Amish grace : how forgiveness transcended tragedy
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Amish grace : how forgiveness transcended tragedy
Jossey-Bass, c2007
- : cloth
Available at 2 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Bibliography: p. 219-221
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
On Monday morning, October 2, 2006, a gunman entered a one-room Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. In front of twenty-five horrified pupils, thirty-two-year-old Charles Roberts ordered the boys and the teacher to leave. After tying the legs of the ten remaining girls, Roberts prepared to shoot them execution with an automatic rifle and four hundred rounds of ammunition that he brought for the task. The oldest hostage, a thirteen-year-old, begged Roberts to "shoot me first and let the little ones go." Refusing her offer, he opened fire on all of them, killing five and leaving the others critically wounded.He then shot himself as police stormed the building. His motivation - "I'm angry at God for taking my little daughter," he told the children before the massacre. The story captured the attention of broadcast and print media in the United States and around the world. By Tuesday morning some fifty television crews had clogged the small village of Nickel Mines, staying for five days until the killer and the killed were buried.The blood was barely dry on the schoolhouse floor when Amish parents brought words of forgiveness to the family of the one who had slain their children.
The outside world was incredulous that such forgiveness could be offered so quickly for such a heinous crime. Of the hundreds of media queries that the authors received about the shooting, questions about forgiveness rose to the top. Forgiveness, in fact, eclipsed the tragic story, trumping the violence and arresting the world's attention. Within a week of the murders, Amish forgiveness was a central theme in more than 2,400 news stories around the world. "The Washington Post", "The New York Times", "USA Today", "Newsweek", "NBC Nightly News", "CBS Morning News", "Larry King Live", "Fox News", "Oprah", and dozens of other media outlets heralded the forgiving Amish.From the "Khaleej Times" (United Arab Emirates) to Australian television, international media were opining on Amish forgiveness. Three weeks after the shooting, "Amish forgiveness" had appeared in 2,900 news stories worldwide and on 534,000 web sites. Fresh from the funerals where they had buried their own children, grieving Amish families accounted for half of the seventy-five people who attended the killer's burial. Roberts' widow was deeply moved by their presence as Amish families greeted her and her three children.
The forgiveness went beyond talk and graveside presence: the Amish also supported a fund for the shooter's family.Amish Grace explores the many questions this story raises about the religious beliefs and habits that led the Amish to forgive so quickly. It looks at the ties between forgiveness and membership in a cloistered communal society and ask if Amish practices parallel or diverge from other religious and secular notions of forgiveness. It will also address the matter of why forgiveness became news. "All the religions teach it," mused an observer, "but no one does it like the Amish." Regardless of the cultural seedbed that nourished this story, the surprising act of Amish forgiveness begs for a deeper exploration. How could the Amish do this? What did this act mean to them? And how might their witness prove useful to the rest of us?
Table of Contents
Preface.PART ONE.Chapter 1: The Nickel Mines Amish.Chapter 2: The Shooting.Chapter 3: The Aftermath.Chapter 4: The Surprise.Chapter 5: The Reactions.PART TWO.Chapter 6: The Habit of Forgiveness.Chapter 7: The Roots of Forgiveness.Chapter 8: The Spirituality of Forgiveness.Chapter 9: The Practice of ForgivenessPART THREE.Chapter 10: Forgiveness at Nickel Mines.Chapter 11: What About Shunning?Chapter 12: Grief, Providence, and Justice.Chapter 13: Amish Grace and the Rest of Us.Afterword.Acknowledgments.Appendix: The Amish of North America.Endnotes.Resources for Further reading.The Authors.Index.
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