The back-cover text of Why Be Plain? states that “the ‘purpose of [being] Plain’ is obedience to Christ.” Plain ways, it claims, “are grounded on the teachings and commandments of Jesus Christ.” The whole purpose of Plain ordnungs, the authors assert, is to help Plain people “live out His commandments” (p. 22).
Unfortunately, however, many stories told by current and former Plain people reveal a dark underbelly of Plain life that is hidden from outsiders and swept under the rug among insiders.
One of the first of such stories I heard—from several sources—concerned a local Amish bishop who had been placed under the bann three times for molesting his daughters and granddaughters. Not long after, I learned about two local Amish men who were sentenced to prison for pedophilia. Then, I received newspaper accounts of men in Plain communities elsewhere in the country who were also serving prison time for similar crimes. After that, I read books several written by former Plain women who told horrific stories of sexual abuse by their brothers and fathers or neighbors.
Wondering just how pervasive this problem was, I decided to conduct a survey of Plain and former Plain people about their experience with child sexual abuse (CSA). I announced that survey on my Facebook page. Because I have many Plain and former Plain Facebook friends, we have received 486 responses as of this writing.
About 90% of those who participated in our survey were former Plain, and about 10% were current Plain. 64% were female and 36% were male. 38% were age 41 or older, 58% were age 21 to 40, and 4% were 20 or younger.
Here are the responses to three of the questions:
“Were you a victim of sexual abuse as an Amish/Old Order/Plain child or teen?”
Yes: 49%; No: 51%
“Do you personally know someone, besides yourself, who was such a victim?”
Yes: 86%; No: 14%
“Have you ever heard someone confess, to any degree, in a church gathering, to victimizing a child or teen?”
Yes: 21%; No: 79%
Obviously, our survey was not scientific or randomized. We don’t know if victims or non-victims were more likely to have participated. For that reason, we certainly cannot conclude that 49% of all Plain people are victims of CSA. Nevertheless, the responses indicate that CSA is a significant problem that has been hiding for a long time within some Plain communities.
Some of my Amish friends have claimed that CSA is far worse in the broader world than within Plain culture. I certainly hope so.[26] But why is there any CSA in the Plain world?
Jesus said, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea” (Mark 9:42). That statement reveals what Jesus thinks of anyone who causes a child to stumble for any reason. Certainly, the horrific act of CSA would be at the top of the list of evils that might cause a child to stumble and be scarred for life. In the world, those who are found guilty of CSA are sentenced to years, and often decades, of prison time, because even the world understands how wicked, vile, and perverse such a crime is.
CSA Victims Speak
At the end of our survey, we asked an open-ended question: “Please tell us anything else you feel would be important for us to know.” Below is a sampling of 40 of the 172 responses we received. All 40 have given us permission to publish their anonymous comments, which depict what has been happening in some Plain communities. After presenting these comments, I will add some closing words for both victims, perpetrators, Plain leaders, and all readers.
If you have lived in a Plain community where CSA is not an issue, then thank God. You should not be offended by this chapter. Rather, have compassion for victims like those below who share their stories in their own words.
This first testimony I hope is representative of the majority of Plain people:
I had an amazing childhood with a godly father and grandfather whom I will be eternally grateful for.
Three others offered similar comments. The vast majority, however, were like those that follow. The first three are from women who are currently living in Amish communities:
1. A very good friend of mine was sexually abused, and she said something to the ministry [bishop and/or ministers]. They asked her abuser about it. He admitted to it, and he had to make a confession in church. But then his abuse continued, and she reported it again. The ministry told her to leave it, saying that he had confessed and is free now. She was put under the ban for a year for bringing it up again. She is no longer Amish.
It needs to be drilled into the Amish culture that sexual abuse needs to stop. … It just gets swept under the carpets. We need to educate the Amish women and children how important it is to report any form of sexual abuse.
2. I have ___ siblings. At least 7 of us were either victims or perpetrators. My mom found out about it by questioning me, but there was no action taken to end the abuse.
