The Amish are an Anabaptist tradition known for plain living; Old Order communities use horse-drawn buggies and worship largely in German.
Anabaptist & Baptist1693grew out of Mennonite
Jakob Ammann and other Swiss Anabaptists separated from fellow Mennonites in 1693 over church discipline and related practices. Amish families settled in Pennsylvania from the eighteenth century. The tradition includes different affiliations; the familiar horse-and-buggy pattern does not describe every group bearing the Amish name. See the profile for the dated Young Center estimate and its scope.
The Amish are an Anabaptist tradition that separated from the Swiss Mennonites in 1693. Old Order communities are known for plain dress, horse-and-buggy transportation and worship in homes, though practices and language use vary among Amish groups 1,3.
The division was about discipline. Jakob Ammann, a Swiss Mennonite elder, held that the ban must include avoidance, that a member under discipline should be shunned socially and not only excluded from communion, and that footwashing and plain dress should be required; the elders who disagreed with him would not go that far 5,4. The parting was sharp, Ammann excommunicated those who opposed him, and both sides later regretted how it was done, but the division held and his followers took his name 5,4.
Persecution and poverty pushed them west. Amish families began arriving in Pennsylvania in the 1730s settled in Lancaster County and later in Ohio, Indiana and beyond, and the European Amish congregations eventually merged back into the Mennonites, while most Amish today live in the United States and Canada; the Young Center also records small settlements in Bolivia and Mexico 25,1. What holds a community together is the Ordnung, the understanding each church district reaches about how its members will live, reviewed twice a year before communion and agreed by the baptised members themselves 6,1,5. It is mostly unwritten, it differs from district to district, and it is why Amish groups vary so much in what they permit.
The Amish hold the Anabaptist faith: baptism for adults who choose it, nonresistance, and a church separate from the state. What is distinctive is Gelassenheit, yielding, the conviction that a Christian gives up self-will for God and for the community.
Baptism comes in the late teens or early twenties, and it is a decision to live under the Ordnung for life, which is why it is taken so seriously and why breaking those vows carries the ban 1,5,2. Humility is the governing virtue, and pride the governing danger: plain dress, the refusal to be photographed and the absence of decoration all follow from it, as does the discomfort with anything that sets an individual above the group 1,15,5.
Separation from the world is a working principle rather than a total withdrawal. Amish communities do not connect to the public electrical grid, do not own cars and do not send children to school past the eighth grade, but they trade with their neighbours, hire drivers, use telephones outside the house and, in many districts, use technology that serves the family or the farm without bringing the world inside it 1,5,6. Each district decides where those lines fall, and groups range from the plainest, such as the Swartzentruber Amish, to Beachy Amish congregations that drive cars and use electricity 13,12,5.
The ban is the hardest of these to explain from outside. A baptised member who breaks their vows and will not confess is put out of fellowship and then avoided, which in the plainer groups means not eating at the same table as one's own child or parent 1,3,6. The Amish hold it to be the discipline that keeps the church what it is; those who have left describe it as the price of leaving. Both accounts come from people who have lived it 1,5.
Worship and practice
Worship is in homes, not churches, every other Sunday, for about three hours, in High German, with a bench wagon that moves from farm to farm. Singing is slow and unaccompanied, from a hymnbook first printed in 1564.
The Ausbund, whose oldest hymns were written by imprisoned Anabaptists in the 1530s and 1540s, is sung without instruments and at a tempo that can take fifteen minutes for a single hymn 14,5. Men and women sit separately, the sermon is preached by a lay minister chosen from within the district, usually by lot, and ministers are generally unpaid and do not receive formal seminary training 1,5. Communion is twice a year and is preceded by a members' meeting at which the district must be at peace with itself, and footwashing follows it 1,5,2. Between services the day is for visiting, and a district is small enough, twenty-five to forty families, that everyone fits in a farmhouse 1,6.
Scripture and Bible translations
The Amish read Luther's German Bible and hear Scripture and preaching in High German, while speaking Pennsylvania Dutch at home and English with outsiders. Three languages, each with its own place.
Pennsylvania Dutch is a spoken dialect descended from German that children learn first and use at home and in the community; High German is the language of Scripture, hymns and preaching, learned at school and in worship; English is learned at school and used with everyone else 11,1,5. Amish children attend one-room schools run by the community, taught by young unmarried women who have themselves finished eighth grade, and formal schooling ends there, which the United States Supreme Court upheld in 1972 in a case brought by Amish and conservative Mennonite parents 9,1,5. Read here: the Lutherbibel of 1912, closest to the German the Amish hear read aloud, the King James Version often kept beside it, and the Berean Standard Bible. The versions guide sets out what these churches read.
In church
The Amish use Luther's German Bible, with the King James Version used for English reading. Practices among Mennonite and Brethren congregations are diverse, and no single English translation represents the whole Anabaptist tradition.
These passages illustrate themes discussed in this profile; they are not a survey of members' favorite verses. Each is quoted from the King James (Authorized) Version and links to its chapter. You can explore the text for study or personal reflection; memorization is optional.
Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.
Be clothed with humility. The nearest thing in Scripture to Gelassenheit, the yielding that orders everything else in Amish life.
For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
If ye forgive men their trespasses. Read at Nickel Mines in 2006, when Amish families went to the killer's widow within a day.
In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;
Modest apparel. Plain dress is not a costume but obedience to a verse, and each district decides what obedience looks like.
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord. Fourteen words that explain the absence of photographs, ornament and personal ambition.
