Devil's Playground

When we make lists of religions active in the world we often neglect the Amish, unless we are making some sort of joke or otherwise having a laugh at their expense. Regarded with suspicion over their failure to embrace certain aspects of modern technology yet sometimes respected for their connection to life and family, the Amish embody a certain type of "turning away" from the world. In fact, they go so far as to pressure their children to drop out of school at the end of the eighth grade, because they feel that education leads to pridefulness.

But around the time of their sixteenth birthday, Amish teens go on a quest of self-discovery known as Rumspringa (literally "running around"1) in which they are loosed into the wilds of the modern world. The experience is very different for the boys than for the girls, revealing a depth of sexism to the Amish religion that is, sadly, little different from many other branches of Christianity but which is followed to a much greater extent by the Amish than by virtually any other Christians. While the boys typically dress "english" (anyone who's not Amish) and drive cars, live away from home and the like, the girls usually do none of these things, although they certainly will participate in the general wildness of being a teenager.

In fact, the Amish teens are generally known for having the best parties in their communities. Many of them are avid growers of Marijuana and a large number of them sell various drugs for money, which they use to buy fast cars and throw gigantic parties. The Amish elders typically stay away from these events entirely and they are regularly very wild. But from this point in their lives, they are expected to join the Amish church, swear to uphold the beliefs and lifestyle of the Amish, and put that lifestyle behind them forever.

There's a lot of attractive attributes to the church, of course. It's not all sexism and brimstone, although women are carefully brainwashed and subjugated from birth, raised to have as many children as possible, to believe in the man as the unquestioned head of the household, and even to face away from the preacher towards the back of the room in church. This seems especially misogynistic in light of the fact that like early Christian churches, church is held in the homes of believers (who typically have a large room, especially a basement, for the purpose) but unlike those early churches, the woman is never the priest - which of course is in line with the woman never being the head of the household.

This particular movie primarily tells the story of one teen named Faron, and his fight with drug addiction and his desire to join the church. Drug addiction is fairly commonplace among Amish teens, and it may be a major cause of their return to the fold. On the tape, some Amish elders voice their concerns that in the modern world it is simply easier for a rumspringa Amish to get into trouble. Instead of working on the farm, many of them work factory jobs, and since they have little need for money in their young lives they have this money available for mischief. But at the same time, the world has become more and more bewildering to a young man or woman with half an education, who has never really been exposed to reality out of their own communities, and it's probably more likely today to scare them right back to the church.

This movie quite excellently allows the Amish to speak with their own voices and does not try to either shield us from anything, nor offer persecution. It gives a clear-eyed look at the life of young Amish, and one of the most important decisions they will have to make in their lives.