Amish vs Mennonite: Same Anabaptist Roots, Different Ways of Living

Summary

The Amish and Mennonites both descend from the Anabaptists, who began baptizing adults in Switzerland in 1525; the Amish formed a separate church under Jakob Ammann in 1693, chiefly over his call to shun excommunicated members.
Both churches baptize only believers who ask for it and hold to nonresistance, the refusal to meet violence with violence, grounded in Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:39 and 5:44.
Most Amish groups forbid owning cars, electricity from public power lines, and televisions, radios and computers, and they worship in members’ homes every other Sunday; Mennonites worship in meetinghouses, and many drive cars and use modern technology.
Old Order Mennonites dress plainly and some drive horses and buggies, but the largest such group, the Groffdale Conference, allows telephones and electricity in homes.
The Amish have about 185,000 baptized members (421,200 people with children) in North America, while Mennonite World Conference’s churches count close to 950,000 baptized members in 60 countries, 84 percent of them in Africa, Asia or Latin America.
Yoder is both an Amish and a Mennonite name, and an Amish wedding requires both partners to be baptized members of the Amish church, so a Mennonite must join it or the Amish partner must leave.

Denominations ComparedSee all 117 articles in this series

Amish and Mennonites are Anabaptist cousins, separate churches since 1693. Both baptize only believers old enough to ask for it and refuse to fight in war. The Amish keep horses and buggies, take no power from public lines and worship in homes. Apart from a small Old Order minority, Mennonites use modern technology and worship in meetinghouses and churches.

	Amish	Mennonites
Began	1693, when Jakob Ammann’s followers separated in Switzerland and Alsace	With the Anabaptists of 1525; named for Menno Simons, who joined them in 1536
Size	About 185,000 baptized members (2025 estimate); 421,200 people with children (2026)	Close to 950,000 baptized members in Mennonite World Conference’s churches (2026)
Where	33 US states and three Canadian provinces; almost 60 percent in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana	60 countries; 84 percent of members in Africa, Asia or Latin America
Baptism	Adults, usually between 18 and 22	Believers who ask for it on their own confession of faith
War	Conscientious objectors; members may not join the military	Nonresistance; Mennonite Church USA’s confession rules out military service
Worship	In members’ homes, every other Sunday	In meetinghouses and church buildings
Transport	Horse and buggy; hired drivers for long trips	Cars, except in the horse-and-buggy Old Order groups
Electricity	None from public power lines; batteries and some solar	Allowed in all but the strictest Old Order groups
Language	Pennsylvania German at home and church, English at school	The language of each country; Old Orders also speak Pennsylvania German
Leaders	Unpaid laymen chosen by lot	Laymen in most plain groups; ordained ministers, women included, in Mennonite Church USA

Where the Amish and Mennonites differ

Each answer is quoted from the church’s own documents or from one of our articles.

Authority

Amish

The Amish endorse basic Christian beliefs, but their spirituality has been shaped by their interpretation of the Bible as well as several written sources.

From Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, Amish Studies: Beliefs

Mennonite

We acknowledge the Scripture as the authoritative source and standard for preaching and teaching about faith and life, for distinguishing truth from error, for discerning between good and evil, and for guiding prayer and worship.

From Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective, article 4

Salvation

Amish

we must go to God with an upright heart, and in perfect faith, and believe in Jesus Christ, as the Scripture says, and testifies of Him; through which faith we obtain forgiveness of sins, are sanctified, justified, and made children of God

From Dordrecht Confession of Faith (1632), article VI

Mennonite

We place our faith in God that, by the same power that raised Christ from the dead, we may be saved from sin to follow Christ in this life and to know the fullness of salvation in the age to come.

From Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective, article 8

Baptism

Amish

Baptism shall be given to all those who have learned repentance and amendment of life, and who believe truly that their sins are taken away by Christ,

From Schleitheim Articles (1527), article I

Mennonite

Baptism is for those who are of the age of accountability and who freely request baptism on the basis of their response to Jesus Christ in faith.

From Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective, article 11

Communion

Amish

We also confess and observe the breaking of bread, or Supper, as the Lord Christ Jesus before His suffering instituted it with bread and wine, and observed and ate with His apostles, commanding them to observe it in remembrance of Him;

From Dordrecht Confession of Faith (1632), article X

Mennonite

We believe that the Lord’s Supper is a sign by which the church thankfully remembers the new covenant which Jesus established by his death. In this communion meal, the members of the church renew our covenant with God and with each other.

From Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective, article 12

Leadership

Amish

No central organization or national church authority holds the subgroups together. Most districts in an affiliation have similar practices, but even so the ultimate authority for Amish life and practice lies in the local district.

From Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, Amish Studies: Organization

Mennonite

We believe Scripture teaches that God has delegated leadership in the church to men. At the time of ministerial ordinations, if there is more than one qualifying brother we believe the use of the lot is a biblical means of finding God's choice.

From Keystone Mennonite Fellowship, 1998 supplement to the Mennonite Confession of Faith (1963)

Who may be ordained

Amish

Ordained officials, literally called “servants” in the Pennsylvania German dialect, normally serve for life. None has formal theological training—living a consistent Amish way of life is their most important credential. Although they may receive occasional gifts of food, the leaders are not paid for their church work and must support themselves by other occupations.

From Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, Amish Studies: Leadership

Mennonite

From Keystone Mennonite Fellowship, 1998 supplement to the Mennonite Confession of Faith (1963)

Women ministers

Amish

Each church district has its own leaders—always men. Typically, the leaders include a bishop (servant with full powers), two or three ministers (servants of the book), and a deacon (servant to the poor).

From Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, Amish Studies: Leadership

Mennonite

The church calls, trains, and appoints gifted men and women to a variety of leadership ministries on its behalf. These may include such offices as pastor, deacon, and elder as well as evangelists, missionaries, teachers, conference ministers, and overseers.

From Mennonite Church USA, Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective, article 15

Head coverings

Amish

Women are expected to wear a head covering and, usually, a three-piece dress that includes a cape and an apron.

From Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, Amish Studies: Regulations

Mennonite

The New Testament symbols of man's headship are to be his short hair and uncovered head while praying or prophesying, and the symbols of woman's role are her long hair and her veiled head.

From Mennonite Confession of Faith (1963), article 14, as printed by Keystone Mennonite Fellowship

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One movement, split over discipline in 1693

Both churches start with the Anabaptists, reformers who baptized one another as adults in Switzerland in 1525. They had already been baptized as infants, so their opponents called them rebaptizers, which is what “Anabaptist” means. Catholic and Protestant authorities alike saw a church that stood apart from the state as a threat, and during the movement’s first century as many as 2,500 Anabaptists were executed.

The name Mennonite is the older of the two. It comes from Menno Simons, a Dutch Catholic priest who joined the Anabaptists in 1536 and became a prolific writer and leader; in time many of his followers were called by his name. The Amish name came about 160 years later. Jakob Ammann, a Swiss Anabaptist leader who had moved to Alsace, proposed in 1693 that his churches hold communion twice a year instead of once, wash one another’s feet at communion, stop trimming their beards and give up fashionable dress. He also insisted that the church shun members it had excommunicated. That demand split him from the other Anabaptists in Switzerland and Alsace, and his followers became the Amish. The longer story of how the Amish and Mennonites parted ways has its own article.

So when people ask which came first, the answer is the Mennonites, or more exactly the Anabaptist fellowship the Amish left. Both groups later crossed to North America in waves during the 1700s and 1800s and often settled in the same areas of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana.

The Amish and Mennonites still hold three Anabaptist convictions in common. The first is that baptism belongs to believers who choose it. Mennonite World Conference, which represents the majority of churches in the Anabaptist family, describes the church as people whom God’s Spirit calls to “receive baptism upon confession of faith, and follow Christ in life.” Amish young people make that choice between about 18 and 22, after several weeks of instruction, and the vow binds them to the church for life.

