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The Ordnung is a set of behavioral rules, and all members within a church agree to have their lives ordered by that code. Each person is expected to live simple lives devoted to God, to family, and to the community, based upon their understanding of God's laws. [3] To the Amish, the Ordnung provides a strong sense of group identity.
Amish lifestyle is dictated by the Ordnung (German, meaning: order), which differs slightly from community to community, and, within a community, from district to district (there are over 25 different Amish, Mennonite, and Brethren church groups in Lancaster County). [8] What is acceptable in one community may not be acceptable in another.
The meeting where the Ordnung is discussed is called Ordnungsgemeine in Standard German and Ordningsgmee in Pennsylvania Dutch. The Ordnung includes such matters as dress, permissible uses of technology, religious duties, and rules regarding interaction with outsiders. In these meetings, women also vote in questions concerning the Ordnung. [54]
New Order Amish split from the Old Order Amish in the 1960s for a variety of reasons, which included a desire for "clean" youth courting standards, meaning they do not condone tobacco, alcohol, or the practice of bundling, or non-sexually lying in bed together, during courtship. [21]
The Amish's willingness to submit to the "Will of God", expressed through group norms, is at odds with the individualism so central to the wider American culture. The Amish anti-individualist orientation is the motive for rejecting labor-saving technologies that might make one less dependent on the community.
The Amish are described by some historians as an ethnoreligious group, meaning their identity is tied to both their religion and their common culture and ancestry.
Charles Hurst and David McConnell: An Amish Paradox: Diversity and Change in the World's Largest Amish Community, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore MD 2010 ISBN 9780801893988; Joe Mackall: Plain Secrets: An Outsider among the Amish, Boston, Mass. 2007. ISBN 9780807010648 (Account of a neighbor and friend to a Swartzentruber family)
As with other Amish, technological restrictions include prohibitions on the internet, television, and radio. All New Order Amish districts still preserve the traditional Amish dress, although there is a trend towards slimmer brimmed hats and trimmed beards among the men. As for the New Order women, they typically have brighter colors all around.