Mark Shea links to this report about the thriving Amish communities. They’ve doubled their population over the last decade or so. They have large families and most of their young people stay with the faith.
The Amish and Mennonites are Anabaptists. They’re from the same Reformation branch as Southern Baptists and all other sorts of Baptists, except they retain certain other traditions. They’re pacifists, and they reject all modern technologies. Thus they live without electricity, phones, computers, cars, etc.
One of my claims to fame is that my roots in Pennsylvania (and before that Switzerland) are Mennonite. My ancestors were a Mennonite family from Zurich who came to Pennsylvania in the 1770s. My Dad’s father grew up on a Mennonite farm, and a good number of my mother’s family were either Mennonite or Amish.
I have a lot of respect for them, and I’m sure my own desire to retreat from it all to a Benedictine monastery is really down my Mennonite blood.
One of the reasons I am a Catholic is that all that is admirable in all the different Christian sects, can actually be found within Catholicism. Do you admire the Amish, who cut themselves off from the world, eschew modern technology and ‘worldliness’ in all its forms? Good. Go join a monastery.
I do admire them. I was raised in central Pa. Also, who can forget their supremely Christian spirit when dealing with the tragedy of the gunmans’ rampage at on of their Amish schools.
Ditto to Dan’s post. I was bowled over by their response to that event. That was indeed pure Christianity, regardless of what one might think of other Amish belief interpretations.I didn’t know they were Anabaptists. I’ve read that there are currently about 30,000 different kinds of Protestantism. From down here in Georgia, I believe about 27,000 of them are sundry kinds of Baptists–and maybe 20,000 of those are somehow in the Southern Baptist Convention. (“Communion”–for all those with Anglican tendencies).
There are many varieties within the Amish. Many work in factories, and have electricity and phones in their private business offices (usually in the barn), just not in their home.Also worth noting is that they retain most of their children because they are “under the ban” if they leave, and presumably bound for hell. They are not allowed to speak or communicate in any way with those in the community. If you meet your parents in the store, they will walk right past you, as if you don’t exist. If a teenager does decide to leave, it is difficult to join modern society these days with no birth certificate, social security number, and an 8th grade education. You can provide no proof for your birth if your parents refuse to speak to you.Therefore, most stay, simply because it is too difficult, both emotionally and practically, to leave.
It’s true that the Amish have their down side. They can be self righteous, very legalistic, judgmental etc. Also, you’re right about the difficulty of leaving the sect. This is commonplace amongst all kinds of extreme religious groups.
If you don’t want to join a monastery you could always join the plain Catholics. They live without a lot of modern conveniences, but they are Catholic.
The Amish lifestyle is really just a family-centered interpretation of basic Benedictine principles.Poverty becomes SimplicityChastity — according to one’s station in lifeObedience — to community traditions/practices and lay “bishops” (rather than to an abbot/abbess)Stability — within the “district” community (moves are rare, most often only when someone marries outside of the immediate community)It’s nothing astounding, really. Well, let me amend that. The only really astounding thing is their reluctance to adopt newer technology, and the strength with which they hold to this reluctance. Though they do use telephones (just not inside the house) and things such as computers, cars, etc. if their jobs require it. They are also not shy about letting non-Amish provide motorized transportation or other conveniences for them.As for leaving that faith, I personally know a family whose 19yo daughter left and went to work as a maid due to her 8th-grade education. She is in big trouble now, with an illegitimate child and no lively hopes for a better life. She would need someone to support her while she gets a GED and further education, but now she has no family … they will not permit her to return. And this is a nice family. Something is just wrong with that picture. Sigh.
Let me add one detail. Many people hear “the Amish do not use electricity” and think they have no modern conveniences at all. This is not true. Many Amish use propane-powered stoves, refrigerators, and even deep freezers. They don’t object to the conveniences so much as to the connection with the outside world that an electrical cable represents.
The group of Amish in my area are some of the more strict, so they don’t have any generator powered items in their home. I have seen them making sorghum with a horse used as the power source, even though the machine was outside the house.They also have the more strict dress code, keeping to blue, black, and white, with no buttons on their clothing.Fortunately, they did agree to put the orange reflective triangle on the back of their carriage for night driving. I’ve heard road fatalities are a real problem with the strictest group who refuse to use the triangles.
Fr. Dwight-I’m not so sure that an Amish person would agree that they are Anabaptists. At least not the ones in my area (So. Central PA). In this area, Anabaptist is a religion separate from both the Mennonite and Amish. I only found this out after I had become friends with an Amish woman whose husband happens to be an Amish historian. It was only from talking to her husband that I found out that my father’s family wasn’t originally Amish, they were Anabaptist. This was later confirmed by a family member, but everyone had previously thought those two religions/sects were the same. Peace. ~~~mary
From the website http://www.anabaptists.org:”The class of Anabaptists to which the Swiss brethren, Menno Simons, Dirck Philips, and their brethren belonged stood for a complete separation of Church and State, baptism only upon confession of faith, nonresistance, nonconformity to the world, a holy life, and other tenets of Christian faith and life which were afterwards embodied in what is now known as the “Mennonite Confession of Faith.””So there are Anabaptists who are not Mennonites, but Mennonites are anabaptists. They are named after the Menno Simons mentioned above, and the correct way to pronounce it (I learned at a Mennonite tourist site) is MENNO -night, not MEN-a-night.
Father – You know a good monastery for those of us over the half century mark? I suspect that prayer may be the greatest contribution I can make.
They also see nothing wrong with running puppy mills. Go figure!
Here in the Southern Tier of New York we have all gradations of Amish. From the kind that don’t use any modern technology, all the way up to the ones who use power tools and drive cars, but live in common. It’s quite an interesting spectrum. Apparently many have moved here to the region between here (Corning, NY) and just outside of Syracuse because they’ve been pushed out of PA and the farms up this way are being abandoned and sold in an area of NY that is quite reasonable to live, and many leave “for the City”. If you travel NY 14 from here to Auburn (outside of Syracuse) or NY 417 to Buffalo you see many Amish farms and their black carriages. They’ve always struck me as good hardworking people who want to be left alone. Too bad they are separated from us.
I am here in the hub of it all Lancaster PA!!!We just gave birth to our second child in a birthing center in Bart PA where the shootings occurred.So we heard the clipity-clop of the buggies :)Mary is correct, they wouldn’t consider themselves Anabaptists, although they are offshoots from the Original Anabaptists. I never heard a Mennonite say they didn’t align themselves with the Anabaptists. Actually, I know I have heard them align themselves with them. Of course they are yet again another variation on the Anabaptist theme :)-g-