People
Jakob Ammannabout 1644 to about 1730 Swiss Mennonite elder whose insistence on shunning with avoidance divided the church in 1693; the Amish carry his name, and little else about him is known for certain.4
Jacob Hochstetlerabout 1704 to 1776 Pennsylvania settler whose family was attacked in 1757; he forbade his sons to fire on the attackers, and two of them and his wife were killed. The story is told among the Amish as what nonresistance means.5
Jonas Yodertwentieth century One of three Amish fathers fined for keeping their children out of school after the eighth grade; their case reached the Supreme Court in 1972 and settled the question for Amish schooling.9
Moses Beachy1874 to 1946 Bishop in Pennsylvania who declined to shun members who left for a related church, and whose stand produced the Beachy Amish, who now drive cars and use electricity.12
Marie Robertstwenty-first century Widow of the man who killed five Amish girls at Nickel Mines in 2006; Amish families visited her within a day, attended her husband's burial, and gave to a fund for her children.10
Donald Kraybillborn 1945 Sociologist at Elizabethtown College whose books and census work have contributed substantially to research on Amish population and community life.1
Today
The Young Center's 2026 estimate lists 414,545 Amish in the United States and 6,655 in Canada: 421,200 in total, across 3,285 church districts and 726 settlements. It separately lists 140 people in Bolivia and Mexico. These estimates include adults and children in horse-and-buggy groups, not car-driving groups such as the Beachy Amish 2.
The counts come from the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College, which tracks settlements and districts annually and is the standard source 1,2. Growth is from large families and a high rate of young people choosing baptism rather than leaving, not from converts, who are very rare 1,5. Settlements have spread well beyond the traditional states as land prices rose, into New York, Missouri, Kentucky and Ontario 2,5. Amish farming has shifted too: many families now run workshops, sell produce or build furniture because farmland has become too expensive to divide among sons 1,5.
Two facts of Amish life follow from how the community is built. Old Order Amish schooling generally ends after eighth grade. In Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), the US Supreme Court upheld the particular families’ religious objection to compulsory high-school attendance; this was not a ruling on every form of Amish education 9,1. And because the population descends from a few hundred eighteenth-century families, certain genetic disorders are far more common than elsewhere, which the Amish have met by working with a clinic founded for their children rather than by leaving the community 7,1.
Words to know
ordinance
In Baptist and many other free churches, the word used for baptism and the Lord’ Supper: acts Christ commanded his people to keep, understood as obedience and remembrance. Churches that call them sacraments understand them as means through which God gives grace.
excommunication
Being formally cut off from a church, so that one may no longer receive its sacraments. Luther was excommunicated in 1521.
congregational government
Church government in which the members of each local congregation decide their own affairs, including choosing their own minister, with no bishop or presbytery above them. Congregations may join associations for fellowship and shared work, but those bodies advise rather than rule.
confession
In the Reformation churches, a written statement of what a church believes, such as the Augsburg Confession. In Catholic and Orthodox use, also the sacrament of telling one's sins to a priest.
covenant
A solemn agreement that binds two parties. In the Bible, God's covenant with Israel at Sinai, and later covenants, shape the whole story.
martyr
Someone killed for refusing to give up their faith. The word means witness. The early Church honoured its martyrs and kept the days of their deaths.
creed
A short statement of belief said together in worship. The Nicene Creed is shared by nearly every Christian tradition.
Reformation
The movement that began with Martin Luther in 1517 to reform the Western Church, and that produced the Protestant churches.
Questions people ask
What is the Ordnung?
The understanding each church district holds about how its members will live: dress, technology, transport, work. It is mostly unwritten, is reviewed twice a year before communion and agreed by the baptised members, and differs from district to district, which is why Amish practice varies so much 6,1,5.
Why no electricity or cars?
The objection is not to the technology in itself but to what it connects a household to. Connecting to the public grid ties the home to the outside world; owning a car makes it easy to leave the community behind. Many districts allow batteries, diesel generators, telephones outside the house and hired drivers, and each district decides 1,6,5.
What is rumspringa?
The period in the late teens, before baptism, when young people go out with their peers and courtship begins. Supervision loosens, and in some communities that includes a season of trying things the Ordnung forbids. It ends with the decision whether to be baptised, and most do; the popular picture of it is much wilder than the reality in most settlements 8,1,5.
Do the Amish shun people who leave?
They shun baptised members who break their vows and will not confess. Someone who leaves before baptism is not under the ban, though relationships change. In the plainer groups avoidance is thorough and lifelong, and it divides families; the church holds that it is what makes the vows mean anything 1,5,6.
What happened at Nickel Mines?
In 2006 a man took an Amish one-room schoolhouse in Pennsylvania hostage and shot ten girls, killing five, then himself. Amish families went to his widow and parents within a day, attended his burial and gave to a fund for his children. The forgiveness was widely reported and reflects the families' commitment to forgiveness 10,5.
Sources
Numbered references link the account above to its sources. These include the tradition's own documents and outside reference works. The review status below distinguishes source checking from completed member and scholarly review.
BibleVerse. “Amish: where they came from, what they hold, and the Bible they read.” bibleverse.site, version 2026-09-09, https://bibleverse.site/denominations/amish/
Awaiting review by a member of the tradition. First published 2026-09-07; last changed 2026-09-09. Years before the common era are written BC, and later years plainly, as the site's Christian pages do.
Found something wrong? Send it through the contact page. A correction checked against two sources is made within a week and logged in this page's change history.
Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.
