Caption: Flat Ridge Elementary School, an all-Amish public school between Charm and New Bedford, Holmes County, Ohio.
Amish are often characterized as wanting nothing more than to be “left alone” by government authorities. Yet, from buggy electrification laws pushed by some Amish against others to Amish segregated public school buildings, some plain people actively shape government action even as they claim religious exemptions and doctrinal separation from it.
This post will explore both Constitutional and plain people’s doctrinal positions on religion and state, then present two cases where Amish are counterintuitively involved in church-state entanglements. These cases demonstrate the disparity between ideology—political or religious—and actual practice, calling for a finer understanding of how Amish-state relations actually play out.
The First Amendment’s two clauses about religion— Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof—are frequently framed as competing interests. Those emphasizing establishment concerns often position themselves as defenders against religious encroachment in public spaces. Meanwhile, free exercise advocates sometimes view establishment restrictions as artificial barriers denying religion’s foundational role in American life.
This polarization obscures a deeper truth: these clauses were conceived as complementary protections, each reinforcing the other’s purpose. Their intertwined nature becomes clearer when we examine the historical context of their creation.
At the Constitution’s framing, the new nation faced a complex religious landscape. Every state except Pennsylvania maintained established churches, following European precedent. Yet Europe’s history offered sobering lessons about state-established religion’s consequences: centuries marked by persecution of minority faiths and devastating conflicts between religious groups vying for state control. The Thirty Years’ War, the English Civil War, and numerous other post-Reformation conflicts demonstrated the volatility of entangling state power with religious authority.
For the 13 states to achieve federal unity while respecting religious differences, an innovative approach was needed. Religious groups would need to relinquish claims on federal control to ensure protection for minority faiths. Thus, the federal establishment clause emerged not as an obstacle to religious expression but as a guardian of religious free exercise itself. States gradually aligned their positions with the federal government, Massachusetts being the last in 1833 to disentangle commonwealth governance with a denomination (the Congregational Church).
While the amendment clearly precluded any single denomination from becoming the official U.S. religion, its historical focus on preventing inter-denominational domination left several questions less clearly addressed:
These questions take on particular relevance when we examine how they play out in specific contexts, as demonstrated in two cases below, where they intersect with both public education and public safety regulations. But first, what do plain people say is their relationship with the state?
Plain people largely interpret their responsibility to the government as a matter of submission, as conscience allows, based on Romans 13:1-7:
“Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God… Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.”
When the state asks plain people for something against their conscience, one is to still respect the government but quietly hold to what is felt moral, following the Christian response to a governing ruler in Acts 5:29: “We ought to obey God rather than men.”
Similar positions are articulated in many plain Anabaptist confessions of faith, including the Amish’s (and others’) 1632 Dortrecht Confession’s Article 13 “Concerning Secular Authority”:
“We also believe and confess that God has ordained power and authority, and set them to punish the evil and protect the good… We are also to pray to the Lord earnestly for them and their welfare and for the prosperity of the country, that we may dwell under its protection, earn our living, and lead a quiet, peaceable life, with all godliness and honesty.”
Even more recent confessions used by Conservative Mennonites, such as the 1963 Hartville Confession, Article 19 “The Christian and Civil Government”, contain these ideas:
“We believe that civil government is ordained of God for maintaining order in society… Christians should pray for the state and its officers, pay taxes, obey all laws that do not conflict with the Word of God, and witness against corruption and injustice in the government.”
Established doctrine is one thing—it’s what churches officially believe and teach. But daily life is another matter entirely. The pressures and influences people face in their everyday lives can lead them to act differently than what their church teaches, even while they continue to claim their church’s teachings. This creates an interesting situation where what religious groups actually do might contradict what they claim to believe, though this contradiction isn’t always obvious to others—or even to themselves. Psychologists call it compartmentalizing; logical conflicts are kept separate mentally, different sectors of one’s life.
