choir Chanting]

As the Reformers began studying the Bible there were a lot of things they disagreed about.

But there were a handful of core issues that they agreed on.

These were summarized in the 5 Solas

Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia,

Solus Christus, Soli Deo Gloria

Each of these 5 points was raised in effort to address a specific error that was in the Roman Church at that time

Solo Scriptura meant that Scripture alone is sufficient for understanding

all truth necessary for our salvation and spiritual life.

This was in opposition to the idea that Church Tradition and Teaching were equally important

and authoritative as Scripture.

Martin Luther had written extensively on things regarding faith and was call into question by

the Roman Catholic Church. As he stood before the Council they demanded that he retract his writings

at this point, he made a stand for Sola Scriptura.

>>Martin Luther: Unless you can convince me by Scripture,

and not by Popes or Councils who have often contradicted each other.

Unless I am so convinced that I am wrong I am bound to

my beliefs by the texts of the Bible.

I cannot and I will not recant!

Here I stand.

I can do no other...

...God help me. >>Joseph: It would take awhile

for the leaders of the Reformation to develop and summarize all five points. They started

with 3 Solas and later added 2 more. Part of the heritage of the Reformation

is the rich discussions that have resulted in the church because of these 5 points.

The entire world has been impacted by the Reformation.

But in this documentary we are looking at the Reformation through the lens of the Amish.

[buggy wheels on gravel] >>Joseph: The Amish came from the

Swiss Anabaptists, and the Swiss Anabaptists came from the Zwinglian Reformation in Zurich

In the beginning, Bible translation into the common language of the people was one of the

more important issues. Zwingli's Bible teaching and his Froschauer Bible translation

were instrumental in the Anabaptist Reformation.

Ulrich Zwingli became the pastor of the Grosz Munster in 1519.

He had been influenced by the writings of Erasmus. While Martin Luther was starting the Reformation

in Germany, Zwingli was starting debates in Zurich. >>Zwingli: I have in mind a public dispute

centered on this issue of infant baptism, open to everyone.

>>Joseph: But while Zwingli was content to work through the current Church structure and the City Council

some of the other reformers wanted to move quickly completely changing the Church.

So in effect there were 2 reformation movements happening in Zurich at the same time.

The Swiss Reformers and the Anabaptists. >>Paul Veraguth: They started together

because one without the other would probably not have had a chance to just really break

this wall of Catholicism that was ruling Zurich for hundreds of years.

Maybe its like the gift of an apostle

Zwingli had, to give the people a broad perspective

and to come to the core of the Gospel, preaching

this Gospel in this environment. And he really could communicate it to the people

and he had a heart for the city of Zurich, for the whole population

and then came in at the same the ones who already had the fire from back

uhm...the Waldensian movements. >> Joseph: The Waldensian movement was already here?

>>Paul Veraguth: It was in Switzerland all the time, 200 years already.

These people caught fire when they heard Zwingli because they said, yeah, this is the true Gospel.

But they were a prophetic movement. I think they saw all

the way down the road to the end where this should lead. Actually it should lead away

from general churches or infant baptism and all this

kind of trying to have all the people all the time together under one hat.

And this is when they started struggling, from the very beginning.

They saw the differences and they had this problem from the very beginning.

>>Joseph: Conrad Grebal, Felix Mantz, and George Blaurock, were some of those who were

excited by the changes Zwingli was bringing to Zurich. Changes that were inspired by the Word of God.

They agreed with Zwingli up to a point. At the 2nd disputation in Zurich

in 1523 they were present and they were pushing for a faster reform of the Church.

Specifically, they wanted to replace infant baptism with Believer's baptism.

>>Hans Minder: Some people say, Ja, Ja, Zwingli is right but he is not right enough.

So we have to go further. >>Paul Veraguth: I guess that if Zwingli

would have seen that actually this City Council was corrupt

body, he would have probably moved forward together with

the Anabaptists. It was for him, not far off to go

to further to go on together with the State. That was not a problem for him, because he did it.

Doing steps together, and waiting for these people. and waiting for voting.

Having this slow process, always adapting to the way people

could understand. >>Joseph: It soon became evident that Zwingli and the City Council

were not moving very fast at all. And in fact, might never get rid of infant baptism.

If change was going to come they would have to bring it

themselves. [incoherent outside voices]

On January 21st, 1525 George Blaurock and Conrad Grebal

met with Felix Mantz at his home. That evening

George Blaurock asks Conrad Grebal to baptize him on the confession of his faith.