Through the mercy of God, I have found healing on a scale that only a loving and powerful God can accomplish. I truly am blessed because my husband is kind and very compassionate. We are still Amish; however, the church we attend is different from many other Amish churches, and we have the freedom to follow the Word and the Spirit. Many of my friends have been abused. It’s a plague everywhere and the Plain people have no immunity against it; rather, they seem more vulnerable than most. So sad.
3. I have a very traumatic past. I’ve suffered every kind of abuse that there is, and to this day I am really struggling with PTSD, different anxiety disorders, and depression. And YES I need help to this day!! But what I’d like to say is PLEASE!! in some way give the victims help and let them know they have a voice and to use it!!!! Currently, for myself, I’m still trying to find it and not feel guilty!! I am ____ years old and only getting into seeking help for about 2 1/2 years. … I feel stuck in many ways!! May God bless you as you continue to reach out to those hurting and abused souls!!
All of the remaining testimonies that follow are from former Plain people. They are not, however, angry “Plain-bashers.” They are precious people who either suffered CSA themselves or care about CSA victims whom they know. Many left their Plain communities not because they “succumbed to the lure of the world,” but because they had to escape to a safer place.
4. We were excommunicated from our Amish community because we sided with victims. A 15-year-old girl who was abused by her grandfather was also excommunicated at the same time as us. She has since spoken of how many of her cousins were involved. … I believe this is a shocking issue that the Amish shrug at!
5. Whether I was sexually abused is a complicated question for me as it was inappropriate play from my friends that they initiated, but I was a fairly willing participant, as I had no sexual education at all. That sexualized playing around resulted in a very enlarged imagination and misery for me from the time I was 8 years old. Unknown to me at the time, being the youngest in my large family, there was a horrible level of ongoing abuse amongst most of the male family members against their siblings and animals.
At 16, I myself personally intended to rape my sister four years older than me; I had convinced myself that she would want it. Thankfully, she was older and more mature than me and her response shattered any delusions that she would want it. Her reaction revealed to me my utter sinfulness and utter wickedness of my heart, and it never went farther than me grabbing her dress. I contemplated suicide to exterminate the wickedness that was clearly overtaking me and destroying me; I was a horrible slave to sin. But God, through His Spirit, led me to Romans 7 and 8 over the course of the next several days, and I felt a faint glimmer of hope. I cried out to God (if He was real) to teach me what the Apostle Paul experienced in his transition from being a slave to sin, to being set free from slavery, to living a life of victory. If God wasn’t real or able to get through to me, then suicide was my plan as a fitting check against the evil forces.
As we know, God is faithful. I was born again and set free!
Most of my siblings are still some form of Amish, and they will not be able to complete this survey. I am of the understanding that all of them suffered sexual abuse at some point in their lives before unfortunately—for my three brothers—becoming perpetrators themselves. This started in an Amish settlement in _________ where the abuse and sexual violence percolated through the family. The community of ___________ and its daughter settlement in ________ have to my knowledge an extremely disturbing pattern of sexual violence even from the fathers of the families.
6. I think it’s very important to realize that sexual abuse goes on everywhere in the world and not just among the Amish. … I also think it’s important that people understand that not every Amish community bans people if they go to the church leaders to report predators. And many Amish people are incarcerated for their perversion. Many go through the court and the legal system. It is important to me to get the word out that that it is indeed a lie that all Amish communities and churches are being silent about this particular thing. I was abused as a teenager. And I got help I needed and all of my attackers got brought to justice.
7. In our culture it is always the woman’s or girl’s fault if sexual abuse happens. The women are not giving their husbands enough sex which causes them to lust elsewhere. And the girls were too pretty dressed or did something that aroused them. So the men were never to blame. It was the woman who sinned. Eve ate of the apple.
8. I was a young girl, around the age of 7 (my memory is a bit blurry yet of around that age), while playing a game of hide and seek. I told my mom what happened and she said I can never again go hide with that person who abused me. But I ended up being forced once more. And I let my abuser know I told my mom. It never happened from him again.
After I was a teenager and realized just what happened, I asked my mother if she or my father ever talked to the abuser’s parents. The answer was, “No, your dad was too afraid of causing an uproar in the family.” I have since forgiven him and have healed from it. Now, instead of hurting from the pain of what happened to me, my heart hurts for him and his family. Hoping and praying that he has repented and given his life to Christ.
