Amish Culture

The Amish immigrated to America in two waves. The first wave was between 1736-1770 when about five hundred Amish landed at the port of Philadelphia and settled in southeastern Pennsylvania counties, including Lancaster. A vital part of Amish culture, a German dialect called Pennsylvania Dutch, helped the Amish settlers in America to communicate with other Germanic speaking communities in the country. The second, larger wave of Amish immigrants arrived in America roughly between 1815-1860. During these years about three thousand Amish fled to America seeking religious freedom and economic opportunity. The prices of land were higher in the east, so fewer of the second wave settled in Pennsylvania and more headed for the west. By 1865 several
groups of Amish ministers in Ohio realized they wanted to keep the old practices (Old Order) that maintained Amish identity. Slowly, a distinction of Old Order Amish erupted that aimed to be identified by plainness, simplicity, small-scale farming, and skepticism of the emerging consumer culture (Kraybill, Johnson-Weiner, & Nolt, 2013, p.
38-43).
This label of Old Order Amish distinguished the congregations that resisted technology more conservatively from the New Order, or more progress-minded Amish. The modern differences we can see between Old and New Order Amish affiliations in America include the ownership of cars, tractors, televisions, telephones, and worshiping in churches. The Amish culture, like all others is dynamic.
“However, the religious ritual patterns of the Amish have remained largely untouched by modernity. The Amish maintain a religious symbolism which embodies a social reality, a way of life that teaches how people should live and what they should believe in” (Hostetler, 1964, p. 19). The moral and social conscious of the Amish culture is guided by two things: Scripture (the Bible) and the Ordnung. The Ordnung, or order in German, provides guidance on the issues that Scripture does not clearly or directly address. The Ordnung is an oral, rather than written, guide that is passed down through enculturation. It applies biblical principles to everyday issues and regulates private, public, and ceremonial life (Kraybill et al. 2013, p.118). The Ordnung is learned implicitly and explicitly. The implicit layer of the Ordnung is the unspoken one that children learn from watching their parents’ behavior, and is essentially “common sense.” Examples include dress standards, not wearing jewelry, growing beards as a sign of marriage, travelling by horse, worshiping in the home, etc. On the other hand, the explicit layer of the Ordnung is more obvious and often talked about in Amish life, it entails emergent issues such as the selective use of technology and how it affects the community. “The Amish will accommodate to changes that do not threaten religious harmony or community cohesion and resist those that do” (Brubaker,
2003).