It is no surprise that the title of the first chapter of Why Be Plain? is “The Lure of the World.” That’s because the lure of the world is so often blamed for Plain people leaving Plain churches. Most Plain folks have heard their share of sermons warning them about the dangers of “the world.” They are quite familiar with the New Testament warnings:
And do not be conformed to this world (Rom. 12:2).
Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God (James 4:4).
Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him (1 John 2:15).
Clearly, Christians should not be conformed to the world, be friends of the world, or love the world and its things. If they do, they make themselves God’s enemies and prove that they don’t love Him. But what were Paul, James and John referring to when they spoke of “the world”?
The Plain Definition of “the World”
Chapter 1 of Why Be Plain? begins, like every chapter, with a fictitious conversation between two young men, cousins Dan and Steve, who have both decided not to join their parents’ Plain church. In this conversation, Dan and Steve discuss their doubts about the ordnung’s prohibitions against modern technology. Their conversation ends with Dan asking, “So if Christians can own cars, have smart phones, and still go to heaven, then why be Plain?”
Indeed, cars and smart phones are hot issues in Plain circles. As the authors begin to address Dan and Steve’s objections, they reveal the Plain perception of “the world.” Clearly, a major component of that perception is modern technology. Weaver and Zimmerman begin their response to Dan and Steve as follows:
“Why be Plain?”
More and more youth are asking that question. Even older people, as well as entire churches, are asking it.
There are still a multitude of Plain People in America who are well separated from the world. But it’s not getting easier. With all the wonders of modern technology beckoning with its lure of an easy, comfortable and entertaining lifestyle, fewer people want to shun what the world has to offer and live the Old Order and Scriptural lifestyle of nonconformity (p. 3, emphasis mine).
In other words, modern technology that makes one’s lifestyle “easy” or “comfortable” or is “entertaining” has lured some Plain people to succumb to the “the world.” For that reason, in Plain thinking, modern technology should be shunned. It is “worldly.”
In this chapter, I address the authors’ concerns about modern technology that makes life “easier” or “comfortable.” In the next chapter, I will address their concerns about modern technology that is entertaining.
Plain Tech
In the minds of Weaver and Zimmerman, what makes life “easy” or “comfortable” is apparently wrong, although they offer no scriptural support for their view. Ironically, however, when compared to most of human history, all Plain people regularly use relatively modern technology that makes their lives easier and more comfortable. Let’s take some examples from the Old Order Amish.
Chain saws are generally permitted in Amish communities. They are a relatively modern technology that makes live much easier for Amish loggers, as well as for those who heat their homes with firewood. For most of human history, people have not enjoyed the immense benefits of chain saws.
Combustion engines are often permitted in Amish groups to power mechanized woodworking tools. They make life much easier for the Amish cabinet makers and woodworkers who use them every day.
Tractors are often permitted to power certain farm machinery, as long as they are not used for plowing fields, something reserved for horses. They make life easier for Amish farmers.
Some Amish groups permit the use of cell phones, smart phones, computers, or internet connections in certain contexts, such as when conducting business. Despite any remaining restrictions, the use of these technologies for business purposes certainly makes Amish lives easier. Just about all Amish people regularly use community pay phones. That’s another relatively-modern technology that makes their lives easier.
Most Amish groups allow women to wash clothes utilizing old-style wringer washers (powered by combustion engines).
All Amish groups allow the ownership and use of rifles, bullets, and scopes. That can make feeding their families much easier than if they still relied on the hunting methods used by their 16th-century ancestors.
No Amish groups allow the driving of automobiles, but some do allow truck ownership for a business, as long as the trucks are driven by non-Amish drivers. Amish adults regularly pay non-Amish people who own autos to transport them. Regardless of who is driving, this is unquestionably a use of modern technology that makes Amish lives easier (especially in winter).
Most all Amish people use 12-volt automobile batteries to power nighttime headlights and tail lamps on their buggies. Batteries and lightbulbs are modern technologies.
The list of modern and semi-modern technologies and products that make Amish lives easier and more comfortable is almost endless. Amish people purchase modern products at Walmart. They wear eyeglasses. They clad the exterior of their homes with vinyl siding that never needs painting. They wear clothing woven by modern industrial machines. They live in homes that feature drywall and double-pane windows. They draw water from the ground with pumps and direct spring water through pipes manufactured in modern factories. All these things make their lives easier and more comfortable. Even Amish buggies were at one time a new technology.
