Would You Guess There Are Fewer Amish Today? You'd Be So Wrong

Alissa Scheller

There’s no denying that the Amish are fascinating to the rest of us ("the English," in Amish terms).

They’re the topic of reality television shows and documentaries, a particularly memorable Nancy Drew novel and the Academy Award-winning 1985 film "Witness." Vanilla Ice "went Amish." We buy their furniture and jam, and may occasionally spot their buggies when driving on country roads through America’s heartland.

Many may not realize, however, that though the Amish make up only a tiny percentage of Americans (less than 0.001 percent), the Amish population has grown enormously since the early 1960s, with much of the increase occurring in the last two decades.

The Amish in America trace their roots to the Anabaptists, who appeared in Switzerland during the Protestant Reformation of the 1500s. Anabaptists, or "rebaptizers," were noted for their second baptism of adults who had been baptized as infants in other Christian traditions. They believed that only adults could make the decision to follow Jesus Christ and therefore did not practice infant baptism themselves. They also believed that the church should not be associated or interfered with by any state.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/21/amish-population_n_6145336.html?utm_hp_ref=religion