In 1525, a radical group in Switzerland advocated the thorough implementation of the Protestant Reformation. They believed that since faith is entirely between believers and God, believers do not need to establish a church through the Catholic Church; since faith is personal freedom If it is a matter of will, infant baptism cannot be counted as baptism, but can only be counted as baptism when an adult is voluntarily baptized. Therefore, they advocated that baptism should be performed again after adulthood. This sect of Protestantism is called "Anabaptist".
Anabaptists advocate that the church should be autonomous, loose, and targeted at adults, excluding minors. They stand for sincere beliefs and walking the talk. They advocate a simple lifestyle in which believers can pray at home and understand God's teachings based on the Bible. The church should be as simple as home, without the need to build a grand and luxurious church or hold complicated ceremonies. They are determined to seek advantages and avoid disadvantages, but do not want believers to swear; as long as they have a sincere heart, it is enough, and there is no need to swear. These ideas were so different from those of the Catholic Church and other Protestant churches at the time that they were considered deviant. In order to survive, many of the earliest European immigrants to North America fled religious persecution in their hometowns and traveled across the ocean in pursuit of religious freedom. The famous "Mayflower" ship carried Puritans who had fled all over Europe and had nowhere to stay to come to the United States. They are undoubtedly the most religious people. But the stronger the faith, the less tolerant they are likely to be of heresy. They are often unable to avoid a paradox of human wisdom: they are themselves persecuted as heretics by others, while at the same time they cannot tolerate or even persecute heretics who are different from themselves.
Before the birth of Protestantism, Catholicism had been stable for a long time in a religious environment of relative internal unity, and heresy was a rare phenomenon. The church fears the division and chaos that religious challenges can bring, especially if heresies abound, and can even create fear. If "orthodoxy" becomes powerful, they may try to suppress and eliminate heresy. And if the heretics are weak, they have to run and hide.
Thanks to the religious tolerance pioneered in Pennsylvania, the Amish finally have the opportunity to recuperate and thrive on the North American continent. The Amish are significantly different from other surrounding denominations (such as Protestant Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, and Evangelicals) in their interpretation of religious doctrines, church organization, rules and styles of church activities, etc. . This difference naturally raised the eyebrows of onlookers from the start. On October 2, 2006, a shooting occurred at a one-room Amish school in Lancaster that shocked the nation. A truck driver burst into a classroom, tied up 10 girls aged 6 to 13, shot them in the head, and then shot himself. Five children died instantly and every table in the classroom was splattered with blood. The shooter was not Amish. The suicide note he left behind said that because the shadows in his personal life made him resentful to himself and God, he suppressed his heart and was unable to vent, and finally vented his anger on the innocent Amish children.
The sudden tragedy plunged the Amish community into infinite grief, and churches were filled with people praying every day. A priest said: "I stood next to one of the girls who was shot and heard her grandfather say to the family and the children, don't hate the shooter, don't think of him as a devil, let us forgive him as God forgives us. .
A few hours after the incident, the Amish came to the gunman’s home to comfort the gunman’s wife and children. In addition to his family, about 75 mourners were Amish.
Modern legal society has rationally realized that heresy is not inherently evil, and "good and evil" are not determined by "difference". It regards all heresy as involuntary evil. It is a malignant amplification of the self. In the United States, this rational concept has entered the legal and institutional level.
U.S. courts deal with cases involving religious people, especially when they involve some relatively closed mysterious religious organizations. , the term "cult" (cult) is sometimes used. However, cults are just organizations outside the mainstream. They are as legal as mainstream churches and enjoy the same religious freedom guaranteed by law.
There is a word in English called heresy, or heresy, or heresy. U.S. courts reject the use of heresy by one party to discredit another party. If the prosecutor hints in court that the defendant's beliefs are different and therefore questionable, the defendant's lawyer will protest, because he implies that the defendant is a heretic, which is prohibited by court procedures, and the judge must prohibit the prosecutor from implying this. .
Small sects are certainly not outside the law. Believers of small sects may also be involved in crimes. Those involved will be brought to court by prosecutors. Once convicted, they will also be punished according to law, either killed or imprisoned. However, the law treats criminals equally and on a case-by-case basis. Killing by bystanders is killing, and killing by members of a small sect is also killing. It doesn't matter if it's more or less. The guilt or innocence of any person can only be judged by the court based on his or her conduct. If more than one person in a small sect commits a criminal offense, they will be convicted one by one in accordance with the law, and the entire sect cannot be convicted of a collective crime by the court. U.S. courts do not characterize religious beliefs, a system rooted in the religious freedom principle of the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Constitution stipulates that Congress may not make a law establishing a state religion or prohibiting religious freedom. That is to say, Congress cannot pass legislation to support or prohibit religion.
It is precisely with this kind of institutional guarantee that heretical sects such as the Amish have settled in the United States and gradually grown. Their current number is close to 200,000. They speak English as well as their native dialects passed down from generation to generation, some of which are High Germanic and some of which speak the older Dutch language.