It's true that there was Amish opposition to lightning rods. For anyone familiar with their current opposition to seat belts, smoke detectors, and carbon monoxide alarms as thwarting the will of God, this should be no surprise.

Occupations closely allied with business were forbidden, such as managing a store, post office, or express office. Lightning rods, lotteries, photographs, and insurance were considered worldly.

That's from "Amish Society" by John S Hostetler, which points to the proceedings of the General Ministers Conference, which first started in 1862. It doesn't give the year of the lightning rod discussion, but it does note that meetinghouses were controversial. That's relevant to your point about church steeples being tall and being struck by lighting--most Amish meet in private homes, not in what you call a church. For the groups that do have meetinghouses, I'm not sure whether there are steeples on them, anyway.

Have to bring up the Brescia explosion.

In 1769, lightning struck the church in Brescia, detonating the considerable stores of explosives which were located there. The explosion levelled a large part of the city and caused numerous deaths.

Why store explosives in a church, do you rightly ask? The reason was that popular belief at the time was that the church bells would protect the explosives from lightning. Following this disaster, the Catholic church revised it's position on placing lightining rods atop church steeples.

Sources:

http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/whitek04.html

http://www.standingwellback.com/home/2012/1/31/explosion-kills-3000-people-and-another-4000.html

http://www.esdjournal.com/articles/franklin/franklinrod.htm

see also: Cohen, I. B. (1952). Prejudice against the introduction of lightning rods. Journal of the Franklin Institute, 253(5), 393-440.

For French readers, the book "fluide vital" by pierre zweiacker, talks about the history of electricity and mentions social and religious issues about lightning rods. Can't remember which chapter, but it's there.