News sometimes travels very fast among Amish folks! So perhaps you’ve already heard about the Johnsonburg Awakening. I’ve been blessed to have witnessed it from the day it began, which was January 31^st of this year. That was the day I met Jonas ——–, an Amish minister who had been born again a few weeks earlier, and Levi ——–, an Amish bishop who had been born again a few years earlier.

Both of those Amish men, of course, had been baptized when they were teenagers, and according to what many Amish people believe, that is when they were supposed to have been born again. But by the time I met them, they both had come to realize that they had not actually been born again when they were baptized as teenagers. When they were baptized then, they said and did everything they were expected to say and do, but they did not possess a genuine heart-faith in Jesus Christ. It wasn’t until years later that they truly believed in Jesus—as evidenced by their genuine repentance and subsequent heart-obedience to His commandments. That is when they were truly born again.

When someone truly believes in Jesus, Jesus becomes their Lord, because that is who He is. Jesus is Lord, and He is mentioned as “Lord” hundreds of times in the New Testament. If Jesus is not your Lord, you don’t actually believe in Him. You may think you do, but you don’t. As the apostle James wrote, faith without works is dead, useless, and cannot save anyone (see James 2:14-26). And as the apostle Paul wrote, “For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living” (Rom. 14:9).

Greetings from beautiful Pennsylvania, a state that was named after William Penn, a Quaker Christian man who, in the 17^th century, was instrumental in creating a safe place for persecuted European Christians, including Mennonites and Amish folks. For thousands of Anabaptists, Pennsylvania was an answer to their prayers. Today, Pennsylvania has the largest Amish population of all the states (81,500), leading even Ohio and Indiana. Anyone who lives in or near any Amish community knows what a blessing they are to local economies and everyone’s well-being. They have a reputation of being family-centered, hardworking, and honest. I count myself blessed to live within the boundaries of Pennsylvania’s third-largest Amish community, and within the vicinity of several others.

I wrote a letter in June that we sent to thousands of Amish households across North America. I’m happy to report that I received over 200 written replies, including many requests for English Bibles and more information about being born again, as well as many phone calls. I’d like to share some of the written replies with you later in this letter, as I think your will find them interesting. But first, I would like to apologize for a misunderstanding.

As I shared the story of the “Johnsonburg Amish Awakening,” I told how two-dozen Amish adults were born again—including a bishop named Levi and minister named Jonas—and how they were eventually excommunicated from their Amish community for “adopting a new faith.” For that reason, some who received my letter assumed that I believe a person cannot be Amish and also be born again. So please allow me to clear that up. I don’t believe that! (And I never said that in my letter.) There are many Amish people who have been born again and who follow an Amish lifestyle. I’ve received letters from some of them (and I’ll share a few with you). Most all of them know that believing in Jesus and obeying His commandments are what is most important.

The Recovery of Our Spiritual Heritage: Having come to realize that we have drifted from the spiritual heritage of our forefathers—many of whom paid with their lives for their sincere faith in the Lord Jesus Christ—we now strive to regain what has been lost by returning to the plain teachings of Jesus and the New Testament apostles whom He appointed. “Like newborn babies,” we “long for the pure milk of the word” (1 Pet. 2:2) that is undiluted and unpolluted by the traditions of men, so that “the word of Christ will richly dwell within us” (Col. 3:16).

Ours is not a “new belief” or “new teaching,” but rather an old belief and ancient teaching that was (1) held in common by all the early Christians, (2) plainly revealed in the New Testament, (3) affirmed in the Dordrecht Confession of 1632, and (4) believed by all the early Anabaptists from whom we are all descended.

Therefore…

Before the apostle Paul was a Christian, he was a Jew known as Saul, from the city of Tarsus. Not only was Paul formerly a Jew, he was an extraordinary Jew, years later describing himself as “a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless” (Philippians 3:5-6).

You probably know, however, that as Saul was on the road to Damascus to arrest and imprison Christians, God knocked him to the ground with a blinding light. Obviously, God was not pleased with him, and Saul heard a voice from heaven ask him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” Up until that moment, Saul thought he was serving God, but he quickly realized that, by persecuting Christians, he was persecuting Jesus, the person whom all the Christians believed was God’s Son. Big mistake!

That began Saul’s spiritual journey, during which he learned many valuable lessons.

You may not realize it, but you could be just like Saul. You, too, may think you are on the right path, but God may be about to knock you to the ground, at least in a figurative sense, and set you on a very different course.

I’ve begun each of my two previous articles in The Amish Voice enumerating things I admire about the Amish—among whom I have many friends, particularly within the Pennsylvania communities of Smicksburg and Johnsonburg. The Smicksburg community is very conservative, whereas the Johnsonburg community has a more liberal ordnung. I love both groups, however, and there are so many good things to say about them both, as there are about all Amish groups.

When you compare any Amish community to the general non-Amish population, their moral virtue shines brightly. I am, of course, speaking in a generalization, because there are certainly plenty of virtuous people outside of Amish culture, and moral failings certainly surface in Amish communities at times. From my observation, however, Amish communities are generally comparable to an island in a cesspool, and I am very familiar with non-Amish culture. I am also probably more familiar with Amish culture than most non-Amish people.

Amish people generally have a good standard of ethics, and most non-Amish folks admire them for that. There is, for example, very little divorce among them. They are also generally modest, humble, and good neighbors. They resist greed. They won’t accept government handouts. They are hard-working, honest, family-focused, and care for the needs of each other. There are many more praiseworthy attributes I could add to this list, but I will save them for a future article. And this is not to say that I am ignorant of examples of moral compromise that do exist in Amish communities, compromise which every Amish adult is very aware. Still, I maintain that the average Amish person is more virtuous than the average non-Amish person.