by blondie 13 Replies latest jw friends
Sometimes I wonder, is there a religion with worse doctrines. Yes and no, while the rules about clothing and material possessions is more strict, much is very similar to the WTS.
http://www.amishabuse.com/ordnung.htm
The Ordnung is not about scripture out of the New Testament or the salvation of your soul, but it is about control. This is what the Swartzenruber Amish Religion is based on. Any infraction of these rules is seriously punished.
Das ist richtig Blondie!
Amish religion is just as controlling as the JW's, if not more so. It looks like the Swartzenrubers may me just exactly what the Governing Body aspires to. Legalism in the extreme.
Forscher
Very interesting information. Parallel in a lot of ways to JW religion because of the org. telling you what you can do and can't do down to the minuteness.
I'd like to know how the women kept up their socks (string, buttons?) so they wouldn't fall down past their ankles. Loose, baggy underwear? That must feel great. And no p.j.s for the menfolk? Yep. RULE AFTER RULE.............................
Juni
But the Amish make some beautiful things.
I found this quite fascinating, Blondie. I knew there were Amish and Mennonites, but really never knew there were divisions even between those sects!
We have a LOT of these folks (I'm not sure which one they belong to) around here, and see them mostly in Walmart and the P&C grocery chain right next to it. I have no idea where they come from or where they live, or what type of community they are in, if any.
They do have the buggies with the triangle on the back, and the women and children most often wear white sneakers with the velcro closings. I have yet to see (in my 32 years living here) ONE of these men in a store. It's funny, I have no idea where they go when the women and kiddies are shopping!
I have an adventurous spirit and I would love to follow one of the buggies to see where they live! Unfortunately I cannot drive, and asking someone to sit and wait in the Walmart parking lot to follow someone driving a buggy....is a bit more than I can do!
I may never know anything more about our many Amish/Mennonite neighbors.
Annie
Blondie,
Very interesting, enjoyed reading about this group. I used to live within a couple hours of an Amish community and bought a shed from them. They do a great job in building things, but what became apprarent is that they know how to circumnavigate their own rules. Seems silly to have so many rules if all your going to do is try to get around them.
OC
Only slightly off topic, but has anyone seen or heard about this documentary? Doesn't sound like the Swartzentruber branch would have it. The practice that is, not the DVD.
Devil's Playground
This Sundance Festival sensation has attracted attention because of its jarring images of Amish kids immersed in debauchery: plain-dressed girls in white bonnets slugging back beers and flicking ashes from their cigarettes, boys passing out in the back of pickups after all-night parties, even Amish teens in bed together. But like a good drama, it's the characters themselves and their heartbreaking dilemma that linger in the mind. In the Amish vernacular, "Devil's Playground" refers to the "English" or outside world. The protected teens are suddenly thrust into this world upon their 16th birthday as they begin "Rumspringa," a period during which they decide whether to join the church as adults. Crystallizing this predicament is the 73-minute documentary's most compelling figure, 18-year-old Faron, a preacher's son fighting drug addiction. His earnest intent to return to the church and astonishing articulateness makes his misadventures in the drug underworld and penal system undeniably poignant.
CD
We live close to Amish. I shop at an Amish store. They are like everyone else, in that some of them really believe and follow it and feel it in their hearts, and others are just stuck in the community, so they become legalistic etc...
**side note: not long ago there was a local scandal involving a divorce between an Amish couple...seems he was driving her buggy...sorry...
The Amish will survive whereas the Watchtower will not because they have built up an infrastructure for their subculture
while the Watchtower tears down what little infrastructure of support exists for the friends.
No more food service at assemblies, no subscriptions, reduced Awakes, and now downsizing at Bethel. Imagine playing
a game of "Jenga" in which you remove blocks, one at a time, until the structure collapses.
Who's going to still be around in ten or twenty years? Not the organization!
metatron
Metatron, you didn't read those websites very carefully. Don't confuse the Swartzentruber Armish with the other 4 segments. The Swartzenruber consider the other Amish of the Devil.
Leaving this group that truly isolates people from going to any school with the "English" children is much different from the WTS discouraging college.
I invite you to look at this man's endeavor to get others out of the Swartzenruber Amish.
This group most likely are not the Amish many of you are familiar with.
Blondie