9. So far since leaving the Amish almost 95% of all women and children whom I have met who have also left have suffered from of sexual abuse. And we have been out for almost 9 years.
10. I was sexually abused by an older cousin at age 4. My brother walked in on him and reported it to my parents, hoping for their intervention and help. (I learned in adulthood that he was being abused himself, and he also was hoping for help.) Instead, I was blamed for what had happened, and I was beaten with a leather part of a horse harnesses (called a tug). This was to keep the peace with my mom’s extended family since the cousin pled innocence, and then my grandmother and aunt got involved and my parents didn’t want to fall out of favor.
My entire life I was treated as a dirty sexual pervert. Later, I learned my son was being molested by his cousins and I confronted my mother and sister to try and stop this cycle. Then my parents admitted knowing I was innocent as a child, but they told me to keep the peace. I should do the same to my child as they had done with me. But I could never treat my children that way. We are now safely living hundreds of miles away, but few people in the community would believe what goes on with my family if I were to confront them, as my father has been a minister and successful businessman his entire life. They look shiny and happy outside, but certainly are rotten on the inside.
11. A counselor in __________ told me that CSA among the Amish is the same as the general population, every one out of three children is a victim. She said there’s only one thing different with the Amish and that is that they have more sex with animals. In my lifetime as an Amish person, I have personally heard confessions made before the church of having sex with animals. In two different cases, in the church district I lived in, we were ready to have communion before we had ordination service. In both cases the men confessed to having sex with animals and were put in the ban for 2 weeks. Both of those men ended up being ordained to the ministry. In my case, both myself and my firstborn daughter were molested, and from what I gathered from my mother, she was too. In one year’s time, one of my nieces, a cousin, and a sister-in-law confided in me that they were molested. I’ve had friends tell me the same thing.
12. I was from a family of ___, and I know that every one of our family—___ boys and ___ girls—were all sexually abused. I left the community at age ____ and wasn’t a member there until I went back for about ___ months when I was ____ years old. During those months, I heard one married man confess to bestiality numerous times and eventually he was ordained deacon, and the hope and sentiment was that his selection was from God because maybe his ordination would give him the strength to overcome. I know of several other abusers in the community. One of them is finally going to trial with the church leaders defending him till their last breath saying nothing happened. Though it was always common knowledge his father even paid hush money in one case.
13.) First of all … THANK YOU for caring enough about this dark evil to expose it. It was rampant in the old order Amish where I came from. The one that abused me also abused over 25, yes, 25 other little girls. All because it was not taken seriously enough to STOP IT. And I know of many, many other little girls who were abused in this same church, many of them multiple times. Some by the ministers themselves. It is utterly heartbreaking. Most of them don’t have a voice, and I must say my voice is shaking in exposing this.
14. I was sexually assaulted/abused daily by two older brothers and my grandpa as a young Amish child from 4 years old until 20 years old.
15. My sister was sexually abused and became pregnant and had a daughter. She was kept longer in the ban than her abuser. They said she was more to blame than he was, because she allowed her abuser to do it.
16. An Amish Bishop had as high as 9 victims in my community over the course of 15 years and was not reported to the law.
17. My wife was raped by an Amish neighbor when she was 8 or 9. As you can imagine, this has caused a lot of emotional damage and trauma in our marriage. This was never reported to anyone, and she never told anyone until several years into our marriage. Thank God for His healing power. It has been a long journey, but God has been very faithful to us.
18. The stigma that follows victims who go public is far worse than the fate of the perpetrators. The victims get blamed, they get ostracized, they are asked what they did to entice men to behave like that. As if a child has any understanding of sex! Beyond that, they don’t educate or talk about sex at all.
19. I currently know of two communities not far from us with a major pedophile problem. In one the pedophile has been arrested a little over a year ago; in the other the pedophile still roams free, although people have tried to have him arrested. The one who has been arrested has the support of the ministry, and the church members are forbidden to talk about it unless they talk to the bishop. The pedophile who still roams free has sprayed gas into windows to drug the children before going in and raping them, during the night.
