openpolitics.com

Elizabethtown scholar of plain life releases new book on Amish

Donald Kraybill became a leading expert on Amish life the same way he would do anything else in life: He made friends.

“Because of my farming background, I could walk into an Amish farm and talk about the corn and the cows and how the soybeans are doing,” Kraybill says.

He built relationships in different Amish communities, which led to connections across the country.

.. Kraybill cites fellow Elizabethtown professor Karen Johnson-Weiner, who sums it up this way: “Amish people are always in church.”

.. No matter what other criteria exist, though, driving a horse and buggy rather than a car remains the ultimate determinant of whether someone is Amish.The buggies also distinguish between different “tribes,” of Amish people, as Kraybill calls them. For example, the Lancaster tribe has gray buggies, while the Amish in Holmes County, Ohio, have black buggies.