An Amish harness manufacturer has owned a cell phone since the 1980s. He uses the device at work. He uses it at home. He carries it wherever he goes.

"The majority of Amish businesses have cell phones and business people outnumber farmers in Lancaster County," he says. "Cell phones are here to stay."

Admittedly a man in the vanguard of Amish technological change, he is talking on his cell phone while traveling to see a customer.

Sitting in a telephone shanty beside his barn, an Amish man who manufactures hydraulic machinery talks on his land line. He has a very different opinion of cell phones.

"A cell phone would come in handy, but I don't need it," he says. "You get your wants and your needs mixed up sometimes.

"Besides," he adds, "I'm not aware of any church district in Lancaster where they actually are allowed."

Although church leaders long ago ruled out cell phone use in Lancaster's Old Order settlement, more members are using the devices, creating tension in a community that cultivates harmony.

"Sometimes I wonder if we're not getting to a point where some of our people don't respect church authority the way they should," says a frustrated spokesman for Amish bishops.
Cell phones are a persistent problem in one of the few societies on earth that seriously debates whether or not to accept every technological advance that comes down the pike.

A century ago, Amish bishops forbade phone ownership. Eventually, they permitted groups of Amish to install "community phones" in shanties outside homes. Then some of them allowed phones inside businesses.

But for the past decade, the Old Order has faced a challenge from a phone with a different ring: a discreet personal communication device that, if expanded beyond its basic use, can function as everything from camera to computer.

Amish bishops worry about the negative consequences of cell phone use. They believe cell phones could encourage frivolous chatter and intrude on family time.

"Cell phones are different from any other electronic device," explains Diane Zimmerman Umble, a Millersville University communications professor who has written a book about the Amish and telephones. "They are easy to conceal and run on batteries that can be recharged."

Beyond that, Umble notes, Amish leaders worry that cell phones with the capability to perform computer functions could compromise an essential Amish goal: to remain separate from the world.

"That's why the bishops feel the need to keep some kind of guidance on all these technologies," she says. "They do tend to morph into other technologies."

A New Era reporter interviewed half a dozen Amish men, all by telephone, in an effort to discover how widespread cell phones are in the community today. All requested anonymity.

First of all, it should be understood that telephones are ubiquitous among the Amish. Most businesses have them. Community phones, with voice mail for individuals in the group, are common.

And in recent years more Amish have installed their own individual land lines in heated phone sheds.

"Fifty percent have their own phones and that's probably a little on the low side," says the hydraulics company employee. "And everyone has voice mail now, whereas 10 years ago they didn't."

This rising demand for individual phones among Old Order Amish and Mennonites has improved business for Marvin and Lois Mast of Catlett, Va.

Operating as Golden Rule Communications, they sell service on both land-line and cell phones.

"We work hard at coming up with a basic cell phone that has no bells and whistles," says Marvin Mast.

Another plain telephone entrepreneur, in York County, sells similar services to the same clientele. Requesting that his name not be used, he says at least half of his sales are to Amish customers.

"It is indeed increasing without a doubt," he says of cell phone use among the Amish. "It's not acceptable. But you and I may speed in a car until we get caught."

For some Amish, the unacceptable has become indispensable.

The harness maker uses his cell phone everywhere he goes. Like an increasing number of other Americans, he no longer maintains a land line at home.

"I don't limit the cell phone to business transactions," he says. "That's kind of hard to do. I use it at home all the time."

Following the schoolhouse shootings at Nickel Mines last October, Amish phone lines stayed busy for days as the community tried to sort out what had happened.

Cell phones played a role in that process, not only as a way to communicate information quickly, but to provide emotional support. Songs and reflections composed immediately after the event were shared by cell phone.

Still, many Amish are keeping their distance.

After jokingly wondering whether a cell phone is "something you use in jail," a carpenter admits that cell phones are common in the community.

He is talking on a land line he shares with his son in a shanty midway between their homes.

"I was tempted to buy one at Costco," he remarks. "They were selling cell phones for 99 cents."

He ultimately rejected such a phone because "people will call you day and night." He checks on his voice mail only once or twice a day and doesn't want to be bothered at other times.

"We're not supposed to have cell phones," he adds. "If there's an emergency, though, that's what we use."

In keeping with the bishops' strictures, however, Amish school boards rejected installing phones of any kind following the schoolhouse shootings.

A retired farmer who now works in a health facility just outside the county uses a telephone daily. He says he could not perform his job without it. But he would never consider owning a cell phone.

"They're not sanctioned," he says, "but I see them. Sometimes when I ride with a person and get calls from the office, I can speak to whoever talks to me. But I couldn't feel good to have one in my own pocket."

Still, he says, "other people have no problem rebelling against the sanction."

Individuals have been chastised, says the bishops' spokesman, "but probably the bishops are not even aware that an individual businessman is using one. Most bishops would say no to cell phones, but they don't know about it."
What about Amish teenagers, who have not yet joined the church?

"All Amish young people have cell phones," says the harness maker. "If you're young, it's cool to have your own ring. Most older people have basic rings."

Most older Amish do not have cell-phone radios, cameras and e-mail access either. But Amish teenagers do.

"A lot of our youth have cell phones with all the functions," notes the hydraulics plant worker. "The problem is going to be when they join the church. The bishops are very concerned about that."

But the bishops' spokesman believes that problem will work itself out.

"Some young folks who are not members of the church also have cars and they are forbidden by the church," he says. "When they join the church, they give up those things."

• CONTACT US: jbrubaker@LNPnews.com or 291-8781