{"id":670,"date":"2009-08-13T12:39:13","date_gmt":"2009-08-13T01:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/?p=670"},"modified":"2009-08-18T11:28:45","modified_gmt":"2009-08-18T00:28:45","slug":"amish-encounters-%e2%80%93-no-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2009\/08\/13\/amish-encounters-%e2%80%93-no-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Amish Encounters No.2 – Japan, Justice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clearly, we are not the only people interested in the Amish. Today\u2019s Sunday Lancaster Times runs a front page article For the love of the Amish: Japanese can\u2019t get enough of the Plain-sect culture<\/a> \u2013 August 9 by Jon Rutter.<\/p>\n

Apart from the 1984 film \u2018The Witness\u2019 the article elaborates other reasons for this Japanese interest, and quotes Amish expert Donald Kraybill,<\/p>\n

\n
\"Stephen<\/a>

Stephen Scott, left, and Donald Kraybill discuss their recent trips to Japan.<\/p><\/div>\n

Japanese affinity for the Amish stems from deep parallel currents in the two outwardly disparate societies.<\/p>\n

Both espouse collectivism, religious faith, hard work and frugality, he pointed out. Both exhibit marked deference to elders and have deliberately distanced themselves from the outside world.<\/p>\n

The Japanese industrialized rapidly after World War II. But they’ve struck an uneasy truce with modernity.<\/p>\n

As their youth absorb Western individualist ways and traditional values further erode, the people look more keenly to the Amish as exemplars.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Restorative justice as practised by the Amish is also of interest to the Japanese. The pacifism and non-violence of the Amish led them this way. This became widely known following the Amish community\u2019s forgiveness of the murderer of five Amish school girls<\/a> at Nickel Mines in 2006.<\/p>\n

I am particularly interested after discussing this recently with the prefects and senior staff at St Michael\u2019s Collegiate School in Hobart who are implementing restorative justice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As the Amish do not receive newspapers, radio and TV, the article points out that, \u2018the Amish remain largely unaware of Japanese adulation.\u2019<\/p>\n

An accompanying story Curiosity brings Japanese visitors to county<\/a> on page 4 is also by Jon Rutter.<\/p>\n

We had a marvellous Sunday worshipping with Amish Mennonites and then visiting for lunch with a most gracious and warm family. Just wonderful! More later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clearly, we are not the only people interested in the Amish. Today\u2019s Sunday Lancaster Times runs a front page article For the love of the Amish: Japanese can\u2019t get enough of the Plain-sect culture \u2013 August 9 by Jon Rutter. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":694,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670\/revisions\/694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}