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Japanese Yes, but most Amish do not take power from the public grid. Old Order and New Order Amish forbid connecting a home to utility lines, yet many of them use batteries, diesel engines, compressed air, hydraulic power and solar panels. Each church district sets its own rules, so practice varies from one settlement to the next.
Do the Amish think electricity is sinful?
No. The Amish do not regard technology as evil in itself, according to the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College. What they fear is technology left untamed, which they believe would wear away their traditions and draw them into the surrounding society. Television, radio and personal computers are refused outright. Most other tools are judged by what they would do to family and church life.
The limits come from the teaching that the church should stand apart from the world. The Amish ground that teaching in Scripture, in passages such as Romans 12:2, “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,” and 2 Corinthians 6:14, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.” Each church district applies the principle through its Ordnung, a set of mostly unwritten rules that members promise to keep when they are baptized.
Why do the Amish refuse grid electricity?
As power lines reached the countryside in the 1920s and 1930s, Amish communities decided, one by one, not to connect. Donald Kraybill, Karen Johnson-Weiner and Steven Nolt give the reasons in their book The Amish (2013). A wire from the utility company, like a telephone line, tied the home directly to the outside world. Early electricity also served households more than farms, so church leaders saw little need for it and feared that appliances would follow. Radio in the 1920s showed how electricity could carry outside ideas into the house, and television in the 1950s confirmed the fear. In Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the Amish had rejected public power by 1920, partly to set themselves apart from the Peachey church, a more liberal Amish group that had adopted it.
An Amish writer quoted in the same book said that unlimited electric current puts “a world of power and convenience at our fingertips” that is not good for them, and that electric lights and central heat scatter a family through the house in the evening. Battery power is different in Amish eyes: it is local, it can be controlled, and it does not depend on the outside world. That is why the line between a battery and a utility wire matters so much in Amish practice.
What power do the Amish use instead?
Batteries came first. The Amish were using 12-volt batteries before utility current reached them, and even the most traditional churches allow battery flashlights. Many affiliations permit batteries for small lights, fans, shavers and toys in the home and for the lights on their buggies. In some settlements batteries also run calculators, cash registers, copy machines and typewriters, and in more lenient communities an inverter turns battery current into household current for light bulbs, coffeemakers and word processors.
Gas does much of the work that electricity does elsewhere. Many Amish homes are lit by propane or natural-gas lamps and keep food cold in gas refrigerators. Some more conservative households still use oil lamps and iceboxes.
Solar power has spread since the 1980s, when some Amish farmers began using solar chargers for electric cattle fences. Panels on carriage sheds later charged buggy batteries, and in many communities they now charge batteries for reading lamps, fans, sewing machines and water pumps. Kraybill and his co-authors call this tapping into “God’s Grid.” Most Amish solar systems are small, and some elders fear that a system large enough to power a whole house would open the way to television and the internet.
Can the Amish use power tools?
Yes, within the limits each church sets. Battery-powered tools, which manufacturers began producing in large numbers late in the 20th century, fit the old rules, and progressive groups welcomed them. In the shops of more progressive groups, a diesel engine drives an air compressor or a hydraulic pump, and mechanics replace the electric motors on saws, sanders and metal cutters with air or oil motors. This is often called “Amish electricity.” Compressed air also pumps water, runs sewing machines and powers wringer washers in some homes. Conservative groups permit only the older method, in which an engine turns a shaft and belts that drive the machines.
Rules are usually looser at work than at home. Amish who rent market stands, for example, may use the electricity that comes with the stand, since they do not own the building.
Do all Amish groups follow the same rules?
No. Four groups carry the Amish name, and they divide on this question. The Old Order and New Order Amish drive buggies and do not use utility electricity; the Beachy Amish and the Amish Mennonites drive cars and do. Within the buggy-driving groups, New Order churches permit more technology than Old Order churches, and the details differ by affiliation and district. The most conservative affiliations, such as the Swartzentruber Amish, light their carriages with kerosene lanterns rather than batteries. Women in one affiliation may use only treadle sewing machines, while women in another may run theirs on batteries. Some churches give a family that buys a house from non-Amish owners six months to a year before the power must be disconnected.
Do Mennonites use electricity?
Most do. Mennonites and Amish share Anabaptist roots but have been separate churches since 1693, and most Mennonites drive cars and use modern technology. Even the more conservative Mennonite groups that wear plain dress usually drive cars, keep telephones at home and take power from public lines. The exceptions are among the Old Order Mennonites, who travel by horse and buggy. The largest of these, the Groffdale Conference, often called the Wenger Mennonites, has electricity and telephones in its homes but restricts computers, television and radio. The Stauffer Mennonites have neither telephones nor electricity in their homes, and the Original Virginia Conference does not use utility power.
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