Amish

This article is about a group of traditionalist Christian church fellowships. For other uses, see Amish (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Amis people.

Amish
An Amish family riding in a traditional Amish buggy in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Total population
Increase 401,005
(2024, Old Order Amish)[1]
Founder
Jakob Ammann
Regions with significant populations
United States (large populations in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania; notable populations in Kentucky, Missouri, Michigan, New York, and Wisconsin; small populations in various other states)
Canada (mainly in Ontario)
Religions
Anabaptist
Scriptures
The Bible
Languages
English
Pennsylvania Dutch
Swiss German

The Amish (/ˈɑːmɪʃ/ ⓘ, also /ˈæmɪʃ/ or /ˈeɪmɪʃ/; Pennsylvania German: Amisch; German: Amische), formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptist Christian church fellowships with Swiss and Alsatian origins.[2] As they maintain a degree of separation from surrounding populations, and hold their faith in common, the Amish have been described by certain scholars as an ethnoreligious group, combining features of an ethnicity and a Christian denomination.[3][4] The Amish are closely related to Old Order Mennonites and Conservative Mennonites, denominations that are also a part of Anabaptist Christianity.[5] The Amish are known for simple living, plain dress, Christian pacifism, and slowness to adopt many conveniences of modern technology, with a view neither to interrupt family time, nor replace face-to-face conversations whenever possible, and a view to maintain self-sufficiency. The Amish value rural life, manual labor, humility and Gelassenheit (submission to God's will).

The Amish church began with a schism in Switzerland within a group of Swiss and Alsatian Mennonite Anabaptists in 1693 led by Jakob Ammann.[6] Those who followed Ammann became known as Amish.[7] In the second half of the 19th century, the Amish divided into Old Order Amish and Amish Mennonites; the latter do not abstain from using motor cars, whereas the Old Order Amish retained much of their traditional culture. When people refer to the Amish today, they normally refer to the Old Order Amish, though there are other subgroups of Amish.[8] The Amish fall into three main subgroups—the Old Order Amish, the New Order Amish, and the Beachy Amish—all of whom wear plain dress and live their life according to the Bible as codified in their church's Ordnung.[9][10][11] The Old Order Amish and New Order Amish conduct their worship in German, speak Pennsylvania Dutch, and use buggies for transportation, in contrast to the Beachy Amish who use modern technology (inclusive of motor cars) and conduct worship in the local language of the area in which they reside.[10] Both the New Order Amish and the Beachy Amish emphasize the New Birth, evangelize to seek converts, and have Sunday Schools.[12][9]

In the early 18th century, many Amish and Mennonites immigrated to Pennsylvania for a variety of reasons. Most Old Order Amish, New Order Amish and the Old Beachy Amish speak Pennsylvania Dutch, but Indiana's Swiss Amish also speak Alemannic dialects.[13] As of 2024, the Amish population passed the milestone of 400,000,[14] with about 395,000 Old Order Amish living in the United States, and over 6,000 in Canada: a population that is rapidly growing.[15] Amish church groups seek to maintain a degree of separation from the non-Amish world. Non-Amish people are generally referred to as "English" by the Amish, and outside influences are often described as "worldly".

Amish church membership begins with adult baptism, usually between the ages of 16 and 23. Church districts have between 20 and 40 families, and Old Order Amish and New Order Amish worship services are held every other Sunday in a member's home or barn, while the Beachy Amish worship every Sunday in churches.[16] The rules of the church, the Ordnung, which differs to some extent between different districts, are reviewed twice a year by all members of the church. The Ordnung must be observed by every member and covers many aspects of Old Order Amish day-to-day living, including prohibitions or limitations on the use of power-line electricity, telephones, and automobiles, as well as regulations on clothing. Generally, a heavy emphasis is placed on church and family relationships. The Old Order Amish typically operate their own one-room schools and discontinue formal education after grade eight (age 13 – 14). Most Amish do not buy commercial insurance or participate in Social Security. As present-day Anabaptists, Amish church members practice nonresistance and will not perform any type of military service.[17]

