Amish

The Amish are a Mennonite Anabaptist denomination found primarily in the United States and Ontario, Canada, known for restrictions on the use of modern devices such as automobiles and electricity. The Amish are a tight-knit religious and ethnic group of Swiss-German ancestry that separate themselves from outside society for religious reasons; they do not join the military, draw Social Security, or accept any form of assistance from the government, and many avoid insurance. They speak a German dialect known as Pennsylvania German or Pennsylvania Dutch, which the Amish call Deitsch ("German"). They do not proselytise, and conversion to the Amish faith is rare. The Amish are divided into dozens of separate fellowships, ranging from conservative Old Order Amish buggy drivers to New Order Amish or Mennonite groups that consider themselves Amish, but are indistingushable from other members of modern society.

Population and distribution

In 1990, there were an estimated 150,000 to 228,000 Amish of all groups in the U.S. and 1,500 in Canada. With an average of seven children per family, the Amish are a rapidly growing group, and new Amish communities are constantly being formed to obtain sufficient farmland. There are Amish communities in at least 47 U.S. states, compared to 22 fifteen years ago; Ohio has the largest Amish population, followed by Pennsylvania. The largest Amish communities are in Holmes County, Ohio, LaGrange County, Indiana, and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Some Beachy Amish have relocated to Central America, including a sizable settlement near San Ignacio, Belize.

History

Like the Mennonites, the Amish are descendants of the Swiss Anabaptists (1525). The Swiss Anabaptists or "Swiss Brethren" had their origins with Felix Manz and Conrad Grebel. The name "Mennonite" was applied later and came from Menno Simons (1496–1561). Simons was a Dutch Roman Catholic priest who converted to Anabaptism in 1536 and was baptized by Obbe Philips after renouncing his Catholic faith and office. He was a leader in the Lowland Anabaptist communities, but his influence reached gradually into Switzerland.

The Amish movement takes its name from that of Jacob Amman (c. 1656 – c. 1730), a Swiss Mennonite leader. Amman felt that the Mennonites were drifting away from the teachings of Simons and the 1632 Mennonite Dordrecht Confession of Faith, particularly the practice of shunning excluded members (known as the ban or Meidung). However, the Swiss Mennonites never practiced strict shunning as the Lowland Anabaptists did. Amman insisted upon this practice, even to the point of a spouse's refusing to sleep or eat with the banned member until he/she repented of his/her behavior.

This strict literalism brought about a division of the Swiss Mennonites, who, because of unwelcoming conditions in Switzerland, were scattered throughout Alsace to the Palatinate. This division occurred in 1693, and led to the establishment of the Amish. Because the Amish are the result of a division with the Mennonites, some consider the Amish a conservative Mennonite group. Some Amish began to migrate to the United States in the 18th century. The first immigrants went to Berks County, but later moved, motivated partly by security issues tied to the French and Indian War, and partly by land issues. Many would eventually settle in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Other groups later settled in or spread to Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Maryland, Tennesee, Wisconsin, Maine, and Canada.

Most Amish communities that were established in North America did not ultimately retain their Amish identity. The original major split that would result in the loss of identity occurred in the 1860s. During that decade Dienerversammlungen (ministerial conferences) were held in Wayne County, Ohio, concerning how the Amish should deal with the pressures of modern society. The meetings themselves were a progressive idea; that bishops should get together to discuss uniformity was an unprecedented notion in the Amish church. By the first several meetings, the conservative bishops agreed to boycott the Dienerversammlungen. Thus, the more progressive Amish within several decades became Amish-Mennonite, and were then later absorbed into the "Old" Mennonites (not to be confused with Old Order Mennonites). The much smaller faction became the Amish of today.

Religion, lifestyle, and culture

Amish lifestyle is dictated by the Ordnung of the community. Ordnung differ from community to community, and, within a community, from district to district. What is acceptable in one community may not be acceptable in another. No summary of Amish lifestyle and culture can be totally adequate because there are few generalities that are true for all Amish. Groups may separate over matters such as the width of a hat-brim, the use of tobacco (permitted among older and more conservative groups), the color of buggies, etc.

