The Hidden Heartache in Amish and Mennonite Communities

July 12, 2004
Adapted from the Intelligencer Journal.

LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - From the Amish hayloft to the quilted Mennonite bedside, the cries of abused women and whimpers of violated children are often stifled by the very church leaders who have been called to help.

A Mennonite woman screams inwardly as her husband drags her across the floor to a bed where he forces himself on her - again. When she went to police after years of abuse, church leaders excommunicated her from her church. They won't take her back until she promises to submit to her husband and never call the police again.

An Amish boy's face is scratched by the straw as an Amish man from his church sodomizes him - again. Church leaders tried to make his parents say it never happened. They almost excommunicated his mother for telling non-Amish people about it, including someone who notified police.

A Mennonite woman tries to stop her husband from pinching, kicking and beating their children with a belt, but nothing works. Church leaders told her she needs to submit, be a better Christian and have sex more often so he would be nicer to her and the children.

To many people, the thought that Mennonite and Amish folk - known for their work ethic, humility, gentleness and orderliness - would abuse their spouses and children is beyond belief.

The public sees large families of well-behaved children, straight rows of colorful flowers and tidy homes. They see church members cooperating to send vast quantities of food to poor countries, homemakers delivering meals to a shut-in, strong men ready to lend a hand at a moment's notice and entire churches working together to build a barn in one day.

Many are exactly the God-fearing, loving people they appear to be - even the abuse victims say that. But that makes it even harder to believe that they would not see or would tolerate abuse within their close-knit communities.

"If you're not hearing about it, it's not because it's not there," said Roger Steffy, an ordained Mennonite minister, who admits he was sexually abusive to his wife. "There's a tremendous amount of secrecy around that stuff."

"There's definite sexual abuse and violence that happens in groups of conservative Mennonite and Amish. I have no doubt about that," said Steffy.

Denial of the issue runs high, however, not just in the general community, but from church leaders and members, said Steffy.

"Our people don't do these kinds of things. We're good people," said Steffy, describing the thinking of the churches' own skeptics.

The topic of abuse in these churches - unified in their Anabaptist beliefs of nonresistance, adult baptism and nonconformity to mainstream values - is so sensitive that not one of the 20 victims, family members or conservative church leaders who talked to the newspaper would allow their names to be used. Even some counselors who work with members of these churches would only agree to be interviewed if their names would not be used.

No studies have been done to quantify the amount of abuse that goes on within Lancaster County Mennonite and Amish churches, several counselors said, but a 1997 statement by the two boards which make up Mennonite Church USA suggested that "the incidence of family violence may be as high in Mennonite homes as in the general population."

"We should not have these things," a local conservative Mennonite bishop said, "but at the same time, we're human and we can't say we are what we'd like to be."

The difference, according to counselors and victims, is the way abuse is handled. As members of a tightly controlled church system and tradition-bound culture, the victims, primarily women, turn to their male deacons, ministers and bishops for help.

Instead of the listening ear and help they seek, they feel blamed and shamed instead.

Wielding an uncompromising belief in the sanctity of marriage, man's authority over women, forgiveness and resolution of conflict without the law - all beliefs based on Biblical passages - the leaders "shoot their wounded."