The second is nonresistance, the refusal to meet violence with violence. Both churches ground it in the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says, “Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also,” and, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:39, 44). The Dordrecht Confession of 1632, which Amish baptismal candidates still study, says Christ commanded his followers “to render to no one evil for evil.” Mennonite Church USA’s confession of faith puts it plainly: “we do not prepare for war, or participate in war or military service.”

The third is a church that shares what it has. The Amish decline Social Security and commercial insurance because they expect members to help one another through hard times and disaster, and Mennonite World Conference’s Shared Convictions commit its churches to “share our possessions with those in need.” Amish and Mennonites sometimes cooperate in service through Mennonite Central Committee, an international relief agency, and Mennonite Disaster Service, which helps people recover from hurricanes, floods and tornadoes, though they generally live as separate communities.

Amish and Mennonites confess that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary, and their confessions say nothing more about her than the Gospels’ account of his birth. The Dordrecht Confession teaches that Christ “was conceived in the virgin Mary, who was espoused to a man named Joseph, of the house of David,” and that “she brought Him forth as her first-born son, at Bethlehem.” On how the Word became flesh it goes no further than Scripture: “we content ourselves with the statement pertaining to this matter which the worthy evangelists have left us.” Mennonite Church USA’s confession gives her a single line, saying that Jesus “was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.”

Cars, power lines and telephones

The most visible gap between the two churches is technology. The Amish do not treat machines as sinful in themselves. Their worry is what an unchecked machine does to a close-knit church, and the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College puts their view of the automobile in one line: “cars would pull the community apart, eroding local ties.” In most Amish groups a member may not own a car, a television, a radio or a computer, or hook a house to the public power grid. Riding in a hired car is allowed, and in some settlements battery power, sometimes charged by solar panels, runs buggy lights, fans and shop cash registers.

North American Mennonites, taken as a whole, live much closer to the mainstream, and more of them live in towns and cities. The Young Center notes that many own cars, dress like their neighbors, go on to college and use current technology. Plain-dressing conservative Mennonites draw their lines in a different place from the Amish: they drive, have home telephones and are on the power grid. The rules vary so much from group to group that the Young Center warns it is “risky” to generalize about the Amish at all, and Mennonite practice ranges wider still.

Worship in a farmhouse or a meetinghouse

The Amish have no church buildings. Every other Sunday, the 20 to 40 households of a church district meet in one member’s house, basement, barn or shop, and the service moves from home to home through the year. There are no altars, organs, choirs or pulpits. The congregation sings slow German hymns from the Ausbund, many written by imprisoned Anabaptists in the 1500s, without instruments. Ministers preach without notes in Pennsylvania German: an opening sermon of about thirty minutes, then a main sermon of an hour or more. Communion comes twice a year, in autumn and spring, with foot washing, as Ammann asked.

Mennonites gather in meetinghouses. In most plain groups these are simple buildings without steeples, stained glass or ornate furnishings, and the singing is unaccompanied. Leadership differs as well. Amish leaders are laymen chosen from the congregation by lot, serve for life without pay and have no seminary training. Most plain groups, Mennonite ones included, also choose laymen and do not ordain women. Other Mennonites have ordained women for more than a century: Mennonite Church USA’s history timeline records Ann Jemima Allebach, ordained at First Mennonite Church in Philadelphia in 1911, as the first Mennonite woman in North America ordained a minister, and the denomination ordains women today.

Old Order Mennonites, the Mennonites who look Amish

Much of the confusion comes from the Old Order Mennonites. The earliest of them, the Stauffer Mennonites, formed in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1845 and still keep phones and electricity out of their homes. Most of the others broke away from the main Mennonite Church in the United States and Canada between 1872 and 1901, when leaders such as Jacob Wisler in Indiana and Jonas H. Martin in Pennsylvania refused newer practices such as Sunday schools and revival meetings. The most conservative of their descendants still drive horses and buggies. These horse-and-buggy groups dress plainly, end school at eighth grade and, except in Virginia, speak Pennsylvania German as their first language.

Yet they are not Amish. The largest horse-and-buggy group, the Groffdale Conference of Lancaster County, counted about 24,000 people in its 2017 and 2018 directories, and it allows telephones and electricity in homes, which the Amish refuse. Some Old Order bodies permit cars, and their members have traditionally painted the chrome bumpers black. Old Order Mennonites worship in meetinghouses, not homes.

