Amish
The Amish are a Christian nonstate church community whose members live today in twenty-two states of the United States (Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New York, and others) and in Ontario, Canada.
All Amish groups together probably number about 100,000 members. The center of Amish life is Ohio, where about 45,000 Amish live. Amish culture is rooted in Swiss German religious beliefs dating back to the sixteenth century. Any discussion of the Amish has first of all to take into account their religious practice of “Anabaptism,” or adult baptism, as practiced also by today’s Mennonites. The Anabaptists’ movement originated in Switzerland and Germany at a time when Ulrich Zwingli and Martin Luther proclaimed their new understanding of the Christian faith. The Anabaptists, however, were even more radical in their reformatory thinking and soon became visible in the whole of central western Europe. As a result of their beliefs, which stress voluntary entry into the church, the separation of church and state, the idea of individual priesthood, and the dominance of faith over good deeds, they were persecuted by both Catholic and Protestant state churches. The climax of the Anabaptist movement came in 1535, with the creation of a kingdom in Munster, North-Rhine Westphalia. After the military defeat of the Anabaptists in that city at the end of June 1535, the leaders of the Baptists were captured, tortured, and put into cages hanging from the top of the Lambertus Church. The survivors of the massacre fled to the Netherlands, where they found refuge with the former Catholic priest Menno Simons (1496-1561). He reorganized the movement whose members were known thereafter as Mennonites. Attracted by the prospect of religious freedom, many fled to the United States during the first half of the eighteenth century. The Amish are a splinter group named after their founder, the Swiss-born Jakob Ammann, who disagreed with more liberal Mennonites in 1693 over the issue of whether or not to shun baptized members who had subsequently left the church.Amish links with Germany are still clearly evident today on all cultural levels, particularly on the linguistic one. Pennsylvania Dutch is their first language, despite the fact that English is taught at schools, which are usually Amish operated. Early modern High German, the language of the
Luther translation of the Bible and other scriptures like the Ausbund, a hymnal of lyrics and verse, is used during worship. Members that sin severely against the Ord- nung (order, or church discipline) might be temporarily banned from the community (Meidung), and after a life spent in Gelassenheit (spiritual comfort resulting from trust in God’s will), Amish couples usually retire to so-called Grossdadi (grandpa) houses.
The most traditional group, the “Old Order Amish,” interpret the pursuit of happiness in a way different not only from other Christian churches but even more so from capitalist America. The Amish believe with Luther that being a Christian is a gift of God and therefore requires a special frame of mind and form of conduct. However, there is no missionary activity on their part, although the church is open to anyone willing to accept the lifestyle that comes with being Amish. Due to the practice of adult baptism, the young are allowed to test the water before joining the church, but commitment is then usually for life. Surrounded by a nation that propagates a belief in the latest technological equipment and progress in general, the Amish deliberately prefer tilling their soil with archaic equipment. On their highly productive farms, there is yet no electricity, and there are no cars, only horse-driven buggies. At a time when lifelong learning has become so commonplace that knowledge has been reduced to a marketable commodity, the Amish object to higher education in the sense of refusing the acquisition of what they perceive as “worldly” knowledge. However, they have sound expertise in farming: like their forefathers, most Amish still work in agriculture or related professions.
If individuality and freedom can be seen as the main characteristics of modernity, the Amish live a communitarian life, curbing what they interpret as the excessive and disruptive freedom of the individual. Against the sense of depression and isolation that often strike modern individuals, the Amish maintain the value of a protective community based on and revolving around intact three-generational families. Although careers for women have become a regular feature of modern life, the Amish share jobs according to gender. They preach and practice a frugal life in the way that Luther and Ammann had advertised. Throughout life (and beyond), discipline, submission to the will of God, and modesty are of essential importance to the Amish and become manifest, for example, in their austere outfit made according to the traditional German fashion, as well as in the graveyard monuments that do not single out any individual. In times of war the Amish remain pacifist to the level of suffering hostility and punishment up to imprisonment.
Markus Oliver Spitz
See also Iowa, German Dialects in;
Pennsylvania German (Dutch) Language
References and Further Reading
Hostetler, John A. Amish Life. Scottdale: Herald Press, 1983.
------. Amish Society. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
Nolt, Steven. A History of the Amish. Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 1992.