Old Order Amish Splitting 4 Ways

[JohnH]

The advent of alcohol? What, right after Noah’s flood?

[Only an Anz]

As I have said before I am very worried with where the OOA are right now. The smart phone so destroys what is their culture and lifestyle I am not sure it will survive in any significant numbers. I am not sure the Consevative Mennonites will do much better

Sure they will - the groups that reject smartphones will survive just fine. There certainly are enough of them.

From what I hear, the new Spencer, TN-type settlement and the Scottsville, TN-type Hoovers are feeling very comfortable with each other; this builds upon the comfort level the Scottsville group already feels with certain Swartzentrubers. Overall, a coalition is emerging that rejects smartphones, e-bikes, and making frequent use of drivers.

Likewise the "14 districts" who rejected smartphones in Ohio feel aligned with the New Orders who also don't use smartphones. As I understand it, nobody really cares at all about things like Sunday school, etc. - the smartphone issue is far more pivotal.

“Enough is as good as a feast.”

i’m baffled “the whole world” doesn’t have the sense to abandon smartphones.
That is, stand-alone basic phones without computers/cameras serve a valid purpose.
Cameras and computers as separate devices, fine.

i hope the Amish and all those who break from smartphones find themselves leading.

Reports of various types of legislation AND various school policies restricting tech from students-minors,
suggests not all have lost their minds.

i don’t buy the notion, “once they have it, there’s no going back.”

Not true.
There are many examples of serious restrictions effectively put n place AFTER the fact.

No brakes before wheels.
No stop signs before the advent of cars.
No seat belts or car seats before cars.
No drinking laws before the advent of alcohol.
No smoking restrictions before tobacco use - esp after admission of lung cancer.

Certainly, profiteers fight it. Smoking/lung cancer is a specially ugly example of that.

There IS “going back.”
It’s far more common than is convenient (for profiteers).

.. may the Lord use this to draw people closer to himself and may he bring peace in people's lives

I agree. I have to have a smartphone for work or I'd ditch the thing.

[temporal1]

The advent of alcohol? What, right after Noah’s flood?

yep. whenever.

[Samuel-Stoltzfus]

The brotherhood group split off of the Fellowship group,

Do you know on what issues they differed and what can you tell us about the Fellowship group.

Are the other groups you mention smaller than the 4 that I mentioned?

What size are each of the four I mentioned?

I do not know what all was involved with the Fellowship/Brotherhood Split, I've heard that there was some debate on the Cars vs. Horses at the time, but now the brotherhood people have cars as well, I would say that the Fellowship group is a bit more progressive though. In all reality though, there is just so much happening yet that it is hard to get a good grasp of where things will wind up in a lot of these groups.
I believe that both Fellowship and Brotherhood are approximately 30-50 families. I am not sure on the size of Restoration, but I would assume its similar in size to Brotherhood. And the other group you mentioned (Light of Grace) I'm not even familiar with, which just goes to show how many different groups there actually are. Your number of these various groups making up 10% of the total is a good guess from what I see and hear.
Up until recently, a lot of OOA districts we're allowing members to leave without facing shunning, and yet there was a lot of chaos and unknowns, so a lot of people remained right where they were, hoping to see if things settle down. Now that some districts are ending the grace period, it remains to be seen how things will shift yet in the next few months.

[Ajax]

I occasionally see things on social media that seem to show practicing Amish engaging in other forms of spirituality and worship. For example, singing in church services with instruments on this YouTube account https://www.youtube.com/@LightOfHopeChurchPA/videos and hands in the air during services on this Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61583726115098#.

Does anybody know if this is related to the Lancaster Amish split, or is this a separate phenomenon?

Edit: Since I'm not a known participant, I'll point you to my introduction post: https://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.ph ... 10#p260210

[JohnH]

I occasionally see things on social media that seem to show practicing Amish engaging in other forms of spirituality and worship. For example, singing in church services with instruments on this YouTube account https://www.youtube.com/@LightOfHopeChurchPA/videos and hands in the air during services on this Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61583726115098#.

Does anybody know if this is related to the Lancaster Amish split, or is this a separate phenomenon?

Edit: Since I'm not a known participant, I'll point you to my introduction post: https://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.ph ... 10#p260210

This is the Lapp brothers’ latest remake of their “Glory Barn” movement. They have not been Amish in decades, but they like to dress up in Amish clothes for various advantages it can give them with deceiving the general public.

I say this because they are currently embroiled in being millions of dollars behind on loans for their nonprofit, which is something Amish generally don’t do. Amish also don’t livestream their services or engage in charismatic Christian practices that were common in the 1990s. We have had several threads about this:

https://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.php?t=8929

[Ajax]

Cool. Thanks for the reply. I hadn't made the connection between the Lapp brothers and the things I was seeing on social media and YouTube. I'll look through the thread you linked to.

[JohnH]

Cool. Thanks for the reply. I hadn't made the connection between the Lapp brothers and the things I was seeing on social media and YouTube. I'll look through the thread you linked to.

Generally speaking, good information about the more traditional non smartphone using Amish groups simply can’t be found online, outside of this forum and a few academic journals.

[Ajax]

This is the Lapp brothers’ latest remake of their “Glory Barn” movement. They have not been Amish in decades, but they like to dress up in Amish clothes for various advantages it can give them with deceiving the general public.

I say this because they are currently embroiled in being millions of dollars behind on loans for their nonprofit, which is something Amish generally don’t do. Amish also don’t livestream their services or engage in charismatic Christian practices that were common in the 1990s. We have had several threads about this:

https://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.php?t=8929

JohnH, are you saying that the Lapps' activities don't intersect with the Lancaster Amish division?

[JohnH]

This is the Lapp brothers’ latest remake of their “Glory Barn” movement. They have not been Amish in decades, but they like to dress up in Amish clothes for various advantages it can give them with deceiving the general public.

I say this because they are currently embroiled in being millions of dollars behind on loans for their nonprofit, which is something Amish generally don’t do. Amish also don’t livestream their services or engage in charismatic Christian practices that were common in the 1990s. We have had several threads about this:

https://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.php?t=8929

JohnH, are you saying that the Lapps' activities don't intersect with the Lancaster Amish division?

The Lapps’ church is an evangelical-Pentecostal church. I would imagine they’ll try to “recruit” from a recent division, but they’ve been excommunicated from the rest of the Amish world for two decades now.