Hochmut and demut

Two key concepts for understanding Amish practices are their horror of hochmut (pride) and the high value they place on demut or "humility" and gelassenheit — often rendered "submission" or "letting-be," but perhaps better understood as a reluctance to forward or assert oneself in any way. The willingness to submit to the Will of God, as expressed through group norms, is at odds with the individualism so central to the wider American culture. The anti-individualist orientation is the motive for rejecting labor-saving technologies that might make one less dependent on neighbors, or which, like electricity, might start a competition for status-goods, or which, like photographs, might cultivate individual or family vanity. It is also the proximate cause for rejecting education beyond the eighth grade, especially speculative study which has little practical use for farm-life but which may awaken personal and materialistic ambitions. The emphasis on competition and the uncritical assumption that self-reliance is a good thing, cultivated in American high schools, are in direct opposition to core Amish values.

Separation from the outside and between groups

The Amish often cite three Bible verses which encapsulate their cultural attitudes:

"Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?" (II Corinthians 6:14)
"Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord." (II Corinthians 6:17)
“And be ye not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” (Romans 12:2)

The Amish prefer to have minimal contact with non-Amish. However, increased prices for farmland and decreasing revenues for low-tech farming have forced many Amish to work away from the farm, particularly in construction and factory-labor, and, in those areas where there is a significant tourist trade, to engage in crafts for profit. The Amish are ambivalent about both the consequences of this contact and the commodification of their culture. The decorative arts play little role in authentic Amish life (though the prized Amish quilts are a genuine cultural inheritance, unlike hex signs), and are in fact regarded with suspicion, as a field where egotism and vain display can easily develop.

Amish lifestyles vary between (and sometimes within) communities. These differences range from profound to miniscule. "Black bumper" Beachy Amish drive chromeless automobiles and are rejected as non-Amish by most other groups, while conservative fellowships may disagree over the number of suspenders males should wear (only one is needed, so two could be seen as vanity) or how many pleats there should be in a bonnet. Groups with similar policies are held to be "in fellowship" and consider each other members of the same Christian church. These groups can visit and intermarry between one another, an important consideration to avoid problems with inbreeding. Thus minor disagreements within communities over dairy equipment or telephones in workshops can create splinter churches and divide multiple communities.

Some of the strictest Old Order Amish groups are the Nebraska Amish, Troyer Amish, the Swartzendruber Amish, and Amish communities in Webster County, Missouri. Stricter groups tend to use Deitsch more, while more progressive groups often use English in the home. Amish that leave the old ways often remain near their community, and in general, there are levels of progression from strict Amish gradually to more liberal groups (usually Mennonite).

Baptism, rumspringa, and shunning

The Amish and other Anabaptists do not believe that a child can be meaningfully baptized; this is, in fact, reflected in the name Anabaptist (which means "rebaptizer", as the Anabaptists would baptize adults). Amish children are expected to follow the will of their parents in all issues; but, when they come of age, they are expected to make an adult, permanent commitment to the church.

Of course, many young people make the opposite choice. There is a period known as "rumspringa" ("herumspringen," "running around," "jumping about") which is widely misunderstood outside the Amish world. It is the general term for adolescence, and the period leading up to serious courtship, which is connected to permanent commitment to the Amish life. As in non-Amish families, it is understood as a practical matter that there will likely be a certain amount of misbehavior during this period, but it is neither expected nor winked-at. Some choose not to join the church but to live the rest of their lives in the society at large. Some communities will actively shun those who decide to leave the church, even those going to a different Amish congregation with different interpretations of how things ought to be done. Still other communities practice hardly any shunning, keeping close family and social contact with those who leave the church. Some communities have split in the last century over how they apply the shunning, as in the case of the Holmes County (and area) Amish settlement.

