The Swartzentruber Amish sect of Cambria County, Pennsylvania is involved in another legal dispute regarding the separation of church and state. Last seen in court in 2003, where it succeeded with the ACLU’s help in appealing a court order to affix orange reflective signs to their horse-drawn carriages, the group is now battling the state’s Department of Environmental Protection and local authorities. These agencies say the Swartzentrubers must modernize their school’s outhouse in conformity with the state’s sewage and sanitation laws. Judge Norman Krumenacker has already imprisoned Andy Swartzentruber, an elder who owns the schoolhouse land, and padlocked the homes and barns of two other families whose residential outhouses he found to be noncompliant. (State law requires precast concrete holding tanks, various certifications, and the use of an electronic meter to test chemical matter.)
The Swartzentruber Amish are an ultra-conservative group that broke with the Old Order in the early twentieth century over issues of modernization. They stress simplicity and resist modern conveniences such as indoor plumbing and electricity. Though many of the Swartzentruber’s non-Amish neighbors appreciate their amicability and politeness, they are concerned that disease will spread if the religious community does not follow waste codes. Read the full story here.
Related articles:
The Family International: A Case Study in the Management of Change in New Religious Movements
By Gary Shepherd, Oakland University and Gordon Shepherd, University of Central Arkansas
(Vol. 1, August 2006)
Religion Compass
Secrecy and New Religious Movements: Concealment, Surveillance, and Privacy in a New Age of Information
By Hugh B. Urban , Ohio State University
(Vol. 2, November 2007)
Religion Compass
