History lesson from a Bishop
What to do when you’re a retired Amish bishop? Maybe a lecture tour.
That could be what one Amish leader has in mind in northern Indiana.
Goshen News reports that ‘Atlee Dan’ Miller recently gave a talk on Amish history and the settlement of his region, Amish education, and church splits to an audience at the Topeka Historical Society. The talk was held in the fire department at Topeka, one of a few hamlets scattered throughout the heavily-populated Amish region.
An Amish bishop may hand the reins over to a younger leader on reaching older age, while retaining ‘senior bishop’ status.
It’s a bit unclear whether that is the case here, or whether the writer is just referring to Miller being retired from his occupation.
In any case, Miller had an uplifting message to add to the history lesson. His advice? “Believe in Jesus Christ and God and keep them important in our lives and walk humbly before God.” If we do that, Miller said, “I see a bright future.”
As they always are on your site, a well-done, interesting post. On the few occasions I’ve attended a “public talk” by an Amish person (each case a male), I’ve just been amazed how articulate and witty they can be as speakers. This “surprise” is due simply to the fact that they aren’t typically a public people, the reflexive reaction is to expect shyness. I would have loved to attend this talk!
Amish names in the newspaper
Right on Kevin. When I first met Amish people I did not expect them to be so much ‘like us’. That’s one thing I think gets lost in the mix when the Amish are represented by outsiders. They are regular people after all and this didn’t surprise me a bit.
The only thing I wonder about is publishing the names–some seem to want to keep complete anonymity while in other articles the real names are published–ie when the toll road crash happened in Northern Indy last month I recognized one or two guys that I knew who commented on it. I guess it’s not such a big deal for some, but I’ll want to ask about that when I am in Ohio in a couple weeks.