Amish Forgiveness Explained: Two Different Types of Forgiving

This is a timely and helpful follow-up to the story of Amish parents forgiving the teenage driver in the accident which killed their three young children.

People often wonder – how can the Amish forgive so quickly?

Well, it’s maybe not so simple. The Young Center’s Steven Nolt – co-author of the book Amish Grace, on the Amish forgiveness response in the aftermath of the 2006 Nickel Mines school shootings – explained how the Amish approach the act of forgiving.

In this article for WVPE, he makes an important distinction between two types or modes of forgiveness:

Nolt says to begin to understand this Amish trait, it helps to distinguish between emotional and decisional forgiveness.

“Emotional forgiveness involves a lot of interior work, it takes a lot of time,” Nolt says. “Decisional forgiveness is public, it is usually verbal, and it is making statements about, ‘I forgive,’ or taking actions that demonstrate that.”

Nolt says most in the mainstream culture think we must emotionally forgive before we can express forgiveness. But the Amish often view decisional forgiveness as a way to create space later to forgive emotionally.

In this explanation, the verbalizing of forgiveness precedes the deeper-level emotional forgiveness.

Nolt acknowledges that this Amish quickness-to-forgive can be perceived in different ways by the public:

“So the response sometimes is, well the Amish must just be amazing at forgiveness because they can do emotional forgiveness that should take years in just a few hours, and then conclude that with decisional forgiveness. Or the analysis from outside is, oh the Amish must be terrible at forgiveness because they don’t understand the importance of emotional forgiveness. They just jump right to decisional forgiveness and stuff their feelngs in a box.

“And neither of those appraisals is really what’s happening. Rather, the things that the rest of us are observing are just happening in a different order, a different sequence than we may assume.”

It’s interesting that the Amish can generate two extremes by this act of forgiving – admiring amazement on the one hand – and dismissive criticism on the other.

Nolt adds another layer of explanation:

So why do the Amish often reverse the order of these components of forgiveness? Nolt says it stems partly from their Biblically-driven focus on sacrifice and giving things up, like their right to dress how they want or enjoy modern conveniences. That also means giving up their right to revenge or bitter feelings.

“Amish people may think about forgiveness as difficult but they don’t view it as something that’s unnatural,” Nolt adds.

On the other hand, for your average American, forgiveness “may be something that we think is a good thing that we should do, but on another level it seems hard because it seems so unlike anything else we ever do.”

Helpful context for Amish forgiveness

I’m really glad that this article has appeared in the wake of this forgiveness story. I think it remains a very powerful story – but it’s good to have the context to understand what’s going on here.

Just because someone is forgiven swiftly and publicly – it doesn’t mean the matter is neatly boxed away.

As Steve suggests, the emotional forgiveness part can still be a struggle, and could take a long time.

Just something to keep in mind. And, another reminder that the Amish are human too – even though their belief system, church and communities may equip them to deal with tragedy in ways that seem “unnatural” to the rest of us.

Get the Amish in your inbox

Join 15,000 email subscribers. No spam. 100% free

 

 

 

Subscribe