Amish Research Team at WVU

Many hands make light work as they say. The Amish accomplish much without much technology.

300 Amish, 10-ton barn, 900 feet in 20 minutes 💪👍😎
The Amish sometimes move barns simply by picking them up and carrying them.
This is a great column by Randy Evans describing such a move in Bloomfield, IA: https://amishamerica.com/300-amish-move-10-ton-barn-900-feet-in-20-minutes/ Image: nwestiowa.com

WVU graduate students Annette Mackay, Sara Guthrie, and Bernie DiGregorio at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies Amish Conference, Elizabethtown, PA, June 2022.

****New Publication from ART!****
Rituals of Contagion in Closed Religious Communities:
A Case Study of Amish and Mennonite Communities
in the USA During the Beginning of the COVID‑19 Pandemic in Journal of Religion and Health
Authors Katie E. Corcoran, Rachel E. Stein, Corey J. Colyer, Sara K. Guthrie, and Annette M. Mackay.

How did closed religious communities like Amish and Mennonites who oppose modern technology cope with COVID-19 mitigation guidelines? We explore letters in correspondence newspapers to see how Amish and Mennonites altered worship practices to comply with health mandates and guidelines. https://trebuchet.public.springernature.app/get_content/ff47ce43-e716-443f-85b4-8f73bf7b0d51
https://trebuchet.public.springernature.app/get_content/ff47ce43-e716-443f-85b4-8f73bf7b0d51

trebuchet.public.springernature.app

***New publication from ART at WVU!***
Echo Chambers in a Closed Community: Vaccine Uptake and Perceived Effectiveness among the Amish and Old Order Mennonites in The Sociological Quarterly (2022): 1-22. Find the abstract here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00380253.2022.2053315?

Echo Chambers in a Closed Community: Vaccine Uptake and Perceived Effectiveness among the Amish and Old Order Mennonites (2022). Echo Chambers in a Closed Community: Vaccine Uptake and Perceived Effectiveness among the Amish and Old Order Mennonites. The Sociological Quarterly. Ahead of Print.

Amish Research Team at WVU updated their website address.

Meet the ART Team!

WVU Department of Sociology Religion and Society Research group has a website! Find out more about the projects and researchers at https://www.raswvu.com/

RELIGION & SOCIETY @ WVU Housed in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at West Virginia University, the Religion & Society Group aims to understand how religion shapes and is shaped by individuals, communities, and...

Watch this video to learn more about the Amish and Covid-19:
https://youtu.be/zSgIWBG14SI

Experiencing the Pandemic in a Closed Religious Group: The Amish and COVID-19 Short Talks: Life in the Times of Covid-19. Using newspaper narratives written by members of Amish communities, Rachel Stein, Associate Professor of Sociolog...

Dr. Stein's presentation was well-received at Hillsdale College. Congratulations again, Rachel!

Congratulations to Dr. Rachel Stein for her recent presentation about our research at Hillsdale College!

ART recently presented a panel titled "Plain Perceptions: The Amish and Mennonite Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic" at the SSSR/RRA annual conference in Portland, OR Oct. 21-24. Members Sara Guthrie, Rachel Stein, Bernard DiGregorio, and Corey Colyer each presented a paper on the different effects of the pandemic on plain communities. Way to go ART!

Congratulations to the Amish Research Team who sent a delegation to the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and Religious Research Association (SSSR/RRA) annual meeting in Portland OR Oct. 21-24. Our table had information about the Religion & Society in our graduate program and our newly launched graduate certificate in Quantitative and Qualitative Social Science Research Methods. We also had some really cool Mountaineer swag!

For more information about the specialization in Religion & Society visit our website at https://www.raswvu.com/.

For more information about the graduate certificate in Quantitative and Qualitative Social Science Research Methods visit http://catalog.wvu.edu/graduate/graduatecertificates/social_sci_research_meth/

ART at WVU extends their support for the kidnapped missionaries in Haiti and hopes that they will be returned soon to their families.
https://www.npr.org/2021/10/22/1048346773/haiti-gang-leader-kidnapped-missionaries-video

Haiti gang leader threatens to kill the 17 kidnapped missionaries The gang leader that police say is holding the kidnapped missionaries said in a video that he will kill the group if his demands aren't met. Authorities have said he wants $1 million per person.

***New Publication***
"Global Contexts: How Countries Shape the COVID-19 Experience of Amish and Mennonite Missionaries Abroad" explores the effect of context on religious worldviews. We find that the Covid-19 experience of Amish and Mennonite missionaries stationed in other countries differed from those remaining in the U.S. and that these experiences likely shaped their moral worldview regarding the pandemic and public health interventions.

This article is free to download here:
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/12/10/790

Global Contexts: How Countries Shape the COVID-19 Experience of Amish and Mennonite Missionaries Abroad Across the globe, governments restricted social life to slow the spread of COVID-19. Several conservative Protestant sects resisted these policies in the United States. We do not yet know if theology shaped the resistance or if it was more a product of a polarized national political context. We argu...

****New Publication****
Religious practices and social support from fellow members can facilitate coping during stressful events. But the COVID-19 pandemic prohibited most forms of in-person gatherings, including religious functions. While many religious services moved online, plain communities that limit or proscribe the use of technology do not have this option. The newest publication by Amish Research Team at WVU examines how Amish and Mennonite communities used faith and religious commitment to a simple way of life to facilitate religious coping. Read "'When the Waves Roll High': Religious Coping Among the Amish and Mennonites During the COVID-19 Pandemic." https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/12/9/678/htm

Congratulations to authors Bernard DiGregorio, Katie Corcoran, Rachel Stein, and Corey Colyer.

‘When the Waves Roll High’: Religious Coping among the Amish and Mennonites during the COVID-19 Pandemic Religious beliefs, practices, and social support facilitate coping with psychologically distressful events and circumstances. However, COVID-19 and governmental mandates for social distancing and isolation make in-person communal forms of religious coping difficult. While some congregations began ho...

Our paper on excess death among Amish and Mennonite communities was recently highlighted in the Morgantown News!



https://www.wvnews.com/morgantownnews/news/west-virginia-university-researchers-find-excess-deaths-sweep-through-amish-mennonite-communities-during-covid-19/article_cd0d9292-fc57-11eb-b902-cb2a67ddb97a.html

West Virginia University researchers find ‘excess deaths’ sweep through Amish, Mennonite communities during COVID-19 pandemic MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WV News) — Sunday church service in Amish country is an all-day affair. A host family welcomes church members, anywhere from 20 to 40 families, into their home

Amish Research Team at WVU updated their business hours.

The July 12 issue of WVU Weekly contains an Insider article featuring ART researchers Drs. Rachel Stein and Corey Colyer who discuss the Amish, COVID-19, vaccines, and religious attitudes toward government intervention to control the pandemic.

https://www.insider.com/amish-communities-put-faith-god-herd-immunity-instead-vaccines-2021-6

Amish communities are avoiding vaccinations and it could spell big problems for them down the road In Ohio, Holmes County — which has the highest concentration of Amish in the US — only 14% of its 44,000 residents are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

We examine the effects of COVID-19 in our latest publication by estimating excess deaths. Read about it in "Closed but Not Protected: Excess Deaths Among Amish and Mennonites During the COVID-19 Pandemic."
https://rdcu.be/cmohC

Closed but Not Protected: Excess Deaths Among the Amish and Mennonites During the COVID-19 Pandemic