Modern technology

Many Amish, especially those of the Old Order, are renowned for their avoidance of modern technologies. The avoidance of items such as automobiles and electricity is largely misunderstood. The Amish do not view all technology as evil. Technologies can be petitioned for acceptance into the Amish lifestyle. In some communities, the church leaders meet to review items for admittance. In others, it is done whenever necessary. Because the Amish, like other Mennonites, and unlike the Catholic or Anglican Churches, do not have a top-down governing structure, differing communities often have different ideas as to which technological items are acceptable.

Telephone booth set up by an "English" farmer for emergency use by local Amish families.

Electricity, for instance, is viewed as a connection to the "World", the "English", or "Yankees" (the outside world). The use of electricity also could lead to the use of household appliances that would complicate the Amish tradition of a simple life, and introduce individualist competition for worldly goods that would be destructive of community. However, in certain Amish groups, electricity can be used in very specific situations. In some groups, for example, it has to be produced without access to outside power lines. Twelve-volt batteries are acceptable to these groups. Electric generators can only be used for welding, recharging batteries, and powering milk stirrers. The reasoning behind the twelve-volt system is that it limits what an individual can do with the electricity and acts as a preventive measure against potential abuses. Most twelve-volt power sources can't generate enough current to power what is viewed as worldly, modern appliances such as televisions, light bulbs, and hair dryers. In certain situations, outdoor electrical appliances may be used: lawn mowers (riding and hand-pushed) and string trimmers, for example.

Amish communities often adopt compromise solutions involving technology which may seem strange to outsiders. For example, many communities will allow gas powered farm equipment such as tillers or mowers, but only if they are pushed by a human or pulled by a horse. The reasoning is that Amish farmers will not be tempted to purchase more land and outcompete other farmers in their community if they still have to move the equipment manually. Many Amish communities also accept the use of chemical pesticides and GM crops. Again, it is not technology itself, but rather its potential negative effects on the community, which the Amish wish to avoid.

Language

In addition to English, most Amish speak a distinctive High German dialect called Pennsylvania German or Pennsylvania Dutch, which the Amish themselves call Deitsch (German). The so-called Swiss Amish speak an Alemannic German dialect that they call "Swiss". Beachy Amish, especially those who were born roughly after 1960, and more progressive groups tend to speak predominantly in English at home. Amish children learn German first, and are taught English later. There are dialectal variations between communities, including Lancaster County and Indiana speech-varieties.

Deitsch is distinct from Plautdietsch and Hutterite German dialects spoken by other Anabaptist groups.

Dress

Dress code for some groups includes prohibitions against buttons, allowing only hooks and eyes to keep clothing closed; other groups allow members to sew buttons onto clothing. In some groups, certain articles can have buttons and others cannot. (The reason for the restriction on buttons is their former association with the military.) In all things, the aesthetic value is "plainness:" one's clothing should not call attention to the wearer by cut, color or any other feature.

An Amish man will typically be clean-shaven as long as he is single. Upon getting married, he will grow a beard. In some communities, however, a man will grow a beard after he is baptized. Mustaches are generally not allowed because they are seen as symbols of the military, a custom with origins in the religious and political persecution in 16th- and 17th-century Europe. Men of the nobility and upper classes, who often served as military officers, wore mustaches but not beards. The wearing of beards, however, is largely based on the same prohibition against shaving that leads Hasidic Jews to not shave their beards.

Health issues

The Amish are afflicted by numerous heritable genetic disorders. Since almost all of the current Amish descend from the same few hundred founders in the 18th century, genetic disorders among the Amish are due to founder effects exacerbated by a degree of inbreeding. Some of these disorders are quite rare or even unique, and serious enough that they increase the mortality rate among Amish children. The majority of the Amish accept these as "Gottes Wille" (God's will) and reject any use of genetic tests prior to the marriage to prevent the appearance of these disorders and refuse genetic tests to the fetus to discover if a child has any genetic disorder. Many parents are willing to use modern technology to care for their children, however.

