Amish

Amish couple in a horse-drawn buggy in rural Holmes County, Ohio, the site of the one of the largest concentration of Amish in the United States

The Amish are a denomination of Anabaptists and a branch of Mennonites noted for their restrictions on the use of modern devices such as automobiles and electricity. The Amish are a tight-knit cultural and ethnic group, descending from a few hundred German and Swiss immigrants and speaking a distinctive High German dialect (Deitsch or "Pennsylvania Dutch)." (Amish are one group of the "Pennsylvania Dutch," who are of primarily German, not Dutch, descent.)

History

As Mennonites, the Amish are descendants of the Anabaptist followers of Menno Simons (c. 1496–1561). Simons was a Dutch Roman Catholic priest, who was converted in 1536 and baptized into the Anabaptist group by Obbe Philips.

The Amish movement takes its name from Jacob Amman (c. 1656–c. 1730), a Swiss Mennonite. Amman felt that the Mennonites were drifting from close adherence to the teachings of Simons and the 1632 Mennonite Dordrecht Confession of Faith. Much of the laxity was in the area of shunning excluded members, also called the ban (or Meidung in Pennsylvania German). The ban meant believers would terminate contact with a non-conforming member of the Mennonite society. Amman insisted upon this practice, even to the point of a spouse 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 Mennonites in Switzerland in 1693, and led to the establishment of the Amish branch of Mennonites. Some Amish began to migrate to the United States in the 18th century and many settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Other groups settled in or spread to Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, and even into Canada. During the 1860s, conferences were held in Wayne County, Ohio concerning how the Amish should deal with the pressures of modern society.

The Amish eventually split into several divisions, partly a result of the decisions of these conferences.

Lifestyle

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 twice to review items for admittance. In others it is done whenever necessary. Because the Amish, like other Mennonites, do not have a top-down governing structure like the Catholic or Anglican Churches, differing communities often have different ideas as to which technological items are acceptable.

Electricity, for instance, is viewed as a connection to 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. 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, such as modern appliances such as televisions, light bulbs, and hair dryers.

Telephone booth set up by an "English" farmer in Marshall County, Indiana for emergency use by local Amish families.

Most Amish families speak a version of German known as Pennsylvania German (Deitsch) at home. The commonly-used term "Pennsylvania Dutch" comes from the original use of the word Dutch, which referred to all people who spoke one of the many German-Dutch dialects and not just people from the Netherlands.

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. The Amish are noted for the quality of their quilts and for their farming efficiency. Some Amish have enthusiastically adopted genetically engineered crops for their efficiency.

The reason that most Amish men are seen with beards but no mustaches is this: An Amish man will typically be clean-shaven as long as he is single. Upon getting married he will grow a beard. Mustaches are generally not allowed since they are seen as symbols of the military. This is due to religious and political persecution in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. The nobility and upperclass men, who often served as military officers, wore mustaches but not beards.

The Amish do not believe that a child can be meaningfully baptized. Amish children are expected to follow the will of their parents in all issues, but when they come of age they may lead a lifestyle of their own choice. In fact, in some communities they are permitted to try out the "English" lifestyle of the outside world for a few years (the period of rumspringa, or running-around) so that they can make an informed choice to be baptized and join the church for life. Some choose not to join the church but 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 are supposed to be done. Still other communities practice hardly any shunning, keeping close family and social contact with those who leave the church.

Amish communities may be slightly or even drastically different from each other. When describing details of dress codes, lifestyles, etc., a careful writer will note the specific community being discussed. These differences range from profound (such as groups like the "black bumper Amish" who have come to accept chromeless automobiles and are widely seen as non-Amish by other groups) to trivial (such as the disagreements between "one suspender" and "two suspender" groups). Groups with similar policies are held to be "in fellowship" and consider each other members of the same (and only) true 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 become splinter churches and divide multiple communities.

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

The Amish as a whole are beginning to 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.

Like many Mennonites, many Amish also shun 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.

As almost all of the Amish descend from the same few hundred founders in the 18th century they have been plagued by heritable genetic disorders. Some of these disorders are quite rare, in some cases even unique, and some are very serious. These disorders affect the children and have led to a higher mortality rate among them. 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. Physically and mentally disabled children are given the same loving care as unaffected children.

Many parents are using modern technology to care for their children. The large majority received special dispensations for the use of some electric appliances from their religious leaders but in some cases it was impossible to obtain and has led to some parents to leaving the traditional lifestyle and subsequently being "banned" by their community.

Although the Amish do pay most taxes, they are exempt from Social Security under a provision of the Medicare bill enacted in 1965. As part of shunning insurance, the Amish do not accept government welfare, such as Medicaid/Medicare, and food stamps.

Status

The Amish reside in close-knit communities in 22 states of the United States as well as Ontario, Canada. The largest concentrations of Amish in the United States are in Holmes County, Ohio and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. By state, the largest Amish population is in Ohio, and the second largest in Pennsylvania. There are an estimated 228,000 Amish in the United States in all groups, and another 1500 in Ontario, Canada. Some Amish have relocated to Central America in an attempt to remove themselves from the influences of modern society, including a sizable settlement near San Ignacio, Belize.

The strictest Amish groups are the Nebraska Amish and the Swartzendruber Amish. The language used in all Old Order Amish homes and in many Beachy Amish homes is Pennsylvania German (or "Pennsylvania Dutch"). English is used with the outside world.

Amish that leave the old ways often remain near their community, and in general, there are levels of progression as Amish or Mennonites leave their religion behind them.

Other

People who are not well acquainted with Mormonism and the Amish sometimes confuse the two, despite the vast differences between them. These misconceptions can sometimes be perpetuated in the mass media. For example, the film Witness is centered on an Amish community. However, the Spanish and French versions of this film mistranslated "Amish" as "Mormon". Roseanne Barr has played on this misconception by referring to Mormons as "Nazi Amish". Perhaps this confusion arises in part from the similarity between the words "Mormon" and "Mennonite."

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

The Amish have, on occasion, encountered discrimination and hostility from their neighbors; in some places, this 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.

On July 28, 2004, UPN began airing Amish in the City, a reality television series which involved five Amish teenagers being installed in a house in the 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). The concept was initially denounced by some for appearing to capitalize upon popular stereotypes about the Amish; later critical reviews were more positive.

Amish enjoy a special legal status, as proved in Yoder vs. Wisconsin, which stated that Amish adolescents can be exempt from the state law prescribing compulsory education until the age of 16 because their religion requires them to live apart from society. To compel them to visit school would therefore violate their rights under the Free Exercise Clause.

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 considered one of the foremost academic authorities on the Amish.

See also

• Pennsylvania Dutch
• Pennsylvania German language
• Amish music
• Barn raising
• Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
• Old Order Amish
• Hex signs

External links

• Amish 101 - Amish Beliefs, History & Lifestyle
• Pennsylvania Dutch
• The Gentle People - Legal Affairs article talking about sexual abuse and the way it is handled in the community
• "Amish Series & Articles" - from Amish Country News
• Look Who's Talking - Wired article about the Amish's selective and not technophobic use of technology.
• Genetic Disorders Hit Amish Hard - from 60 Minutes, CBS News

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