When the person who molested me and some other girls was exposed, it was suggested by his mom (a minister’s wife) that we probably didn’t behave ourselves like we should have, and caused him to act like that. I know that’s not true! This problem is way more prevalent than people know or want to know. Thank you for doing this!
20. The only time the cops got notified about it was when the predator turned himself in with the ministry covering him, telling the cops they have everything under control. So he was let off the hook. But he is still living on the same property as young girls are, and he is still grooming them.
21. I personally know of two bishops, both related to me, who raped their sons and daughters. A third bishop had 32 counts of raping his four daughters. All three bishops were defended by the church members; all three were convicted in court and put in prison. When I saw how corrupt the Amish leadership was, I began to realize they might not be the exclusive Bride of Christ according to their narrative.
22. My older brother has always been the favorite child because he is a boy. From the time I was 7 or 8 until I was 10 years old, he sexually abused me. I didn’t personally report it to anyone until several years later, but my parents knew about it. My older sister caught him several times and had to pull him off me. She told my parents, but they did nothing. When I was 10, my dad saw it happening multiple times. He only scolded him a little and did nothing to stop it from happening again. The sexual abuse stopped happening when I was 10, and my dad says he stopped it, but that’s not true. The only reason it ever stopped is because I learned how to fight.
23. I grew up in the ¬¬¬¬¬_____________ Amish community in _________ before moving to _________. Sexual abuse and physical abuse were rampant. From brothers and sisters having babies together, to fathers and daughters having kids … it is just sickening. The victimized children were silenced and led to believe they were to blame, so they should forgive and never say another word. The weddings and playroom situation in which the children of opposite genders are forced to kiss in front of the parents is another oddity. [Note: This seems to occur primarily in certain sects of Amish.] The abuse to animals and sexual abuse is just disgusting. So many men confessed in church to having sex with dogs or other poor animals. I am ashamed to say I grew up in such a cult that participated in such horror. The abuse that is given to the mentally disabled and Down syndrome kids will just break your heart! I have listened time and time again to the English go on and on about the Amish being such good people and how they envy their Christian ways that I only wished they knew the truth and there was a way to stop all of the abuse!
24. When I spoke of my personal abuse to an adult I was not believed. … The adult interrogated my abuser who denied it, and the abuser started the work of preserving his image and I was accused of lying. … My abuser turned to the Amish community and led people to believe I was a difficult, troubled, and crazy individual and was making terrible accusations that were not true, so he looked like the victim and I looked like the offender and the one lying. This is why those who are abused struggle to come forward because those in positions of power doing the abusing overpower and undermine those coming forward with the truth.
Later, I was told by a deacon in the same church as the abuser that he confessed to being mean to me but never fully owned or took responsibility for the sexual abuse. The confession thing they have in the Amish churches is useless. It is very similar to the Catholic sacrament where they believe that God abolishes their sin through confession to the priest, giving the priest the power to forgive and abolish their sins. Instead of directly being accountable to God, others, and law enforcement if they commit a crime, they look to the bishop giving him the power to deal with and handle their sin.
We all know how it’s handled—the bishop tells the whole congregation what the sin is and whether it merits the shunning process. After that everyone is told to practice shunning if warranted and then to forgive that person of their sin and to never speak of it again. That systemic process only perpetuates and allows abuse to continue. Do you think an abuser is automatically going to stop abusing when he has received absolution from the bishop for his sins?! Is it true repentance, penance, or a way to try and appease their own conscience, when they confess their sin to the bishop?! In my humble opinion this confession system is only one aspect of a very complex problem, but a big part of the problem nonetheless.
Without directly addressing the sin issue within oneself, the damage and harm it brought to themselves and others, and processing the deeper underlying issues that allowed the sin to grow in the first place, there is no room being made for the work of true repentance and a change of heart. Changed behavior is the result of a changed heart. To sweep things under the rug and not be allowed to speak of what occurred is not going to make the problems miraculously disappear, just because the bishop has given his absolution. Why the bishop is being given that kind of power in the first place is a big problem too!
25. When I reported my abuse, I was whipped because I was bad. I was 8 years old.
26. Reporting abuse to the authorities is considered worse than the abuse itself.
27. There was a neighboring old order church where I grew up that the one preacher sexually abused his daughters and the bishop actually reported him to the authorities and the abuser has been in prison ever since. So I thought I’d let you know that thankfully some bishops/churches don’t accept this in any way!