To understand how these tensions between church and state play out in practice—and how religious groups sometimes use state power in unexpected ways—let me share two cases of Amish religious free exercise that I have been involved with.
First, as written about prior, the Ohio state law requiring buggies electrify to accommodate a yellow flashing light has resulted in over 200 citations, primarily to Swartzentruber Amish who object on religious grounds.
What’s somewhat hidden from public view is that other Amish had a hand in seeing this law passed. The matter is inherently local to the Amish settlements clustered in Holmes-Wayne-Medina-Ashland Counties, which is where nearly all enforcement has occurred. Within these areas, ex-Amish, Amish in less strict groups, and change-minded Swartzentruber Amish individuals were instrumental in the law’s passage, knowing others objected on religious grounds, hoping to pressure others in church to change their positions. A few have gone so far as to contact local law enforcement to have it enforced against individuals in their church who are out on the roads in their buggies.
Indeed, the case is not just about the yellow flashing light; those who want the flashing light generally want the church to accept a whole package of other changes, from allowing business owners to incorporate new, more aggressive organizational practices to changes in lifestyle such as dress and home styles.
This matter is primarily an internal religious difference, albeit now confused with the idea of safety. While not entirely alone, some Amish were instrumental in passage of this law. In essence, the state has “established” one set of denominational interests and infringed on the religious free exercise of another. This is a prototypical case of the very activities the Constitution’s framers—to say nothing of the Dortrecht Confession’s authors—sought to avoid.
Second, in an opinion-letter piece published in the January 11, 2024 Bargain Hunter—which covers Holmes County, Ohio, a very large Amish community—I recently raised questions about the Constitutionality of four religiously segregated schools in the East Holmes Local School District. A half century ago, as many Amish were moving toward private schools, the East Holmes public school district furnished four de facto religiously segregated schools for Amish children. These schools—Chestnut Ridge, Flat Ridge, Mt. Hope, and Wise—continue operating today. While technically any student in the district can enroll in any building, this policy allows some Amish to self-select into segregated schools even when they live closer to integrated buildings.
As with Amish everywhere, East Holmes’ Amish generally prefer private schooling. What kind of Amish attend? The less strict Amish, the denominations with several multimillionaires, who usually prefer ebikes over buggies, and who have electrified homes, some including wifi. Not to say these are all attending public school or that all are attending public schools have these characteristics, but they are coming from these types of Amish denominations, not the strict ones such as Swartzentrubers.
Because public district tax dollars are partly tied to enrollment, districts are incentivized to compete with private schools for students. In a recent Medium post “Amish Takeover? How the Amish Quietly Transformed an Entire Public School District,” author “akhivae” writes the following:
One [religiously segregated] public school principal noted, “We lost about 20 kids last year to parochial schools, though [the parents] are really reluctant to say why they left. This really irks the superintendent because he tends to see dollar signs.” An Amish leader reflected, “When this parochial system started coming on, the public system in Holmes County, especially in the Berlin, Wise, Flat Ridge area, changed a lot in being conducive to our needs. And that made a big difference, too. I’ve heard people in the areas where they were thinking about building a parochial school say, ‘Well, the way the public school is working with us, it’s not really a big need.’
Indeed, they do “work” with this religious population, but when does cultural sensitivity become religious establishment? Within these segregated schools, core curriculum remains basically the same, except for accommodations made for Amish ethnic-cultural and religious considerations. This environment, though, implicitly discourages non-Amish attendance. One can imagine the psychological barrier for parents: “If you can choose any school in the district, why would you send your non-Amish student to the Amish school? But I guess if you really want to…”
What’s remarkable is how little attention these segregated schools—established after Brown v. Board of Education ruled segregated schooling unconstitutional—have received. Among education researchers studying these segregated schools, Howley et al. (2008) found segregated students showed exceptional math performance; the authors attributing this to the schools’ respect for local values rather than imposing middle-class standards. McConnell and Hurst’s research (2006; 2010) notes that these segregated public schools emerged as part of a delicate compromise: public schools actively court Amish attendance for state funding, while Amish families gain access to public education resources. However, they note this arrangement requires constant maintenance of boundaries between Amish values and public education requirements, with school officials carefully navigating issues from curriculum choices to cultural accommodation.