Once Blaurock was baptized the others present

on the confession of their faith.

The Anabaptist movement in Switzerland was born.

In the months that followed Conrad Grebal

fled east. Two years later an official meeting was held

here at the Rathaus. The verdict was read from the Rathaus bridge.

George Blaurock and Felix Mantz were guilty of being Anabaptists.

and were sentenced to death.

On the day of the execution George Blaurock was chased down Niederdorfstrasse

and escaped out into the country.

Felix Mantz was taken out here into the river and drowned.

>>Paul Veraguth: The Reformation was part of big changes throughout Europe

everything was like in a pan

like boiling, and they had to make

some decisions and say, 'Okay, we stop this infant baptism'.

>>Joseph: The issue of infant baptism was a huge problem

for the Anabaptists. From reading Scripture they were convinced that

you needed to believe and be baptized. And that was better suited

for adults than for babies.

>>Paul Veraguth: Yeah, of course we have infant baptism still in church

we know that they started to write down

all the names of all the people being baptized in order to have control

over the families. Also in order to have all the children brought

to the churches and being baptized they had to send out

spies, and every kind of people who were looking that everybody

is conformed. Conformed with this church control.

Infant baptism is about control.

>>Joseph: For the State Church there was a definite element of control involved.

For the Anabaptists, who had embraced the idea of Sola Scriptura,

it made no sense to hang onto any of the old traditions if they

couldn't be found in Scripture.

>>Rev. Grandon: The official theology of the Catholic Church has always been that salvation is by

God's grace that comes to us through Christ.

That grace not only brings us forgiveness when we embrace

the cross, but it also enables us

to live the life that Jesus commands us to live.

Apart from God's grace we would be unable to live that life.

It would be too steep of a climb for us.

But in popular practice, and certainly the issue was raised by

the buying and selling of indulgences,

there was a lack of clarification that salvation is by grace.

And this created significant problems.

The reforming movements,

insisted on salvation by grace, and then wanted

to take good works off the table in many cases

by insisting on salvation or justification

by faith alone. The Catholics rejected

in their official statements salvation by faith alone

because we wanted to preserve as we always had

the understanding that when grace impacts us it not only brings

forgiveness in response to our faith, but it also brings

about a transformed life.

And so when the Protestant movements began separating among themselves,

this was a big issue; What does God require as far as a Christian

lifestyle? Does He require anything at all?

>>Joseph: Early in the Reformation Era while the Reformers were still refining the concepts

that would become know as the 5 Solas, the Swiss Anabaptists engaged the Reformers

on concerns they had with the way 2 of the 5 points were being interpreted.

In his book, "The Reformers and Their Stepchildren",

Leonard Verduin gives one example of this. Both the Reformers and the Anabaptists

believed that we are saved by faith. Both agreed that

of ourselves we can do nothing to attain salvation. But the Anabaptists

insisted on a 3rd point that made trouble for the Reformers.

Faith without works is dead.

Had it just been a point on paper they might have been okay.

But the Anabaptists had a very a specific application in mind.

>>Hans Minder: The discussion was, who can be

member of a Christian church?

And the official Protestant church say,

If you are born into a Christian family, you are

automatically member of a Christian family, Und

And you must baptize your children

in a few days. >>Joseph: Your parents would take you downtown

to the church when you were an infant and you were baptized. Then for the rest of your life you

would be able to participate in Communion and you would be considered a Christian.

Even if you never had a deeper spiritual experience with God.

And here is where the Anabaptists balked. If you were a Christian

shouldn't there be the evidence of a changed life?

And if you didn't have the evidence of a changed life, then you should not be

participating in Communion. After all, didn't Jesus say

that you would know them by their fruits?

>>Hans Minder: I personally would say, I cannot believe this

strange thing, that you are a member of a Christian religion

if you are born into a Christian family.

I think it must be a decision. You have to make a decision

nobody else can do this for me.

[music] >>Joseph: What made it

especially hard for the Reformers was the fact that the Anabaptists

only knew what the Bible said because the Reformers themselves had insisted that

the Bible be made available in the common language of the people. And now

their own Bible translations were being used against them.

The Reformers struck back.

Using the power of civil government to enforce their church decisions.

>>Hans Minder: The State of Bern was the only state in the world to have the

Ministry against Anabaptist people. The so-called TauferKammer.

