{"id":411,"date":"2007-08-08T08:27:05","date_gmt":"2007-08-08T15:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eaf.net\/mvp\/?p=411"},"modified":"2013-01-17T21:45:59","modified_gmt":"2013-01-18T05:45:59","slug":"book-review-plain-secrets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/2007\/book-review-plain-secrets\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Plain Secrets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cache.boston.com\/resize\/bonzai-fba\/Globe_Photo\/2007\/08\/04\/1186256408_4947\/410w.jpg\" alt=\"Amish buggy in traffic\" class=\"aligncenter\" \/><\/p>\n<p>From the Boston Globe, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.boston.com\/ae\/books\/articles\/2007\/08\/05\/the_shock_of_the_old\/\">The shock of the old<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Joe Mackall&#8217;s new book, &#8220;Plain Secrets: An Outsider Among the Amish,&#8221; explores the role of religion in modern society by looking closely at the life of a small devout religious community in Ohio: the Swartzentruber Amish. The struggle of the Amish people to live with &#8220;the English&#8221; (the non-Amish), and of the English &#8220;outsider&#8221; (Mackall) to understand the Amish, is a unique story of culture crossing in rural white America.<\/p>\n<p>The complexity of the bridge that Mackall attempts to build between the Amish and English cultures is mirrored in the Latin root of the word &#8220;religion&#8221; &#8212;<i> religare<\/i>, to bind together again. This is the problem\/promise that Mackall confronts: Religion can both liberate and indoctrinate, both create a community through the bonds of tradition and doctrine, and enslave a community through the binding of minds and control of behavior. The book points to a difficult truth: A religious community is bound to be freed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If you need more than the first two paragraphs of the review, click the link above.<\/p>\n<p>If you want the book, click the book graphic. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0807010650\/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il?ie=UTF8&#038;tag=markroth-ac-20&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325&#038;creativeASIN=0807010650\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/ws.assoc-amazon.com\/widgets\/q?_encoding=UTF8&#038;Format=_SL160_&#038;ASIN=0807010650&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;ID=AsinImage&#038;WS=1&#038;tag=markroth-ac-20&#038;ServiceVersion=20070822\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"link to Plain Secrets\" title=\"Plain Secrets: An Outsider Among the Amish\" ><\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=markroth-ac-20&#038;l=as2&#038;o=1&#038;a=0807010650\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" \/><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A unique story of culture crossing in rural America explores the role of religion in modern society by looking closely at the life of the Swartzentruber Amish.<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[915,992],"class_list":["post-411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lessons-for-living","tag-amish","tag-books"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prJUJ-6D","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}