A lesson from the Amish

I'm rather embarrassed to admit this, but until last week I'd never heard of the Amish branch of Christianity.

At first, it all seemed rather odd, didn't it? Whole communities living as though the 20th century pretty much hadn't happened. Living life the old-fashioned way, shunning modern advances in technology and even insisting they didn't need the police.

You'd imagine that for such communities to exist, they'd have to denounce everything outside as evil, and lock themselves away from the rest of America.

But that's not the case. And their faith appears to be stronger than ever before. On Monday, for example, the newspapers were full of the story of how members of the Amish community actually turned up for the funeral of the man, Charles Roberts, who killed five school girls in such horrific circumstances.

They turned up because they wanted to show they had forgiven him for what he had done. Their faith said that was what was expected of them, and that's what they had gone to do.

To my mind, no-one will ever come close to understanding why what happened did, or the feeling that community in Nickel Mines must be experiencing. I'm also pretty certain few will ever be able to show such strength in faith.

But what also intrigues me is how such communities can continue to exist in such harmony with neighbouring communities which have embraced 21st century life. Rather sadly for me, the answer to this didn't come from research on the internet, or a trip to the library, but from a five-minute interview I watched on This Morning.

According to the academic they interviewed, as Amish children grow up, they are allowed a year or so to 'let it all out of their system.' By that, the academic said, the teenagers can go out and do the things they don't do within their own community. They can drink alcohol, drive cars, use mobile phones, watch telly - and then return home at night.

They experience the excesses of 2006 USA yet still come home to what some would perhaps describe as a rather primitive community. But the fact they come back shows how strong that community is.

Imagine if divided communities in, say, Jack Straw's Blackburn, tried that out. Say, for example, Muslim youngsters were allowed to try Western things which perhaps their community frowns upon. Loosen some of the rules on clothing, prayers, Ramadan, etc. It's probably not what the founders of Islam intended, but nor I would suggest, did the creators of the Amish denomination create such a thing as sampling the regular world.

Surely such a thing would help both the white population and the Muslim population understand each other a little better? Surely it would help those trying to stamp our Muslim extremism to do just that? Those who others seek to brainwash would perhaps think twice, because they'd have seen how the 'infidel' are real people at heart.

The Amish experience suggests that, if family life is strong enough, and the belief is there, the children come back. There's no reason why it would be any different with any other religion. Surely, that's the way to promote tolerance within communities: get out there and experience it.