There are over 370, 000 Amish people living in the US today, largely, but not exclusively, centered around what’s known as Pennsylvania Dutch country in the state’s Lancaster County. Even though they shun technology and largely keep to themselves, the Amish are frequently depicted in pop culture. But what is it really like to be part of this small community?
Today, we’re going to take a look at what it’s like to be Amish. But before we get started, be sure to subscribe to the Weird History channel. And And leave a comment letting us know what other areas of American history you would like to hear about. Okay. Time to roll up your sleeves and raise ourselves a barn.
The Amish religion dates all the way back to the 17th century and a split within a Swiss church practicing what was known as anabaptism. Among other beliefs, the Anabaptist held that it was improper to baptize infants because a baptism was only valid if the person made a conscious decision to confess their faith in Jesus Christ.
For obvious reasons, this is a challenging task for a baby. By the 1690s, Swiss Anabaptists were divided into two rival groups, which held various opposing beliefs about their faith, including whether or not an adult who refused to get re baptized should be accepted into their church. The more strict and extreme of the two groups ultimately broke off from the rest of the church and formed their own faith.
They came to be known as the Amish, after one of their leaders, a man named Jakob Amund. Then, starting in the 1710s, attractive offers on parcels of land and the promise of freedom from religious persecution convinced some members of the church to pack their bags and begin settling in North America, in what is now Pennsylvania.
They originally selected the area of modern day Berks County, but that land proved dangerous due to the early stirrings of what would become the French and Indian War. By the time the bulk of the Amish movement set sail, they were largely settling in what’s now Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, along with other parts of Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, and southern Ontario, Canada.
Not sure what happened to that last one. Maybe they got lost. Most of those original Amish settlers in the New World ultimately left that faith and joined with other churches and religious movements. The somewhat similar Mennonite church and its many denominations eventually absorbed much of the original Amish community, particularly its more progressive members.
What remains of the Amish in the US today are descended from the most conservative portions of that original community, along with later American converts.
The cornerstone of the Amish worldview involves a rejection of pride and arrogance, which is one reason you don’t see many Amish in professional sports. The Amish embrace a concept they know by the German word, Gelassenheit, which translates as calmness, but more accurately refers to a reluctance to be self promoting or to place oneself ahead of the group.
The center of Amish life is understood to be the family. And beyond that, your community of neighbors, so your cul de sac family. In many ways, the group’s well known rejection of modern technology, which in many ways defines their beliefs for outsiders, stems from this understanding of Gelassenheit. The Amish see most modern conveniences as opportunities to sever the individual from their community by allowing them to live more independently.
Modern innovations, from the car to electric lights to the iPhone, allow people to isolate themselves and set themselves apart, or even above their neighbors. That’s actually why a lot of people like it. Additionally, for the Amish, the idea of living in accordance with the Bible also means living simply, as people did in biblical times.
Innovations like electricity represent humanity imposing its will on the natural world, rather than submitting themselves to live under God’s divine design.
Though children in the Amish community are gradually introduced to their beliefs and ideas over time, actual membership in the church doesn’t begin until you’re baptized, usually between the ages of 16 and 23. Many Amish communities practice a tradition known as Rumspringa, in which adolescents are temporarily allowed to experiment with non conforming behavior before deciding on their own to return to the church and get baptized as a full member.
This term translates to English as running around. And in some circles is known as getting a job as a line cook. You experience a whole lot of life’s buffet in a short period of time with that gig. Marriage is forbidden until someone has taken this crucial step and chosen to get baptized. Adults who don’t meet these baseline expectations and agree to be fully participating members of the Amish faith.
are excommunicated and typically shunned by the rest of Amish society. Ultimately, around 90 percent of Amish teens opt to join the church. Huh, wonder where all those errant 10 percenters end up. Once you’re baptized, all of the various rules and principles for your adult life are set forth in a book known as the Ordnung, which differs a bit depending on which community you’re joining.
The Ordnung is the ultimate authority you’d consult for all the specific practices around things like clothing, the use of technology, and day to day living. While such an old and strict community might seem entirely rooted in the past, that’s actually not the case. If the entire community agrees, they have an opportunity to collectively alter the Ordung twice a year.
Perhaps the most famous Amish rules of all forbid the use of modern technology. Even zippers are considered too modern. Still, it’s nearly impossible to survive in the world of 2023 without any modern conveniences whatsoever. So a lot of Amish communities cut corners here and there when possible. Some settlements have started using green technology, like solar panels or wind turbines, to generate their own electricity while still remaining off the main power grid.
For some, this is enough to satisfy the biblical principle of staying true to their communities and their shared ideals without becoming too worldly. Which is a phrase here meaning, we’re not seeing too many married with children reruns. Many Amish are allowed to accept help from other people who are using technology.
