Doug Winiarski

So Shakers were wealthy, really wealthy by early 19th century standards.

The Amish are, of course, Pennsylvania-based outside Philadelphia with German roots, right?

And for anti-technology and their Anabaptists, their adult baptism practices are what set them apart from what they would call the world or the world's people.

The Shakers, of course, were out of the English tradition.

They're an evangelical group.

They are celibate, Amish or not.

And they are also very pro-technology, as we've been talking about.

So the Shakers have no concerns with labor-saving devices.

In fact, they're all in favor of innovations in technology of any form.

Cultural or technological or theological.

Nope.

So it's a mix of both, right?

So the Shakers, as we were saying before, is the first American sectarian group, really, that's formed on the principle of continuous and ongoing revelation.

So it's not that the Bible doesn't count.

It's that the Bible is incomplete.

The Shakers recognized that the Bible, they did not believe the Bible was infallible.

They recognized that the writers of the Bible, the gospel writers, other early Christian writers, were fallible.

They were human.

There are errors in translation.

So they understood the Bible as being important.