Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy (36 page)

1. Prior to the tragedy at Nickel Mines, what were your perceptions of Amish people? What were the sources of those impressions?

2. How did the Nickel Mines tragedy change your views of the Amish?

3. If a shooting of ten schoolgirls had occurred in a suburban or urban setting, do you think it would have attracted as much interest as the shooting at Nickel Mines? In other words, how much of the public interest in this story was related to the “Amish factor”?

4. The authors suggest that the Amish do not explicitly teach religion in their schools or in their churches. How, then, do they pass on their beliefs to their children?

5. Chapter One provides some cultural background on the Amish community. What was your biggest surprise in learning about Amish faith and life?

6. What do you consider the most significant or biggest difference between Amish culture and mainstream American values?

7. It is often said that the Amish are a countercultural people. What are the key Amish values, in your mind, that challenge the cultural assumptions of mainstream society?

8. How do Amish faith and religious practices differ from those of other Protestant groups in North America?

9. At the time of the shooting, many journalists asked if the Amish were prepared for such a tragedy. How would you answer that question? In what ways were they better prepared than other Americans? In what ways were they less prepared?

10. At the end of Chapter One, the authors suggest that the last safe place in America’s collective imagination had disappeared with the shooting at Nickel Mines. Do you agree with that assessment? Why or why not?

1. A number of Amish people compared the school shooting to the September 11 attack on the twin towers in New York City. In what ways were these two events similar? Or is a comparison inappropriate?

2. Some people were surprised to learn that although the Amish are pacifists, some Amish men own guns for hunting. Do you consider the use of guns for hunting inconsistent with pacifist principles? Explain your response.

3. Consider and discuss some of the ironies that emerged from the tragedy. The gunman could not forgive God for the death of his twenty-day-old daughter nine years after her death. He also said he hated himself, suggesting an inability to forgive himself for his own shortcomings.

4. What might be some reasons that Roberts targeted the West Nickel Mines School?

5. How would you describe some of the chief differences between an Amish school and the typical public elementary school in American society?

6. As you reflect on the horror that visited the schoolhouse on Monday morning, October 2, how might you have responded if you had been the teacher? If you had been the parent of one of the children?

7. One of the thirteen-year-old girls told the killer, “Shoot me first.” Some observers think she meant “shoot me first before you molest me.” Others think she meant “shoot me first” in the hope that her death would satisfy Roberts’s anger and he would not shoot the others. What are your thoughts about the meaning of her statement?

8. How was the response of the Amish community on the afternoon of the shooting different from or similar to the response you think non-Amish parents would have had if this tragedy had happened in a public school?

9. At the end of Chapter Two, the authors quote an Amish mother, who did not have children in the schoolroom, as saying that the children were martyrs. Do you agree? Why or why not?

10. What might have been done to prevent the tragedy at Nickel Mines? What might be done to prevent similar tragedies in the future?

1. When did you first hear about the shooting? What was your response?

2. What was it about this particular tragedy that brought such a great outpouring of sympathy and support for the Amish community from the outside world?

3. An Amish man who lived near the school said, “We were all Amish this week.” What did he mean?

4. What most surprised you about the Amish response to the tragedy?

5. What most surprised you about the larger society’s response to the tragedy?

6. Non-Amish people in other communities also reach out to their friends and neighbors in times of tragedy. What did you find unique about how the Amish responded to victims of the tragedy within their own community?

7. The Amish typically have a public viewing of the body of the deceased in their home over several days before the funeral. What does this suggest about Amish acceptance of death?

8. What do we learn about the Amish view of death and children in the song “I Was a Little Child,” which was read at one of the funerals?

9. The Amish destroyed the school building soon after the shooting. Would it have been better to save it as a memorial, or at least create some type of memorial at the site, rather than turn it back into a horse pasture?

10. What do we learn about the Amish view of life and God’s providence from their reaction to changing the security in their schools as a result of this tragedy?