  1. ^ "Amish Population Profile, 2024". Elizabethtown College, the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies. August 19, 2024. Retrieved August 20, 2024.
  2. ^ Harry, Karen; Herr, Sarah A. (April 2, 2018). Life beyond the Boundaries: Constructing Identity in Edge Regions of the North American Southwest. University Press of Colorado. ISBN 978-1-60732-696-0. The Amish were one of many Anabaptist groups that grew from the Radical Reformation in sixteenth-century Europe (Hostetler 1993).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Anderson, Cory; Kenda, Loren (December 22, 2015). "What Kinds of Places Attract and Sustain Amish Populations?". Rural Sociology. 80 (4): 483–511. doi:10.1111/ruso.12083. ISSN 0036-0112.
  5. ^ "Anabaptists". Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College. Retrieved May 11, 2022. The Amish are one of many Anabaptist groups that trace their roots to the Anabaptist movement in sixteenth-century Europe at the time of the Protestant Reformation. Other groups include Mennonites, Hutterites, the Brethren in Christ, and Brethren groups that began in Schwarzenau, Germany, in 1708.
  6. ^ Kraybill 2001, pp. 7–8.
  7. ^ Kraybill 2001, p. 8.
  8. ^ Misiroglu, Gina (March 26, 2015). American Countercultures: An Encyclopedia of Nonconformists, Alternative Lifestyles, and Radical Ideas in U.S. History: An Encyclopedia of Nonconformists, Alternative Lifestyles, and Radical Ideas in U.S. History. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-47728-0. There are various sects of Amish. Old Order Amish maintain the practices best known in mainstream society. These practices include rigorous restrictions on the use of modern conveniences such as electricity automobiles, and telephones. Other groups, such as the Beachy Amish and New Order Amish, use electricity and automobiles, among other modern conveniences, but they still consider themselves Amish.
  9. ^ a b Meyers, Thomas J.; Nolt, Steven M. (2005). An Amish Patchwork: Indiana's Old Orders in the Modern World. Indiana University Press. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-253-34538-7. Groups that today identify themselves as Amish include not only the Old Orders but also the so-called New Order Amish and the Beachy Amish ... The New Order Amish share much with their Old Order Amish religious kin, including horse-and-buggy culture and identifiably traditional dress patterns, but the New Orders employ a more explicit language of personal salvation and are also somewhat less wary of technology—for example, permitting telephones in homes. The Beachy Amish ... are plain in their appearance but clearly less traditional than Old Orders in lifestyle. Beachy Amish members drive cars, use English in worship, and place emphasis on evangelism and missions.
  10. ^ a b Johnson-Weiner, Karen M. (May 2, 2017). New York Amish: Life in the Plain Communities of the Empire State. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-1-5017-0813-8.
  11. ^ Kraybill, Donald B. (May 1, 2003). The Riddle of Amish Culture. JHU Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-7631-8. ...the Old Order Amish, New Order Amish, and Beachy Amish represent three different affiliations.
  12. ^ Gerlach, Horst (June 1, 2013). My Kingdom Is Not of This World: 300 Years of the Amish, 1683-1983. Masthof Press & Bookstore. p. 376. ISBN 978-1-60126-387-2.
  13. ^ Zook, Noah; Yoder, Samuel L (1998). "Berne, Indiana, Old Order Amish Settlement". Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Archived from the original on May 13, 2013. Retrieved April 3, 2009.
  14. ^ "2024: Amish Population Passes 400,000 (Five Interesting Facts)". Amish America. August 19, 2024. Retrieved August 20, 2024.
  15. ^ Donald B. Kraybill, Karen M. Johnson-Weiner, and Steven M. Nolt, (2013) The Amish. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 157–158.
  16. ^ Kroeker, Marvin E. "Amish". Oklahoma Historical Society. The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Retrieved April 25, 2024. The Clarita and Chouteau Amish are identified by the typical Old Order markers of buggies, beards, and bonnets. They speak Pennsylvania German, are schooled through the eighth grade, wear plain attire, worship in homes, and do not use electricity. ... By comparison, the Beachy Amish are less conservative than the Old Order. They install electricity, drive cars, own computers and cell phones, use church buildings, allow secondary schooling, and have less stringent dress codes. They engage in evangelistic outreach. More than any other European ethnic group in Oklahoma, the Amish have retained a distinct cultural identity by consciously drawing symbolic boundaries between themselves and the society around them.
  17. ^ Cite error: The named reference Long was invoked but never defined (see the help page).