The labels cross in the other direction too. Four groups carry the Amish name, and two of them, the Beachy Amish and the Amish Mennonites, own cars and use electricity from public lines. The Young Center’s count of the Amish leaves them out and includes only the horse-and-buggy groups.

Most Mennonites live far from Lancaster County

The Amish are almost entirely a North American church, with a few small settlements in Bolivia and Mexico. Mennonites are a worldwide one. Mennonite World Conference’s 109 member churches, Mennonite and Brethren in Christ, count close to 950,000 baptized members in 60 countries, and 84 percent of them are African, Asian or Latin American. Ethiopia’s Meserete Kristos Church alone reported 310,877 baptized members in 2018. The conference also counts the wider Anabaptist family, including churches outside its membership such as the Amish and the Church of the Brethren: 2.03 million baptized believers in 87 countries, 45 percent of them in Africa.

The Mennonite World Conference’s Shared Convictions, adopted in 2006, set out what this worldwide family holds in common, including this: “The Spirit of Jesus empowers us to trust God in all areas of life so we become peacemakers who renounce violence, love our enemies, seek justice, and share our possessions with those in need.”

How to tell Amish and Mennonites apart

In a place like Lancaster County, where both live, a few signs help, though none is certain on its own.

The vehicle. A horse and buggy means Amish or Old Order Mennonite. A car with its chrome bumpers painted black is a traditional mark of some Old Order Mennonite groups, and Beachy Amish and conservative Mennonites drive cars too.
Power lines. A farmhouse with no electric line running to it belongs to the Amish or to one of the strictest Old Order Mennonite groups, such as the Stauffer Mennonites. Groffdale Mennonite homes are connected to the grid even though their owners drive buggies.
Sunday. Buggies parked at a farmhouse point to an Amish service. Buggies lined up at a plain meetinghouse point to Old Order Mennonites.
Beards. Amish men grow a beard once they marry. The beard alone does not settle it, because men in some other plain groups, such as the Old Order Brethren, wear beards too.
Dress. Both plain churches set their own rules for cut and color. Our guide to Amish and Mennonite clothing covers the details.

Between the Amish and the Old Order Mennonites, language will not help. The Young Center reports that the vast majority of Old Order Amish and Old Order Mennonites speak both Pennsylvania German and English fluently, and the two plain churches are the last groups still passing the dialect to their children.

Is Yoder an Amish or a Mennonite name?

Both. Yoder is a Swiss name, and some Swiss Yoders became Reformed Protestants while others became Anabaptists. The Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online notes that in 1957 more than 180 ordained Yoders served Amish and Mennonite churches: 99 in the Old Order Amish, 58 in the Mennonite Church, 14 in the Conservative Amish Mennonites, 11 among the Beachy Amish and three in the General Conference Mennonite Church. Only the Millers had more ministers. The encyclopedia adds that, contrary to a common assumption, “not all the Yoders are of Amish descent.”

The court case that made the name famous shows the overlap. In Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), the Supreme Court ruled that Wisconsin could not force Amish families to keep their children in school past the eighth grade. Jonas Yoder and Wallace Miller belonged to the Old Order Amish; the third father in the case, Adin Yutzy, belonged to the Conservative Amish Mennonite Church.

Can an Amish person marry a Mennonite?

Yes, but not in an Amish wedding unless the Mennonite joins the Amish church. Amish marriages are not arranged, but both partners must be baptized members before an Amish wedding can take place. Joining is possible: the Young Center counts several dozen outsiders who have learned the dialect, accepted the church’s rules and been baptized. The other route is for the Amish partner to leave. About 85 percent of Amish youth eventually join the church, and those who leave before baptism face no church discipline, because they never made the vow. A baptized member who leaves and will not confess is excommunicated and shunned, though the scholar Donald Kraybill notes that some congregations end the shunning if the former member joins “a pacifist plain-dressing church such as conservative Mennonites.”