Trudy Metzger/Steve Stutzman

[Soloist]

Amos Raber responded to his marrying the couple:

You are right. I married them and regret it deeply.

As soon as I was made aware of the truth and the allegations, I confronted Chris Allen and the families and told them I would’ve never married them had I known before. I have not and will not cover for a perpetrator.

As of the gap/age difference – I do regret that. I was hesitant at the time, but upon seeing the support from both sides of the family, we moved forward. I was told at the time that her parents signed off for them to get a marriage license.

Wife: this would be a good case for churches only officiating for their own members. am I wrong that at least one of them was not a member?

[Grace]

Amos Raber responded to his marrying the couple:

You are right. I married them and regret it deeply.

As soon as I was made aware of the truth and the allegations, I confronted Chris Allen and the families and told them I would’ve never married them had I known before. I have not and will not cover for a perpetrator.

As of the gap/age difference – I do regret that. I was hesitant at the time, but upon seeing the support from both sides of the family, we moved forward. I was told at the time that her parents signed off for them to get a marriage license.

Wife: this would be a good case for churches only officiating for their own members. am I wrong that at least one of them was not a member?

I really don't know the answer to that. The whole matter does appear like Amos Raber was partly deceived. And judging from the FB comments, his name is now smeared and will be smeared for long time.

[JohnH]

I am very disappointed in Amos Raber and I hope he offers an explanation on the matter. Amos Raber married the couple in 2020. The girl was signed off by some relatives. Could it be that Amos Raber was unaware of the prior abuse, by the groom.

I'm trying to think of an excuse, any kind of a story that would make me say "Oh, that makes sense. I totally agree that this 16 year old girl should be getting married to a 28 year old man."
SHE WAS ONLY SIXTEEN!!!!! HE IS ALMOST TWELVE YEARS OLDER THAN SHE IS!!!!

I get it. Some of you are going to say "Oh, but that was normal for many years. Sixteen year olds used to be considered adults!"

NO, THIS SHOULD NOT BE NORMAL! At some point, even if Raber "was unaware", he had a duty to investigate and find out why this 28 year old man had such an urgent need to marry this 16 year old girl.

Note that in both Ohio and Indiana (along with much of the rest of America, Canada, Europe, and the rest of the world), it is entirely legal for a 16 year old and someone else of any age to live together, engage in carnal relations, have children together out of wedlock, etc., so whilst I find the marriage at that young age a bit odd, it is entirely “normal” by worldly standards for a couple to be that age with that difference.

Obviously in conservative Anabaptist circles we would not approve of living together and most of our churches prefer people get married at an older age. If Amos Raber hadn’t married them, they could have simply reported to the justice of the peace and compelled them to marry them.

[JohnH]

Amos Raber responded to his marrying the couple:

You are right. I married them and regret it deeply.

As soon as I was made aware of the truth and the allegations, I confronted Chris Allen and the families and told them I would’ve never married them had I known before. I have not and will not cover for a perpetrator.

As of the gap/age difference – I do regret that. I was hesitant at the time, but upon seeing the support from both sides of the family, we moved forward. I was told at the time that her parents signed off for them to get a marriage license.

Wife: this would be a good case for churches only officiating for their own members. am I wrong that at least one of them was not a member?

It’s my impression most plain Anabaptists have this policy. I would not be comfortable with otherwise.

[anndet92]

I agree that whoever wrote the article was not being completely truthful with the “Amish” label, although it does appear like they grew up Amish and/or have Amish relatives.

What I meant by the “rot goes deep”, is that if you peel back the layers of this case, you’ll find that Amos Raber married a 16 year old girl to one of these guys. You’ll find that that the abuse victim was silenced by the church and the pastor, Ron Miller. You’ll find that when the abuse victim told trusted adults, one of them went on to do exactly the same things to her that she spoke up about. (This is how the brothers’ cases are connected).

The rot goes deep because so called spiritual leaders are not actually protecting the sheep. They are protecting wolves.

Yet none of that has anything to do with “the Amish” or the Amish church as an institution. You don’t do anything to bolster your credibility or make your case when you cite an article that has obvious problems with facts like that; the brothers do not appear to be Amish by any reasonable standard.

I didn’t write the article and I’m not finding articles that do not mention the Amish connection. I don’t think it’s right of the media to call them Amish when they clearly are not. I’m not necessarily opposed to the mention that they have Amish background but the title is misleading.

[anndet92]

Have you ever talked with counselors or therapists that primarily work with Amish and Mennonite people?

I have, and as is widely supported. They said the problems with a she are not worse on those circles than in non-Amish, non-plain circles.

Trying to claim it is worse doesn’t help your case. I think the acceptable level is “zero” and want to see us get closer to that. But going around acting like ex Amish or non Amish people somehow are better off than Amish people is simply non-factual. A non-Amish, non-plain person is the most likely to be the subject of abuse in Holmes County.

Just because you haven’t heard of many cases doesn’t mean that abuse hasn’t happened. In fact, when you’re constantly nitpicking the people who are trying to protect children, you probably aren’t going to have survivors feel comfortable telling you their stories.