And this ministry was

only here to fight against the

Anabaptist people. And the preachers

here, the Protestant Reverends, there were some

say 'the Anabaptist people are the sons of the Devil'

it's not possible to be more bad than this.

It is the son of the Devil himself;

every members of this church, and so

It was quite difficult.

>>Rebecca Graber: Die Gerechtigkeitsgasse and the Kreuzgasse, that is the

place where the Anabaptists would be brought

because they would take the prisoners in the Rathaus which was the Court House, and then

bring them out here to the public. And they had a pole they called the Iron Pole, or the pole of Disgrace

where they would put iron chains on their necks.

And they would post above them their crime.

And in great detail how they were to be executed. And people could come along there,

throw rocks at them and ridicule them any way they wanted. And in 1529

3 Anabaptists: Seckler, Treuer, and Ausgraa,

were brought here. They tried to

bring them to recant but they stood fast to their faith

and later they were drowned in the Unterdorf's Bruck.

These were the first 3 Anabaptist martyrs in Bern.

[flowing water]

>>Joseph: The Swiss Anabaptist movement was opposed on all sides.

Michael Sattler, an Anabaptist leader from Schleitheim

helped bring some unity to the movement early on.

In 1527 he spearheaded the effort to put on paper what they believed.

>>Michael Sattler: To baptize those who have repented of their sins.

and have made an adult and voluntary committment

to follow Christ. To swear no oath,

of any kind. To reject the sword

as outside the perfection of Christ,

and finally to seperate ourselves

so that good and evil,

believing and unbelieving,

darkness and light

the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of this earth

[thoughtful music pause] none

will have part with the other.

It is not enough that we leave this place in simple agreement.

We must go forth fully committed to the course that we have set here.

Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit

we must go out as sheep

amidst wolves.

As lambs

to the slaughter.

[music swells]

How say you? >>Crowd: Amen. Amen.

[indestinct crowd discussion]

>>Joseph: And so as the Reformation, represented by people

like Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin was going publicly forward

the Anabaptist movement was secretly moving forward.

Over in the Netherlands there was a young Catholic priest named Menno Simons.

He had been very careful not to read the Bible while he

was preparing for the priesthood because he did not want to be led astray.

But when the debate about transubstantiation and infant baptism

vs. believer's baptism came along, he was forced

to read the Bible to try to understand the issues. As a result

he began to favor the position of the Anabaptists.

And in 1536 he walked away from the Catholic Church and was baptized as an Anabaptist.

He was ordained to the ministry a year after joining them,

and spent the rest of his life writing and preaching.

His writings brought a lot of clarity and unity to the scattered Anabaptist groups in Europe

while also protecting them from the more violent ideas

popular among a small segment of the Anabaptists led by Thomas Munster.

>>Rev. Grandon: So by the time we get to 1517

Luther, and then Zwingli, and then the birth of the Anabaptists

in the early 1520s, there are

many former Catholic priests and lay people

who had given up on reform ever happening in the Catholic Church

And so we had to wait until

1546, for the Council of Trent to be called

by, at that time a reforming Pope,

Bishops gathered at the Council of Trent, they met sort of in fits and starts

they ended the buying and selling of priestly offices, called simony

they ended absenteeism,

where someone would purchase maybe a Bishopric, and then never be there.

They ended those kind of corruptions.

By the time that the Catholic Church began to reform itself in earnest

the other Reformation movements that had departed from the Catholic Church

were moving in different directions, and the Catholics had

difficulty finding who they should talk to.

Luther had died in 1546.

Luther and Zwingli had their own falling out. Calvin, and the Lutherans, and the Zwinglians

were in separate camps and were heading in different directions theologically.

Although both at that point had hardened positions

against the Catholics. And of course the Anabaptists were having

difficulty with all those other reforming movements

and felt that none of them went far enough.

>>Joseph: Over the next 100 years as the movements grew, the Anabaptist movement solidified

they continued to meet in secret and to suffer and die

for their faith.

As the persecution in Switzerland continued, there were other places

that began to welcome the peace loving Anabaptists.

The Alsace area in France was one of these places.

Many Anabaptists bid their beloved Switzerland farewell and set out to new places

to see if they could escape the difficult persecution from the Reformed State Church.

I'm here in Ohnenheim in France.

Elders and Bishops of the Anabaptists of that time met here,

not in this building, but in the previous mill. It was a mill that was owned

by an Anabaptist. And here is where those who had assembled decided

that they would adopt the 1632 Dortrecht Confession of Faith.

