(Taken from thepoint.breakpoint.com)
A day after the tragic, execution-style murders of Amish girls in a one-room Lancaster County schoolhouse, the lead for this story on ABC's World News Tonight was not school safety, the sordid past of the shooter, or the ever unanswerable "why?" It was forgiveness. Amish relatives of the dead and injured girls stood before the cameras and told the world that they believe God is in control and that God's forgiveness of them leads them to forgive others.
The Amish are part of the Holiness Movement. The name derives from their theology, but there is something about these separatists, and their more worldly cousins the Brethren and Mennonites, that radiates holiness. You see it on their faces and feel it in their presence. Confronted with a tragic evil, the world that usually only sees quaint buggies and handmade quilts got a glimpse of the very real faith that undergirds this community They withdrew from the world, but when the world came to them, they were ready.
Posted by Kristine Steakley on October 03, 2006 at 09:57 PM in Religion & Society Permalink