The Inevitable Questions
Seen from that perspective, Plain people accept 95% of modern technology that has appeared in the past 130 years, and they shun about 5%. All that acceptance of technologies that make their lives easier and more comfortable provokes Plain people who think about the matter to question why certain modern technologies are forbidden. Plain children, for example, inevitably ask their parents, “Why can we ride in cars but not own them or drive them ourselves?” It doesn’t make any sense to them. And when parents can’t provide any logical or biblical reason, it doesn’t build the children’s confidence in the Plain lifestyle or faith. When parents tell their inquisitive children—who are using their God-given brains—that it is wrong to ask such questions, they are unwittingly setting them up to ultimately abandon their Plain lifestyle when they become adults.
Plain people also wonder why all the modern and semi-modern technologies they use every day are not considered “worldly.” If technology that makes life easier and more comfortable is inherently evil, why don’t Plain people winnow their wheat by riding donkeys over wheat stalks, as their ancestors did? Why don’t they live in caves, sleep on the ground, wear only animal skins, and cook over campfires, shunning all man-made things that make life easier and more comfortable?
Plain people also notice all the differences among Plain groups regarding which modern technologies are acceptable and which are not. How could a certain technology be “worldly” in one Plain community and not in another one? And why do all Plain groups allow certain technologies today that they once forbade? Obviously, the determination is based on subjective judgments.
Plain people who search the Bible and the 1632 Dordrecht Confession[5] for warnings against any kind of technology that makes life easier or more comfortable will find none, even though in Bible times and in the 17th century—as in all times of human history—people were inventing ways to make their lives easier and more comfortable. Making one’s life easier or more comfortable is not inherently evil. It is God-given human nature. That is why we all wear coats when it is cold outside.
There is nothing virtuous about shunning something, and nothing sinful about desiring something, that would make life easier. Jesus and His apostles used a boat to cross the Sea of Galilee when they could have attempted to swim across or walk along the shore. A boat, however, made it much easier. Some of those same apostles used nets to catch fish. That was an innovation of their day that made their daily lives much easier.
What about Enduring Hardship?
Of course, the Bible encourages Christians to endure hardship, but it is not referring to self-generated hardship, as if there is some virtue in making things more difficult for oneself. Rather, the hardships are related to being “persecuted for the sake of righteousness” (Matt. 5:10). Plain people who decide to repent and follow the Lord Jesus Christ (which results in their spiritual rebirth) even if they will be excommunicated and shunned by their unregenerate (non-born-again) Plain community are not choosing a path that will make their lives easier or more comfortable. They are choosing a path of hardship.
On the other hand, Plain people who resist the call of obedience to Christ alone to remain accepted by their Plain group are choosing an easier and more comfortable path. It is thus somewhat ironic that the authors of Why Be Plain? accuse those who leave the Plain church of pursuing an easier and more comfortable life (by adopting the 5% of modern technology that Plain people shun) when, in fact, those leaving are choosing a path that will be less easy and comfortable in significant ways.
The Biblical Definition of “the World”
Now let us return to the original question. What were the apostles Paul, James, and John referring to when they warned of “the world”? Obviously, they were not writing about cars, phones, or any other technology that didn’t exist in the first century. Thankfully, they all elaborated on what they did mean. Let’s look at their warnings in context.
Paul: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:2, emphasis added).
Paul was obviously not referring to “the world” in a geographic sense. Rather, he was referring to the body of people in the world who are not submitted to the Lord Jesus Christ. “The world” is not demonstrating what the will of God is because the world is not obeying God’s commandments. As Christians progressively renew their minds with God’s Word, however, they are transformed and obey His Word. They stand in contrast to the world in their behavior. They “prove” (by their lifestyle) “what the will of God is,” because they obey His commandments. That is what not conforming to the world means.
Applying this lesson to our modern context, Christians should not use technology as the world uses it. The world might use their cars to transport illegal drugs or to visit prostitutes, but followers of Christ will not. The world might use their smart phones to view porn, but followers of Christ will not.
James: “You adulteresses [the KJV says “adulterers and adulteresses”], do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (Jas. 4:4).
