In the last few decades, tourists have discovered the Amish. Each year, people travel to places like Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, hoping to catch a glimpse of Amish life. From the buggies and the plows, to the simply dressed people, the Amish have become fascinating to the non-Amish. The Amish population is around 140,000 and continues to grow. But who are the Amish and what makes their unique way of life so interesting, and why does the population continue to flourish? What advantages have the Amish found to rejecting traditional American culture, and keeping life so simple? These questions can begin to be answered by studying the Amish history, and how their values, customs and traditions tie into their religion.
             In the year 1517, a Catholic monk in Germany named Martin Luther, advocated church reform and new doctrines. Several German princes supported him, but government and religion still operated together. A group of Christians in Zurich, Switzerland, believed government and religion should be completely separate. They also believed that Christians should model themselves after the Beatitudes that Jesus of Nazareth discussed in his Sermon on the Mount, which discusses being "peacemakers" and "clean of heart". Another belief was that church members should be baptized as adults, when they have a true commitment to Christianity. So this small group re-baptized each other. This earned them the name "Anabaptists", which started out as a nickname meaning "re-baptizer" (Inge, 2000). Within a few decades, the Anabaptists in northern Europe became known as the Mennonites, named after the Roman Catholic priest Menno Simons. By the late 1600's, the Anabaptists still maintained their goal of remaining separate from the world, but Jakob Ammann, a Swiss church elder, thought the discipline was not strict enough. His actions and leadership formed a new church. These members were...