Epoch Times - How Did Ohio’s Amish Community Become So Entrepreneurial? CEO & Advocate John Miller Explains.
Aired: 2025-06-17
Duration: 09:20


=== Anabaptist Reformation Impact (06:40) ===

[00:00:00]  Anabaptist is a Latin term that means to re-baptize.
[00:00:05]  In German it's Vida, which means to baptize again.
[00:00:08]  So what they began to do was to baptize adults upon their confession of faith.
[00:00:18]  And that created a ruckus, actually, and heavy persecution.
[00:00:24]  The founders of what became the Anapaptist movement, all three of them died a martyr's death within three years of their founding.
[00:00:33]  So it came out of the Protestant Reformation and then emerged.
[00:00:41]  There were basically two streams that fed into the Amish Mennonite movement.
[00:00:49]  The Swiss stream was headed by a The Mennonites are actually named after a former Catholic priest named Mene Simons, and he was Dutch from the Netherlands.
[00:01:07]  So today, if you look at this, you can see the impact of a particular ideology or philosophy as it emerged.
[00:01:17]  So Mennonites, while Both Amish and Mennonites go back to the same confession of faith, Schleidheim or Dortmund confession of faith.
[00:01:28]  They interpret it very differently.
[00:01:31]  The Mennonites are more acculturated, where Amish dress differently, have had an aversion to technology.
[00:01:38]  And if you look back, I mean, even today, the Dutch are known for being very liberal in their thinking, and Swiss.
[00:01:47]  Obviously are notorious for being conservative and that followed down through the generations to the present day.
[00:01:58]  So what happened with you?
[00:02:01]  You clearly are not looking Mennonite to me, although I hear a little bit of it in your voice perhaps.
[00:02:07]  You probably do because I was just in Germany for a week, so the accent re-emerges when I speak nothing but German for a week.
[00:02:16]  That's a fair question.
[00:02:18]  We live in the community.
[00:02:20]  I am a Sabbatarian Christian, and that was the most difficult decision my wife and I ever made.
[00:02:28]  It was now 40 years ago.
[00:02:31]  We, after searching things out, came to the conviction that the Seventh-day Sabbath, which is Saturday as opposed to the traditional day of worship for Christians of Sunday, It was important.
[00:02:46]  It was, as I would view it, holy time dedicated to God.
[00:02:51]  And we came to that conviction and wanted to practice that.
[00:02:57]  Leaving the homage was never something that was even a consideration.
[00:03:05]  This conviction on that issue that drove the decision.
[00:03:09]  Today, it's a bit different.
[00:03:11]  In fact, there is a growing interest among the Amish in the Seventh-day Sabbath, and we have some relatives that are now practicing it.
[00:03:21]  But back then, it resulted in a total estrangement.
[00:03:24]  So for about 12 years, we were estranged from the community and lived outside the community before coming back.
[00:03:32]  Why the limited interest in technology or the active interest of limiting technology among Amish?
[00:03:39]  I mean, this is, I think, the question which a lot of people have because it's the obvious difference.
[00:03:45]  But it doesn't mean a complete absence of technology, obviously.
[00:03:49]  Yeah, that's a really interesting question.
[00:03:54]  And I suppose you could answer it a number of different ways.
[00:03:58]  And I suppose if you asked So I will give you mine because I'm interested in culture and organizational structure and what drives that.
[00:04:18]  But let me just speak to the history of it for a moment.
[00:04:23]  The aversion to technology is really a relatively recent phenomenon.
[00:04:29]  So back in Europe, there were basically two migrations, one in the 18th century and one in the 19th century.
[00:04:39]  But back in Europe, there was really no distinction from a technological standpoint.
[00:04:43]  In fact, as I mentioned earlier, my forefathers in Europe were more advanced in their technology maybe than some of the others.
[00:04:58]  Because they were able to buy a degree of religious freedom by being the most innovative farmers.
[00:05:05]  Most notably, the fertilizer was burnt limestone, was an Anabaptist innovation.
[00:05:13]  So the aversion to technology really is a post-World War II phenomenon.
[00:05:21]  And I can say that even from personal experience, my grandfather The entirety of the area was German-speaking, so whether you were Amish or Mennonite or otherwise, most people spoke German because they were immigrants.
[00:05:40]  He was the first to buy a tractor and a thresher and provide the threshing in the community, and that was 1938.
[00:05:51]  Everybody was still farming with horses.
[00:05:55]  Post-World War II, though, the decision was made, and they made decisions as a community, as a church.
[00:06:01]  They vote, so they're democratic in that sense.
[00:06:05]  They decided against using mechanized farming, in particular.
[00:06:12]  They decided against electricity and the automobile.
[00:06:18]  The mechanized farming, I don't really have a good answer on why that decision was made.
[00:06:24]  The automobile, the decision was made because they believed that the ability to travel quickly would take people away from the community.

=== Desire for Independence (02:54) ===

[00:06:35]  And whether you agree with it or not, I think that decision has proven to be accurate.
[00:06:41]  They've kept community alive when Because of high mobility, a lot of communities have died out.
[00:06:48]  And then the decision to not be on the electrical grid had a lot to do with the fundamental desire to be separate and not dependent.
[00:06:59]  Or maybe the better word is to be independent and not reliant upon others.
[00:07:06]  So that drove those decisions.
[00:07:10]  And of course, there's the mode of dress.
[00:07:14]  Also, it's a differentiator.
[00:07:16]  You come to our community and you wake up and horses and buggies trot down the road.
[00:07:22]  But I would tell you there's a sea change happening.
[00:07:25]  And a sea change is being driven by now the ability to generate your own electricity by putting a solar panel on the roof.
[00:07:35]  So if you come to...
[00:07:40]  You will find more solar panels per square mile in Amish country than probably anywhere in the United States.
[00:07:47]  So most of the Amish homes in our community are not fully electrified.
[00:07:54]  The women have the kitchen aid and all the appliances that they need because philosophically I can now generate my own electricity.
[00:08:03]  I'm not dependent on someone else.
[00:08:06]  That's changing, and the e-bike is fast replacing the iconic horse and buggy.
[00:08:11]  I mean, that's fascinating, except I would argue that you are very much dependent on someone, and someone you really don't want to be dependent on, which is Communist China, which basically holds a monopoly in, I mean, the production of these batteries that are required, right?
[00:08:27]  And certainly the solar panels.
[00:08:29]  I mean, they dumped and basically took over the market.
[00:08:33]  So how do you explain this?
[00:08:36]  Well, I think probably most of the Amish aren't aware of that dynamic.
[00:08:42]  They purchase this device that generates electricity.
[00:08:47]  I'm certainly aware of that.
[00:08:49]  The thing about it is it's really a national security issue at the ultimate level.
[00:08:56]  If you can't manufacture the things that provide your basic needs.
[00:09:04]  You think about energy.
[00:09:06]  You think about hot water and all the conveniences that we take for granted.
[00:09:11]  We've outsourced that.
[00:09:13]  Like you said correctly, to someone that has not been very friendly to us.
[00:09:18]  And they hold a monopoly over it now.