Though the findings of both scholars present research results implying Amish students gain advantages through segregated systems (i.e. religious establishment), no researchers raise these questions directly. Medium author “akhivae” perfectly articulates my own wonder:
Even more interesting is that this seemingly flagrant disregard of the separation of church and state has generated next to no controversy or pushback… it’s a little surprising that in a country where public schools often find themselves embroiled in culture war debates over curriculum and policy, the rise of Amishcentric public education has gone completely unnoticed by the media and broader public. Perhaps this is because many Americans hold a positive perception of the Amish for their simplicity and work ethic. It’s this admiration that allows the Amish to get away with requiring public educators to align lessons with church teachings while ditching the Pledge of Allegiance without incurring the scrutiny of conservatives and liberals alike.
Plain people, including the Amish, are sometimes portrayed as passive populations that simply want to be left alone. Where conflict exists, the government is acting aggressively, infringing on religious free exercise. Michael Billig’s (2017) metaphor of Amish-as-Smurf Village is apt, the subversively demeaning characterization of a population that treats them with innocence and infallibility. What harm can “Smurfs” do? They can only be harmed, and who better to harm than the government
However, these two cases—the flashing light law and the segregated public schools—reveal a more complex reality. Any religious group able to secure state legislation against co-religionists or maintain segregated public school buildings at taxpayer expense must be recognized as wielding significant political influence. That this influence operates outside conventional political channels may obscure its existence, but it cannot be ignored. Other examples exist, especially as large plain people businesses realize their ability to guide legislation to their favor.
Such cases demonstrate something profound about religious doctrine and constitutional principles alike: the gap between stated ideals and lived practice. Whether we look at the plain people’s interpretations of the Bible and Dortrecht Confession’s teachings about peaceful submission to government or the Constitution’s careful balance of establishment and free exercise, we find that real-world applications often diverge from these foundational texts. Religious groups may simultaneously claim devotion to their doctrines while acting in ways that seem to contradict them. Similarly, constitutional protections designed to prevent religious groups from using state power against each other can be navigated in ways their authors may not have anticipated.
Perhaps the role of our doctrines—whether religious or constitutional—is as much about anchoring our identity when we diverge from our doctrines as it is about directing our actions. By examining these tensions, we can better understand both the enduring power of these texts and the complex ways they shape, and are shaped by, the people they guide.
Anderson, Cory. 2025. “Beyond ‘Leave Us Alone’: Plain People and the Two-Way Street of Religious Liberty.” As Well As: Addendums That Redefine (blog), January 11. https://coryanderson.org/beyond-leave-us-alone
“akhivae”. 2024. “Amish Takeover? How the Amish Quietly Transformed an Entire Public School District.” September 22. Medium.
Anderson, Cory. 2025. “It might be time to consider EH school consolidation.” Letter to Editor. January 11, 2025. The Bargain Hunter.
Billig, Michael, and Elam Zook. 2017. “The Functionalist Problem in Kraybill’s Riddle of Amish Culture.” Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies 5(1):82-95.
Howley, Aimee, Craig Howley, Larry Burgess, and Drew Pusateri. 2008. “Social Class, Amish Culture, and an Egalitarian Ethos: Case Study from a Rural School Serving Amish Children.” Journal of Research in Rural Education 23(3):1-12.
Hurst, Charles, and David McConnell. 2010. An Amish Paradox: Diversity and Change in the World’s Largest Amish Community Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
McConnell, David, and Charles Hurst. 2006. “No ‘Rip Van Winkles’ Here: Amish Education since Wisconsin v. Yoder.” Anthropology and Education Quarterly 37(3):236-54.