Did It Bring Us Together , Or Draw Us Apart?

If you look at the roof of this Amish house, you will see a solar panel. Did you know that 80% of Ohio Amish have solar panels?

WIRED Magazine had an article several years ago about how the Amish decide to incorporate technology , or not. I read this article when it came out in 1999, and it has stayed with me, and I just found it online. If you have the time it is still a very relelvant issue and should be a kick in the ass for a lot of us who just adopt all kinds of new inventions in our lives all the time.

To the obvious question why allow Amish electricity but not public electricity, Amos answered slowly and deliberately, "The Bible teaches us not to conform to the world, to keep a separation. Connecting to the electric lines would make too many things too easy. Pretty soon, people would start plugging in radios and televisions, and that's like a hot line to the modern world. We use batteries and generators because you can use the batteries for only a short time and because you have to fuel and maintain the generator yourself. It's a way of controlling our use of electricity. We try to restrict things that would lead to us losing that sense of being separate, to put the brakes on how fast we change."