>>Joe Keim: Persecution had died down

toward the end of the 1600s, and things were kind of becoming

more normal, and it allowed some of these people

to, maybe come up with different beliefs

and kind of, you know, become more free in what they believed.

And it was during that time that Jakob Amman, who was

not actually a born into the Amish

the Anabaptist movement. He became Anabaptist

in his early years and later became a minister.

within the Mennonite church. And he had some

really- he was a very aggressive leader.

>>Joseph: Jakob Amman and many others were sent out to go down into the Emmental

in Switzerland to try to correct the church there.

And when Hans Reist did not go along with them there was

a division between the church in the Emmental

and the church here.

>>Joe Keim: And they continued to divide until Hans Reist and Jakob Amman

couldn't see eye to eye over many things.

>>Joseph: When it came to the way that Jakob Amman and the other pastors from up here

wanted to enforce the Confession of Faith, that is when they disagreed.

>>Joe Keim: Most of the information that we have on Jakob Amman

is very radical information.

He would, because he was in leadership position,

he would call a meeting and when people didn't show up

he just finally took it upon himself to excommunicate them.

>>Joseph: We've lost many of the details of the Amish split from the Swiss Anabaptists

in 1693 but we do know that Jakob Amman

was using his influence and power as a leader within the church

to try to force others to comply with his wishes and when they didn't,

he excommunicated them. >>Joe Keim: That was the highest level

of discipline; it was turning someone over

to Satan. And treating them like

an unbeliever. And this Jakob

Amman was doing this.

>>Joseph: He later regretted this and tried unsuccessfully to bring the two groups

back together again. But it was too late.

The Amish split had taken effect.

>>Joe Keim: All radicals have a following. There are others

that for what ever reason they follow

that, they fall into the same sinkhole

and they followed and they continued to grow

and expand and multiply

and became known as the Amish people.

[hoofbeats]

[music]

[harness clanks against buggy]

>>Joseph: When the Amish people came to America in the 1700 and 1800s

they brought the Dortrecht Confession of Faith

and Martin Luther's German Bible with them.

[German reading]

[German reading]

The Graber side of my family came to the United States

in the 1830s. Over 100 years later my father

was born into an Amish community in Northern Indiana.

>>Lester Graber: I grew up speaking German

or Pennsylvania Dutch, we called it German, we called it Pennsylvania Dutch.

It's not true German as spoken in Germany,

its not Dutch as spoken in Holland. This is Pennsylvania Dutch. Its something else.

And that was my 1st language. I knew that. First 6 years of my life that is all I spoke.

I didn't learn English until I went to school.

>>Joseph: This is where things get a bit odd. The Amish Church grew out of the Reformation Era,

enabled in their faith by the German translations of the Bible.

At that time German was their common language that they spoke at home

and in the community. Now 100s of years

later, the Amish are dealing with 3 languages:

Pennsylvania Dutch, the dialect of German they speak in their homes;

English, that they use for education, business, and communication;

and then the old German, that they only use

for Scripture and official Church documents.

>>Lester Graber: To an Amish person, the Bible

is in German. There is no other Bible. There is no English Bible.

You know, yeah a lot of Amish do read English sometimes,

and most people may have an English Bible. I knew Dad had an English Bible.

That I now have in my possession. But, didn't read it.

you know, it was English, and English was

'worldly'.

>>Joseph: A few months before I was born my Dad was

ordained to the ministry in the Old Order Amish Church. Here is my Mom with the story.

>>Rebecca Graber: The church there was just a small group and they just had one preacher

so they decided they needed to have another preacher and they were going to have

ordination services the next time the Bishop comes. And this is very serious.

You have no choice in the matter. If the lot falls on you, you are a preacher for the rest

of your life. You don't argue. You just accept it.

There was nothing about do you feel God's calling on your life? Do you feel like you should?

I mean and some of the Amish preachers they ordained couldn't even read German.

They didn't understand the Bible. They couldn't read it.

And it was torture for everybody in the congregation when those guys

stood up in front of the church and didn't have a thing to say.

Sometimes they would mumble through some things and then finally say a couple of words.

and with more practice they got to where they could ramble on.

But some of those preachers they never said 2 cents worth together.

They just said a string of words and things that they might have heard.

I mean it was just kind of miserable. So this Sunday my Dad

was in the lot, and my husband. They were both

and then two other guys.

There is a string tied around these Ausbund books.