I don’t go around trying to get survivors to tell me their stories. I do observe whether situations I know about are taken seriously or not, and talk to other people who do do a lot of ministry to alleged victims. (I know a few people in the Amish circles who do who do a great deal of good. I can speak highly of the Dan church in this regard, Apostolic Christian Church, Holdemans, and others.)

I would believe you more about some things being a distraction from the work Trudy does if you actually applied those same principles to Steve Stutzman and his social media account. I’ve yet to see you do that. Steve’s camp said far more vile things than I’ve seen in Trudy’s posts, and to my knowledge he has yet to distance himself from those comments/people.

I have been highly critical of Stutzman since 2015 or so, culminating with him trying to duck out a back door when I confronted him when he showed up at a Hutterite gathering. His minions have personally harassed me in ridiculous ways. I have spoken out strongly against what he does both on and off social media.

However, Trudy’s followers don’t do themselves any favours when they make ridiculous, extreme statements. The part of that crowd who says they want to eradicate plain Anabaptism are particularly unhelpful. I wish folks like you would be comfortable condemning that even as we simultaneously make it clear abuse is unacceptable and trying to cover up abuse is unacceptable too.

We are both talking from our own experiences, and that’s to be expected. I am not trying to overstate things; it’s just that when you hear a lot of stories, when you know almost every women in your family has been abused, when many of your friends have the same story as you - it’s heartbreaking and it needs to end.

What makes it hard too is that there aren’t a lot of studies on the rates of abuse inside the culture vs outside.

I’m also not for eradicating plain Anabaptism - in fact, I’d like to get back to the kind of Anabaptism from Menno Simon’s day. He was quite hard on abusers!

[anndet92]

Im going to shoot straight with you for a bit, Grace. Please understand I’m not trying to be mean or rude - I’m just sad mostly. I’ve heard the sentiments you express many times in the last 10 years.

Have you ever talked with counselors or therapists that primarily work with Amish and Mennonite people?

Just because you haven’t heard of many cases doesn’t mean that abuse hasn’t happened. In fact, when you’re constantly nitpicking the people who are trying to protect children, you probably aren’t going to have survivors feel comfortable telling you their stories.

I would believe you more about some things being a distraction from the work Trudy does if you actually applied those same principles to Steve Stutzman and his social media account. I’ve yet to see you do that. Steve’s camp said far more vile things than I’ve seen in Trudy’s posts, and to my knowledge he has yet to distance himself from those comments/people.

I’m trying to understand why you feel the way you do.

Just a friendly and kindly reminder.

Board guidelines:

- Use I statements. Speak for yourself and don't decide what someone else is meaning to say or exaggerate what someone else posts.
- Do not state that someone else is wrong or does not understand. State your own thoughts and opinions.

I apologize for not following the rules.

Does this apply only to comments or does this also apply to posts too? I’m new here…

[ohio jones]

I apologize for not following the rules.

Does this apply only to comments or does this also apply to posts too? I’m new here…

It's not that the word "you" is off limits, but using "I" statements helps to focus on the issues rather than on the person, and can keep disagreements from escalating. It can take a while to get used to that way of communicating, and even those of us who have tried to practice it for a while still slip up at times.

Having said that, it would have been appropriate for Grace to report the post and allow the moderators to issue the correction.

[anndet92]

I apologize for not following the rules.

Does this apply only to comments or does this also apply to posts too? I’m new here…

It's not that the word "you" is off limits, but using "I" statements helps to focus on the issues rather than on the person, and can keep disagreements from escalating. It can take a while to get used to that way of communicating, and even those of us who have tried to practice it for a while still slip up at times.

Having said that, it would have been appropriate for Grace to report the post and allow the moderators to issue the correction.

This is new to me, and I’m not sure I understand.

So the passive aggressive approach is better?

Maybe Mennonet isn’t for me.

[JohnH]

We are both talking from our own experiences, and that’s to be expected. I am not trying to overstate things; it’s just that when you hear a lot of stories, when you know almost every women in your family has been abused, when many of your friends have the same story as you - it’s heartbreaking and it needs to end.

I’m very sorry you and your family have gone through this. I do you think you should know it’s not the norm. These kind of abuse “clusters” tend to be in both specific families and then sometimes specific congregations. Elsewhere in plain Anabaptism it is rare.

Of course, if you are in one of those congregations (like I used to be) then it just feels like it is everywhere, and feels suffocating and like you just want to run very far away to escape it.

What makes it hard too is that there aren’t a lot of studies on the rates of abuse inside the culture vs outside.

Every professional I have spoken with has said it’s worse on the outside. To quote one of them: “There are many families and people you would never know or run across. But we have to deal with everyone.” The world outside of plain Anabaptism is not exactly an abuse free place.

I’m also not for eradicating plain Anabaptism - in fact, I’d like to get back to the kind of Anabaptism from Menno Simon’s day. He was quite hard on abusers!

Quite a few of the people in the “anti abuse” circles on Facebook groups etc have said that is their stated goal. You would do well to distance yourself from them. Statements claiming Amish & Mennonite churches aren’t “safe” are not helpful. They’re worlds safer than the average public school was in recent history.

The acceptable amount of abuse is zero, but let’s stop lying and saying that it’s worse in plain circles versus the outside when it is not.