Built on Kraybill’s deep knowledge of Amish life and his contacts within many Amish communities, Renegade Amish highlights one of the strangest and most publicized sagas in contemporary Amish history.

“I am the grandson of Bishop Sam Mullet, who was arrested for the Amish beard-cutting attacks. This is my story.” Beard-cutting attacks on Amish people in the middle of the night. Five incidents. Nine victims. How could members of a Christian tradition known for peace and forgiveness enact such violence? What could make members of one Amish group turn against other Amish? In Breakaway Amish, Johnny Mast tells in riveting detail how his Amish community became increasingly isolated from other Amish people, and how the wishes and edicts of his grandfather, Bishop Sam Mullet, overtook daily life in the group. Over time, members became convinced that cutting their own hair was a sign of repentance and remorse. When that conviction led them to cut off the beards of those outside their community, however, it was more than a strange religious ritual. It was a crime. Here is an eyewitness account of the disturbing events at Bergholz, an Amish community gone awry. Yet redemption dwells even here, in the bravery and conviction of one who chose to break free.

Hopkins Digital Shorts deliver high-quality scholarship and compelling narratives in an abbreviated, electronic format. Whether excerpted from forthcoming or classic backlist titles or developed with newly commissioned content, Hopkins Digital Shorts provide concise introductions to fundamental concepts, defining moments, and influential texts. Limits on technology are the signature mark of twenty-first century Amish identity. Riding in horse-drawn buggies and living unplugged from the public grid unmistakably separate Amish people from mainstream Americans. Yet the Amish do not categorically condemn technology. Nor are they technologically naïve. Rather, Amish communities selectively sort out what might help or harm them. More significantly, the Amish modify and adapt technology in creative ways to fit their cultural values and social goals. Amish technologies are diverse, complicated, and ever-changing. This digital short explores the complicated relationship between the Amish and technology today.

Kate must ask her first love to marry her even though she later married another man! When Kate's only financial support dies in a buggy accident along with her beloved parents, widowed Kate Bieler must find refuge for herself and the young child of her deceased husband. Refusing the bishop's suggestion that she marry his teenaged son, she very reluctantly asks the only other single Mann in their small Amish settlement to marry her. Unfortunately, Kate and Enoch Miller share a conflicted past. When she went on rumspringa against his wishes, he cut communication and their courtship ceased. Distressed and angry, Kate then married another Mann...but she never stopped loving Enoch. When widowed shortly later, after praying to Gott, she knows she must ask Enoch to marry her and take in the child of the Mann she'd married instead of Enoch.Agreeing to this, Enoch angrily--and out of a deep hurt--deviously determines to make Kate pay. Only he ends up again falling in love with her...and the child of his rival that she brings with her. Can they find the love they once lost?

Nonresistance: No Pushback22. Death: A Good Farewell

And, for readers interested in the Amish, it tells how the ex-Amish starsof Amish Mafia got involved in the show and the impact that involvement had on their lives.