According to the dictionary, friends “share a bond of mutual affection.” They often have similar interests, beliefs, and behaviors. The reason why true followers of Christ cannot be friends with the world is that they are—as Jesus’ devoted bride—submitted to Him, whereas unbelievers have not submitted to Jesus, remaining enemies of God. If Christians become friends with the world, they become friends of God’s enemies. Even worse, they make themselves spiritual adulteresses, because they previously pledged to be faithful to Him.
This, of course, does not mean that Christians cannot associate with non-Christians. Paul wrote to the Corinthian Christians:
I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one (1 Cor 5:9–11, emphasis added).
True Christians should not associate with professing Christians who are “worldly”—that is, sexually immoral, greedy, drunkards, and so on—because such professing Christians stain the church and will not inherit God’s kingdom (see 1 Cor. 6:9–10).
Finally, John: “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:15).
According to John, three characteristics of “the world” are the “lust of the flesh,” the “lust of the eyes,” and the “boastful pride of life.” These three characteristics are universal among those who are not born again and not submitted to the Lord Jesus Christ—and they always have been. Let’s first consider the “lust of the flesh.”
We should not assume John was writing only about sexual lust when he mentioned “the lust of the flesh.” The Greek word translated “lust” in 1 John 2:16 is epithumia, often translated “desire” in other places in the New Testament. For example, Paul wrote to the Galatian Christians:
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire (epithumia) of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire (epithumeo) against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please (Gal. 5:16–17).
So, when Christians “walk by the Spirit,” they do not carry out the “desire of the flesh.” One verse later, Paul enumerates the deeds that are committed by those who yield to the “desire of the flesh”:
Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God (Gal. 5:19–21).
Putting this all together, those who “love the world” are those who yield to the “desire of the flesh,” which then manifests as sexual immorality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outburst of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and similar sins. So when John warned about “the world,” those are the things he was warning against. People whose lives are characterized by those behaviors are “worldly.”
Those who are familiar with Plain culture know that some (not all, of course) Plain people are regularly involved in “enmities, strife … disputes, dissensions, factions” with other members of their communities as well as with other Plain communities. The strife often revolves around ordnung rules and is “resolved” by geographic relocation and/or by shunning. In not getting along with each other, such folks are no different from the world in that respect. They are “worldly.”
Some Plain people (not all of course) who would never own a smart phone or car are frequently or sporadically guilty of sexual immorality. The number of Plain people, for example, who have suffered sexual abuse as children and teenagers—by older siblings, fathers, or relatives—is shocking. We will return to this problem later in this book, but suffice it to say for now that those who commit such vile acts are certainly worldly. I just finished reading a book by a former Amish woman who, when she was a young teenager, worked as a “maude” for a family in her Amish community. She was raped 26 times by the married man for whom she worked, and decades later he admitted it in court. Yet during his court appearance, his Amish community sided with him and against her, primarily because she had left the Amish and exposed him. How perverse! Tragically, in his mind at the time of his rapes, he was living a “non-worldly” Amish lifestyle because he drove a buggy and wore Amish clothing. But his vile behavior made him worse than “the world” (1 Cor. 5:1).
Regarding John’s second identifying characteristic of those who love the world—“lust [or desire] of the eyes”—it must be something different from the “lust [or desire] of the flesh” since John listed it separately. The expression “lust of the eyes” is not found elsewhere in the New Testament, and it is not similarly defined anywhere in Scripture, as is the phrase “lust of the flesh.” So we must speculate.
I suspect that “the lust of the eyes” refers to coveting and greed, as both generally involve the eyes and they are sins common among non-Christians that are condemned elsewhere in Scripture. In Bible times, the expression “evil eye” was used to denote greed (see Prov. 28:22; Luke 11:34). In the next few chapters, we will explore in more detail what coveting, greed, and “the love of money” actually are.
Finally, John wrote that “the boastful pride of life” is also a behavioral characteristic of the “loving the world.” This can only be the all-pervasive pride possessed by all unregenerate people, who see no need to humble themselves in repentance and submission to God. Pride blinds them to their deep spiritual poverty.
Now that we better understand Paul, James, and John’s warnings about “the world,” we are better equipped to compare them with Plain warnings.
[5] In fact, there is no warning about “the world” in any of the 18 articles of the Dordrecht Confession.