For example, taking a ride in a person’s car when a horse and buggy simply won’t do might be acceptable. These special cases also extend to things like photographs. Amish people typically don’t own their own cameras, but many are willing to be photographed by other people. Because no matter how gifted the narrator, sometimes a description just won’t do.
However, standard portraits where you sit and pose are generally viewed as being too vain, whereas photos in a candid or natural setting are viewed as more acceptable. So while you probably won’t see a lot of Amish portraits, you might see a shot of them raising a barn, churning butter, or some other activity in which they were already engaged, like growing a beard.
Still, these exceptions only go so far, and a lot of technology the rest of us take for granted are simply disallowed in Amish communities entirely. That includes musical instruments. which are viewed as tools for vain self expression, enabling one person to be heard over the rest of the group. And anyone who has ever been to a house party where an acoustic guitar suddenly appeared can tell you this is a difficult argument to refute.
The Amish favor singing with their own natural voices, you know, instead of using autotune. Usually in choirs performing hymns, Amish church songs come from a collection known as the Ausband, which dates back to 1564 and is among the oldest collection of Protestant hymns that are still sung today. The book itself contains no musical notation of any kind.
Instead, tunes are passed down orally from generation to generation.
Despite their hirsute reputation, not all Amish men are allowed to have beards. Unmarried gents must remain clean shaven. As growing out your beard signifies your transition into adulthood, Amish men also, notably, shave their upper lip. This is often considered a nod to the culture’s history of pacifism, as mustaches were historically associated with members of the military.
Ulysses S. Grant did have a formidable mustache. An Amish man’s beard is so central to his identity that in some communities, the shaving of the beard has been used as a punishment. In 2012, an Ohio Amish leader, Samuel Mullett Sr., was accused of orchestrating forced beard and hair cuttings against more than a dozen members of his congregation.
After several victims reported that they had been traumatized by the beard cuttings and forced into seclusion, Mullet was charged with a hate crime. Shockingly, his sentence wasn’t to have his hair shaved into the style which bears his name. Men aren’t the only ones in Amish communities who have to worry about a lot of hair regulations either.
The distinctive headdresses worn by women in Amish communities are known as prayer coverings, or caps. Though it’s sometimes difficult to tell, these bonnet type hats are almost always covering up long, flowing manes, as Amish women are largely forbidden from cutting their hair. This tradition goes back to the New Testament, specifically writings of the Apostle Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians, which reads, every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head.
It is the same as having her head shaved. The Amish have interpreted this as forbidding all manner of hair grooming among women. In addition to not cutting their hair, Amish ladies also don’t shave their legs or armpits. Incidentally, neither do the men. However, the prayer bonnets are not an around the clock thing.
They’re mostly for religious services and other aspects of public life. When they’re unwinding at home with the family or going to sleep for the night, Amish women can leave their heads uncovered.
As you may expect, dating and courtship in Amish communities have a unique set of rules and regulations all of their own. Some Amish still practice a tradition known as bundling that dates all the way back to the story of Ruth and Boaz in the Old Testament. In the story, Ruth was a widow who spent the night in a grain storage room with Boaz, a wealthy landowner, without ever touching him.
Modern bundling, also known as bed courting, involves a couple sharing the same bed and sleeping quarters without engaging in any sexual activity. Sometimes the couple is even sewn into a sack tightly together. Or placed in a bed with a large plank between them to guarantee that no hanky panky can take place.
They have way fewer rules to follow than adults because unbaptized kids aren’t yet full members of their parents church. But life is still different for kids growing up Amish than their non Amish counterparts. Most notably, formal Amish classroom education ends with the eighth grade. Once they’ve mastered basic reading, writing, and arithmetic, as well as the Pennsylvania Dutch language, Amish kids wrap up their schoolwork and get ready to help their family out with traditional jobs like crafting or farming.
This has brought the Amish community into conflict with the U. S. government, which mandates that all kids under the age of 16 go to school every day. The 1972 Supreme Court case of Wisconsin v. Yoder Cited with the Amish on this debate, finding that forcing Amish kids to attend school until the age of 16 violated their First Amendment rights.
Amish kids are only allowed to have simple toys, such as plain dolls without faces, which shows that simple can sometimes be terrifying. This is because the Amish have extended the Book of Deuteronomy’s rule against the creation of any graven images to extend to all fake representations of the real people.
Even giving a doll a human face could be considered ungodly. There are also concerns that conventional fashion dolls might make kids overly fixated on their physical appearance, or even vain, which is expressly forbidden by the Amish faith. Faceless dolls are all the same, and thus reinforce the Amish ideal of an entirely egalitarian community, where no one is elevated above anyone else.
And what child doesn’t want a doll that looks like a Dick Tracy villain? In modern times, faceless Amish dolls have become a culturally distinctive product. And many visitors to Amish country want to take home their own as keepsakes. So you can buy one of your own, if you like. Those horses and buggies don’t pay for themselves, you know.
So what do you think? Would you ever consider living without modern conveniences?