And they sit there all in a row holding these books.

Then the Bishop comes along, and he opens the 1st one- he snaps the ring

and then he goes to a certain page in the book, at the Lob Lied,

where they have this slip of paper that has this Bible verse in it.

This little saying in German.

And its the quote from Matthew where it says the lot fell on him.

So they opened my Dad's book, it wasn't there, gave back his book.

They opened Dave Miller's book, it wasn't there, gave it back to him.

They opened Harley's book, it wasn't there, they gave it back. And then they opened Lester's book

and there it was. An so then, the Bishop read it

and then he shook Lester's hand and welcomed him into

the ministry. So now Lester was a preacher.

And Lester started reading the Bible like he never had before.

and getting ready to teach it to the church.

>>Lester Graber: But when you went to church on

Sunday morning, you didn't carry a Bible with you. You never carried a Bible to church,

that would have been so wrong. Even if you were a preacher, you did not carry

a Bible to church. There was a Bible provided at the church.

That was the Church's Bible that you would use to read

the Scripture. But you wouldn't preach from the Bible.

>>Rebecca: In the Amish Church, the 1st preacher stands up,

he's supposed to just speak from his heart.

Not use the Bible at all. He's not supposed to pick up the Bible.

And then the next preacher is supposed to read the Scripture

[Pennsylvania Dutch]

There is a certain Scripture- they read the same Scriptures every year on this Sunday you read this Scripture.

Next year on that same Sunday your read the same Scriptures. There were lots of Scriptures in the Bible they

never touched, they never taught. They just had the same ones

over and over. Then the 3rd preacher, they always had 3 parts in the Amish church,

The 3rd preacher, he would preach again just from rote.

[German - Pennsylvania Dutch]

>>Lester: You wouldn't stand behind a pulpit and have notes.

You couldn't read from the Bible, you preached from total memory.

A lot of what we preached turned out to be something we heard others say

we would quote others and we thought it was the Bible, and we found out later

that a lot of the things we thought were Bible really weren't, they were just things that we had all quoted each other

over years and years and years. And you know it sounded great, sounded good, sounded right

but it wasn't. I started reading a lot more in English.

Because it was more common, it was easier to understand.

Not that I didn't understand that. But even if I could read the German well

its not who we are. You know you don't speak it in your every day.

>>Rebecca: Now, Lester, he would start preaching something and he would think,

'What does it say? Oh, its in Hebrews"

he would just reach over for the Bible, open it up and read the verse out it.

'That's what it says', he would say.

[German] Welchen uns erretet hat...

And then soon some of the guys that were really spiritual wanted to bring their Bibles and follow along

when he said that. And this was a stir. This is not right.

You can't be doing that, leave that Bible alone and just preach the way you're supposed to preach!

>>Lester: So we read a lot more English, and that really became a sticking point

for us, because not everybody liked that we were doing that, you know.

>>Joe Keim: This is what one New Order Amish man said from Montana,

'The area that we're still lacking in, is that

all of our services are in German. We sing our hymns in German,

we preach in German. And that isolates us from

rest of the world. We want to evangelize, but we don't

know how to evangelize because we want to keep it together.

And so rather than get the Word out we hang together

and we fail to- we fail to get the Gospel out."

>>Lester: This even goes back, I believe, to the beginning

you know when you had our ancestors back in Switzerland and Holland

and Germany in the 1500s coming out of the State Churches

they were trying to come to a place where they had a freer

more open relationship with God, and not bound up

in Latin as the State Churches had been.

And only the preists could read that. You as a common person would not read that.

So they were persecuted for wanting to get the Bible

in their own language.

>>Joseph: My family has now been Amish for 300 years

In the early days they chose hardship

persecution, and eviction from their homes and communities

so they could follow Christ in Believer's baptism

They were reading the Scripture in a language they understood,

and were trying to be obedient to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

But down through the centuries there were many subtle changes.

By 1994 my parents were being silenced and excommunicated by the Amish Church.

Why? Because they were reading the Bible in a language they understood

and were trying to live according to the Scriptures.

As one of my aunts once wrote to me in a letter,

'We are right back to where we started from'. And it is true.

When it comes to Amish church and Bible translations,

history has repeated itself.

500 hundred years ago the Anabaptist movement was insisting

that faith without works is dead. Today, among the Amish, the balancing truths

of salvation by grace through faith seem to have vanished.

