Donald B. Kraybill, Ph.D.

Distinguished College Professor and Senior Fellow,
Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies
Joint appt., Sociology and Religious Studies departments

The Young Center, Elizabethtown College
One Alpha Drive, Elizabethtown, PA 17022

Email: kraybilld@etown.edu      Fax: 717-361-1443
 


Curriculum Vita [pdf]

Books

Courses

Current and Recent Research

Young Center Books:
Johns Hopkins Press

Young Center for Anabaptist  and Pietist Studies

Amish Studies web site

Home

The Amish and the State

edited by Donald B. Kraybill

Center Books in Anabaptist Studies
Johns Hopkins University Press

second edition / 2003 / 376 pages / 15 halftones

In this new edition of The Amish and the State, Donald Kraybill brings together legal scholars and social scientists to explore the unique series of conflicts between a traditional religious minority and the modern state. In the process, the authors trace the preservationand the erosionof religious liberty in American life. Kraybill begins with an overview of the Amish in North America and describes the "negotiation model" used throughout the book to interpret a variety of legal conflicts. Subsequent chapters deal with specific aspects of religious freedom over which the Amish and the state have clashed. Focusing on the period from 1925 to 2001 in the United States, the authors examine conflicts over military service and conscription, Social Security and taxes, education, health care, land use and zoning, regulation of slow-moving vehicles, and other first amendment issues. New concluding chapters, by constitutional expert William Ball, who defended the Amish before the Supreme Court in 1972 in the landmark Wisconsin v. Yoder case, and law professor Garret Epps, assess the Amish contribution to preserving religious liberty in the United States.