There is an increasing consciousness among the Amish of the advantages of exogamy. Genetic diseases which are common in one community will often be absent in another, and genetic disorders can be avoided by choosing spouses from unrelated communities. For example, the founding families of the Lancaster County Amish are unrelated to the founders of the Perth County Amish community in Canada.

Because they lack insurance, the Amish sometimes encounter difficulty receiving medical care in the United States, where universal medicare is not available. A handful of American hospitals, starting in the mid 1990s, created special outreach programs to assist the Amish. The first of such programs was instituted at the Susquehanna Health System in central Pennsylvania by James H. Huebert. The program has earned national media attention in the U.S. and has spread to several surrounding hospitals. [1] Treating genetic problems is the mission of Dr. Holmes Morton's Clinic for Special Children in Strasburg, Pennsylvania, which has developed effective treatment for such problems as maple syrup urine disease, which previously was fatal. The clinic has been enthusiastically embraced by most Amish and has largely ended a situation in which some parents felt it necessary to leave the community to care properly for their children, which normally would result in being shunned.

A second research and primary care clinic, patterned after Dr. Holmes Morton’s clinic, DDC Clinic for Special Needs Children, is located in Middlefield, Ohio. The DDC Clinic began treating special needs children with inherited or metabolic disorders in May 2002. The DDC Clinic provides treatment, research and educational services to Amish and non-Amish children and their families – the DDC Clinic is open to all children.

Most Amish do not practice any form of birth control, including the rhythm method.

Education

The Amish do not educate their children past the eighth grade, believing that the basic knowledge offered to that point is sufficient to prepare one for the Amish lifestyle. Almost no Amish go to high school, much less to college. In many communities, the Amish operate their own schools, typically one-room schoolhouses with teachers from the Amish community. In the past, there have been major conflicts between the Amish and outsiders over these matters of local schooling. But for the most part they have been resolved and the educational authorities allow the Amish to educate their children in their own ways. Sometimes there are conflicts between the state-mandated minimum age for discontinuing schooling and the younger age of children who have completed eighth grade. This is often handled by having the children repeat eighth grade until they are old enough to leave school.

In 1972, Jonas Yoder and Wallace Miller of the Old Order Amish and Adin Yutzy of the Conservative Amish Mennonite Church were fined $5 each for refusing to send their children, aged 14 and 15, to high school. The Wisconsin Supreme Court overturned the conviction and the U.S. Supreme Court concurred, finding that the benefits of universal education do not justify violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

The decision of the U.S. Supreme Court quoted sociology professor John A. Hostetler (1918-2001), who was born into an Amish family, wrote several books about the Amish, Hutterites, and Old Order Mennonites, and was then considered the foremost academic authorities on the Amish. Donald Kraybill, Distinguished College Professor and Senior Fellow in the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College, is likely the most important scholar studying the Amish today.

Relations with the outside world

The Amish as a whole feel the pressures of the modern world. Child labor laws, for example, are seriously threatening their long-established ways of life. Amish children are taught at an early age (by modern 21st century standards) to work hard. Amish parents will supervise the children in new tasks to ensure that they learn to do it effectively and safely. The modern child labor laws conflict with allowing the Amish parents to decide whether or not their children are competent in hazardous tasks.

Amish buggy rides offered in tourist-oriented Shipshewana, Indiana.

Contrary to popular belief, the Amish vote, and have been courted by national parties as potentially crucial swing-constituencies: their pacifism and social conscience make them attractive to left-leaning parties, and their generally conservative outlook to right-leaning parties. They are nonresistant and rarely defend themselves physically or even in court; in wartime, they take conscientious objector status.

Like many Mennonites, many Amish do not use insurance, relying on their church and community for support. An example of such support is barn raising, in which the entire community gathers together to replace a barn, which has been destroyed by fire or some natural disaster, in a single day.

Amish Acres, an Amish crafts and tourist attraction in Nappanee, Indiana.