In fact, works has taken the primary spot,

and salvation is seen as coming through obedience to the Amish Church

This is happening because the Amish Church is struggling to understand the Bible

Here is my friend Joe Keim with the story of how he joined the Amish Church and what it meant:

>>Joe Keim: In my community, we got baptized

at the age of 17.

Until you were baptized you couldn't participate in Communion

or footwashing; you couldn't get married.

You couldn't vote in the Church. All of those things were

off limits until you were baptized. And so before you

could be baptized you had to go through a process

of sitting with the Ministers every Sunday.

And they would explain to you, why it was so important for

your clothes and your lifestyle, and everything about you was

to be within the guidelines of the Church. All the

members were to watch you. And I remember one time

putting a couple extra pins in my hat.

and somebody noticed that. >>Joseph: Where did you put a pin in a hat?

>>Joe Keim: Alright, so if this was my hat

there's actually 4 little silver pins that we stuck in.

and all you could see was the head, because the long part of it

was hidden underneath, it was just the very head

of the silver pin. but there were 4 of them.

And that was enough to stop all of us

who were preparing to join Church. The Minister came to the house

and asked me to remove those silver pins that you could barely see.

They said, 'Until you pull those pins out we will not continue on."

During this time of preparation

your hat couldn't have a dent in it, it couldn't

have- it had to be flat. Like, it could not be cowboy.

It could not be bent in anyway. It had to be

just like you bought it at the store. But they really watch you.

And by the time baptism day comes up

you are where they want you to be and you make the vow.

And when that vow is made, you make it on bended knee, making a promise to the Church

that as long as you live you will keep the ordinances,

follow the rules and traditions of the forefathers.

If you make that vow to the church then they will baptize you,

in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

And this vow will be held against you for the rest of your life.

For as long as you live this vow will hang over your head.

I was told that when that water ran down

over my head, all my sins would be washed away.

The baptismal service was in the top part of a barn that day, and I

remember walking down the barn bank

and thinking to myself that I'm starting over completely

new life, all my sins were washed away,

if I could just now die, I would go straight to heaven.

But later I realized that I just got wet that day.

I was still without Christ. That part was

not at all pushed during my baptismal service.

It was all about the rules, the regulations

the baptism. And I walked out of there without Christ.

Just like I did walking in.

>>Joseph: 500 years ago the Anabaptists were opposed to infant baptism.

Partially because they believed that baptism for church membership was not enough.

Rather, baptism was for Believers who had put their faith in Jesus Christ.

Yet today in America, the Amish descendants of the Anabaptists

are using baptism for church membership.

And obedience to the Amish Church is deemed more important

than faith in Christ alone. But thanks to the Reformers,

people like my father, who are concerned about error in the church,

have access to the Bible in a language they understand.

>>Lester: You can't read the

Bible too much. No matter what language it is. It's not gonna hurt you.

>>Joseph: Every generation has people who make selfish decisions.

And every generation has people who try to use religion to manipulate and control others.

But, in every generation there are those who help

their fellow man draw closer to God.

And this is why we honor the Reformers. Because in spite

of their failures and weaknesses, men like Luther and Zwingli

helped others draw closer to God.

When my father started studying the Scriptures

he didn't write out his beliefs in neat summaries

in the way historians write out the points of the Reformation.

But he did discover many of the same truths.

>>Lester: For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith

as it is written, the just shall live by faith.

>>Martin Luther: The just shall live

by faith....

Alone!

>>Lester: That if you confess with your mouth

the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart

that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

[pages turning]

For by grace

you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves,

it is the gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast.

>>Joseph: The mark of a true Reformer is not just celebrating the Reformation Era,

or even adopting a creed that comes from that time period.

Rather, the mark of a true Reformer is when someone measures themselves

by the Word of God, and makes appropriate changes in their own life

in obedience to the Word of God.

>>Lester: For no other foundation can anyone lay,

than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

>>Joseph: And while my father never tacked an invitation to a debate

to any church door, he did start a small Reformation within the Amish church

that resulted in my family understanding salvation and being excommunicated.

All because he was able to read the Bible in a language he understood.

Access to Scripture in the common language is one

of the really good results of the Reformation Era.

[music]

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The Reformers' commitment to the truths found in Scripture

brought light to a world that was shrouded in spiritual darkness.

In spite of all our technological advances, our world still faces

darkness and we still need hope.

Let us be the ones in our generation who go to the Scriptures,

who embrace the light of truth, bringing transformation first to our own lives

and then to the world.

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