28. I was sexually abused by a friend’s brother when I was 13. My sister, when she was 12, was raped by an older brother. She told me, but we never told my parents, which I regret to this day. I had many friends who were sexually violated by male family members. A grandfather who molested his granddaughters, who were my friends and cousins. He was also a bishop. It was all hush-hush. This was in ________. I heard that the grandfather repented before he passed away, at a very old age. I’m so grateful these atrocities are being exposed and dealt with.
29. I myself wasn’t molested but it was almost unreal, as over time again and again, I found out of yet another of my friends who was molested/raped. This was in a New Order Amish church.
30. So many of my female cousins and aunts are victims … my aunt had my grandpa’s baby. I had my dad’s baby.
31. It was always blamed on the girl. Even if she was only small. My abuse started at age 8 until I told my mom at 14.
32. I was part of the _____________ Amish in _________. These communities are a large part of the problem today! Between the mental, physical and sexual abuse, I still struggle today with knowing my self-worth. So many kids are abused and these crimes are hidden or the abuser is never punished due to the cultish religion or ordnung that they hide behind for protection. So many times, the abuser never once gets any punishment as the Amish deal with it according to the ordnung, and these children suffer for the rest of their lives. They provoke the kids by using sick rules for dating [bed courtship] and if you don’t follow them you are put in the ban. … We were all taught as little kids that the cops are of the devil and part of a cult, that is why we can never involve them as they will do bad things. I believed that for so long and even long after I left. That is sad and now I finally understand the reasoning why they would do that—to keep everything hush-hush and continue to control our minds! I appreciate all that you are doing and happy to help in any way!
33. In Amish culture the girls are always to blame, it was a girl’s fault if she got sexually abused. And the men go free. Or it is the wife’s fault, as she probably isn’t giving her husband enough sex. On another note, fathers have no idea how to father their sons and daughters and be spiritual leaders in the homes. They have no idea how to love in a clean fatherly way, they have no idea how to connect on a heart level.
34. I was sexually abused from the age of 5 to teenage years by 6 different offenders. I know of many, many others that were. Far more of my ex-Amish friends were abused than not. Very sad and upsetting.
35. In the community where I grew up, if there was anything like that happening it would have been confessed in such a way that you hardly knew what they were confessing to. But it did happen, and as a result, my young cousin became pregnant from a family member and they tried to cover up and say it was the parents’ child (the baby). Bestiality was something that was confessed to many times by numerous different men and boys. … Another thing that happened many times was sexual impurity among the dating couples. I did not know of very many couples where this didn’t happen, sometimes resulting in them getting pregnant and having to quickly get married.
36. While still Amish I personally knew two cases of the father having molested his own daughters. The one ongoing case was reported and three of the five ministers defended the molester. Two defended the girls.
Later, after we left, it was revealed that the three had molested their own daughters. The bishop served his time in prison as a “martyr.” Those (the molested) that reported it to the authorities were put in the ban and shunned for reporting it and were considered the bad guys. Later I found out of several more old cases in that community that were never reported.
37. I have a distant relative who is serving a decades-long prison sentence for molesting his nieces. The father of the little girls that were molested (by their uncle) reported it to the authorities, which caused a big uproar among the Amish. The father was basically reprimanded for going to the authorities; he was told that the Amish preachers should have been the ones to deal with it, where it would have been swept under the rug, with nothing really done about it.
38. My abuser, who was also my sister’s abuser, later was an Amish school teacher, and he is now an Amish bishop and a counselor. Also in our community, there are multiple other known cases of abuse in the last 15 years. Two brothers, one also a bishop, are in prison for molesting their own daughters. Another bishop has been dealt with by the church [not reported to authorities] for molesting his children. Another bishop was dealt with [not reported to authorities] for molesting a young girl in his church. A minister was dealt with by the church [not reported to authorities] for molesting his granddaughter. And the list goes on. Certainly not all of them are in the ministry.
39. As an Amish teen in my rumspringa time[27], I was saddened that 75% of my friends endured sexual abuse, and they often spoke on it while intoxicated. I’d say over half of those reported to a parent or someone close and they were told they were lying or that they need to keep silent about it. Their voices need to be heard!
