On Monday morning, October 2, 2006, a gunman entered a
one-room Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. In
front of twenty-five horrified pupils, thirty-two-year-old
Charles Roberts ordered the boys and the teacher to leave.
After tying the legs of the ten remaining girls, Roberts
prepared to shoot them execution with an automatic rifle and
four hundred rounds of ammunition that he brought for the
task. The oldest hostage, a thirteen-year-old, begged
Roberts to "shoot me first and let the little ones go."
Refusing her offer, he opened fire on all of them, killing
five and leaving the others critically wounded. He then shot
himself as police stormed the building. His motivation? "I'm
angry at God for taking my little daughter," he told the
children before the massacre.
The story captured the attention of broadcast and print
media in the United States and around the world. By Tuesday
morning some fifty television crews had clogged the small
village of Nickel Mines, staying for five days until the
killer and the killed were buried. The blood was barely dry
on the schoolhouse floor when Amish parents brought words of
forgiveness to the family of the one who had slain their
children.
The outside world was incredulous that such forgiveness
could be offered so quickly for such a heinous crime. Of the
hundreds of media queries that the authors received about
the shooting, questions about forgiveness rose to the top.
Forgiveness, in fact, eclipsed the tragic story, trumping
the violence and arresting the world's attention.
Within a week of the murders, Amish forgiveness was a
central theme in more than 2,400 news stories around the
world. The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today,
Newsweek, NBC Nightly News, CBS Morning News, Larry King
Live, Fox News, Oprah, and dozens of other media outlets
heralded the forgiving Amish. From the Khaleej Times (United
Arab Emirates) to Australian television, international media
were opining on Amish forgiveness. Three weeks after the
shooting, "Amish forgiveness" had appeared in 2,900 news
stories worldwide and on 534,000 web sites.
Fresh from the funerals where they had buried their own
children, grieving Amish families accounted for half of the
seventy-five people who attended the killer's burial.
Roberts' widow was deeply moved by their presence as Amish
families greeted her and her three children. The forgiveness
went beyond talk and graveside presence: the Amish also
supported a fund for the shooter's family.
AMISH GRACE explores the many questions this story raises
about the religious beliefs and habits that led the Amish to
forgive so quickly. It looks at the ties between forgiveness
and membership in a cloistered communal society and ask if
Amish practices parallel or diverge from other religious and
secular notions of forgiveness. It will also address the
matter of why forgiveness became news. "All the religions
teach it," mused an observer, "but no one does it like the
Amish." Regardless of the cultural seedbed that nourished
this story, the surprising act of Amish forgiveness begs for
a deeper exploration. How could the Amish do this? What did
this act mean to them? And how might their witness prove
useful to the rest of us?
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