In 1961, the United States Internal Revenue Service announced that since the Amish refuse United States Social Security benefits and have a religious objection to insurance, they need not pay these taxes. In 1965, this policy was codified into law. [2] Self-employed individuals in certain sects do not pay into, nor receive benefits from, United States Social Security, nor do their similarly-exempt employees. Amish employees of non-exempt employers are taxed, but do not apply for benefits. A provision of this law mandates that the sect provide for their elderly and disabled. The Amish are not the only ones exempt from Social Security in the U.S. Ministers, certain church employees and Christian Science practitioners may qualify for exemption under a similar clause. Otherwise, the Amish pay the same taxes as other American citizens. The Amish therefore likely pay more in taxes, especially real estate taxes, than it costs for the minimal government services they receive.

The Amish have, on occasion, encountered discrimination and hostility from their neighbors. During the World Wars, Amish pacifism sparked many incidents of harassment, and young Amish men forcibly inducted into the services were subjected to various forms of ill-treatment. In the present day, anti-Amish sentiment has taken the form of systematic harassment, particularly claipping, the act of pelting the horse-drawn carriages used by the Amish with stones or similar objects as the carriages pass along a road, most commonly at night (claip is apparently a derogatory term directed at the Amish in some localities; its origin is uncertain). A 1988, made-for-TV film, A Stoning In Fulham County, is based on a true story involving one such incident, in which a six-month-old Amish infant girl was struck in the head by a rock and died from her injuries. In 1997, a young Amish woman in Milverton, Ontario, Canada was struck in the face by a beer bottle believed to have been thrown from a passing car; she required thousands of dollars' worth of surgery to her face (which was paid for by an outpouring of donations from the public). It was later found that this was not a case of 'claipping', as the bottle had been thrown by another group of Amish youth in a passing buggy.

The 2002 documentary Devil's Playground is another film about the Amish community, focusing on the Amish tradition of Rumspringa.

On July 28, 2004, American television network UPN began airing Amish in the City, a reality television series which involved five Amish teenagers being installed in a house in Los Angeles' Hollywood Hills to experience "American" culture and to decide at the show's end whether to rejoin their own culture (a variant of the Amish tradition of Rumspringa). It was later revealed that these Amish youths were already living apart from their Amish parents prior to the show.

Groups sometimes confused with the Amish

As Anabaptist religious groups that avoid automobiles and live apart from the outside world, Old Order Mennonites, Hutterites, and Old German Baptist Brethren are sometimes considered the same as the Old Order Amish by outsiders. However, all were distinct groups before immigrating from Europe, with different dialects and separate cultural and religious traditions.

It is also common to confuse Quakers with the Amish. The early Quakers were influenced to some degree by the Anabaptists and were also "plain people," though modern Quakers have abandoned their traditional dress.

Despite the vast differences between them, the Amish are sometimes mistaken for or believed to be related to Mormons. The Spanish and French versions of the film Witness, which mistranslated "Amish" as "Mormon", may have contributed to this confusion.

External links

General Interest

Amish Culture and Tourism

Amish 101 - Amish Beliefs, History & Lifestyle
Pennsylvania Dutch
Amish links
Amish Directory
"Amish Series & Articles" - from Amish Country News

Amish, Government and the Law

The Gentle People - Legal Affairs article about how incest is handled in the Amish community
An article about a hate crime against the Amish in Wisconsin

Amish Genetic Disorders

Genetic Disorders Hit Amish Hard - from 60 Minutes, CBS News
"Family Ties" - Article from University of Miami "Medicine" magazine, Spring 2004 During a lifetime of studying the Old Order Amish in central Pennsylvania, University of Miami professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences Janice Egeland, Ph.D., discovers the genetic clues behind the mystery of bipolar disorder and helps generations of families cope with the devastating disease.

Amish and Technology

Look Who's Talking - Wired article about the Amish's selective and not technophobic use of technology

In Pennsylvania Dutch

Amish