40.) Please, something must be done, there are many more children who need help among the Amish I know, I was there, and I saw my sister and relatives and friends, who were sexually abused and suppressed.
Final Comments
Among these heartbreaking testimonies, I hope you noticed the touching words of those victims who have found healing through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you are a victim of CSA, He is your hope as well! He can “restore your soul” (Psalm 23:3). The restoration begins with the new birth. I recommend that victims acquire a copy of the book On the Threshold of Hope: Opening the Door to Healing for Survivors of Sexual Abuse. It is a biblically based, Christ-centered book written for victims of CSA.
If you are currently a victim of CSA, call 888-621-1985, and tell the person who answers what is happening to you. The person who answers your phone call will be able to help you take steps to protect yourself and stop the perpetrator. They will be able to speak in Pennsylvania Dutch. (Please understand, however, that they will not help you, or anyone who calls them, to leave a Plain community.) If your church ministry leaders tell you that you have done wrong in seeking help by telling someone on the outside what has happened to you, don’t listen to them for a second. They are protecting themselves, not you.
If you are a perpetrator of CSA, your only hope is the Lord Jesus Christ and the forgiveness and deliverance from slavery to sin that He offers through His death and resurrection. If you repent and genuinely believe in Him, you will be born again. If you are truly born again, God will guide you to seek out any and all whom you have abused and, in the presence of witnesses, beg for their forgiveness. If you committed your crimes as an adult who was legally accountable to the law, you will also turn yourself in to the civil authorities and confess, just as you would do if you were born again and had gotten away with murdering someone in the past. Born-again people obey God. By turning yourself in to the authorities, you are more likely to receive leniency, but you must prepare to suffer the justice you deserve.
To all readers: If you are truly born again, you must not remain silent about CSA perpetrators in your community, regardless of pressure from any ministry leader to keep quiet. Apart from physical restraint, CSA perpetrators generally continue their pattern of abuse. By remaining silent, you are assisting them in their abuse of innocent children and teenagers—as you surely know in your God-given conscience. And you are violating God’s commandment to love your neighbor by allowing predators to continue to prey on their victims. To require CSA perpetrators only to make a confession in church followed by a few weeks in the bann, while requiring church members to forever remain silent about perpetrators’ crimes, is a gross perversion of Jesus’ teaching about church discipline and forgiveness.
To Plain leaders: We all have an obligation to report CSA perpetrators to civil authorities. This is even more true for ministry leaders, which is exactly why some Plain ministry leaders are in prison today for not reporting CSA perpetrators. Plain ministry leaders often emphasize the Bible’s instructions to submit to church leadership while ignoring the same Bible’s instructions to submit to civil authorities. If you are a Plain ministry leader, don’t be a hypocrite who expects submission to yourself from church members while you fail to submit to civil authorities. Are you protecting children and teenagers, or are you protecting predators?
If you are a reader who claims to be born again, and you are angry that we’ve published all of these testimonies “because we are trying to make all Plain people look bad” (a false judgment), I would encourage you instead to weep for what has been happening for decades in some Plain circles and send evangelists to preach the gospel, as your ancestors did, to the Plain communities that are, unlike you, unregenerate and in complete spiritual darkness regarding the power of the gospel.
Finally, please join me in praying for an end to the plague of CSA in Plain churches and everywhere else that it terrorizes innocent children, often emotionally scarring them for life, which then has a cascading effect upon many others who suffer as well.
[26] In the United States overall, one in every four girls (25%) is a victim of CSA, as is one in every thirteen boys (8%). If proving that the Amish world is doing better than the English world is important to some readers for some reason, I suggest that they conduct an anonymous survey of adults in their own community. They will need to do a significantly-sized random sampling with anonymous participation for accurate results. Of course, those results will only be relevant for their community, not the entire Plain world.
[27] Rumspringa literally means “to run around.” It is a period of adolescence in which boys and girls are given greater personal freedom and allowed to form romantic relationships, usually ending with the choice of baptism into the church or leaving the community. Rumspringa is a custom not practiced in all Plain communities.
