[rescue] Look who's a slashdot weenie!

[Joshua D. Boyd]

On Tue, Jul 15, 2003 at 10:49:08AM -0400, Phil Stracchino wrote:

> If Bill will forgive the off-topic query, what exactly is the difference
> between Amish and Mennonites?  Is it a case of "All Amish are
> Mennonites, but not all Mennonites are Amish"?

Nope.  Amish are not Mennonite, nor vice versa.

Amish and Mennonites both are anabaptists (they don't practice
infant baptism).  My recall is that they both were started early in the
anabaptist movement.  They historically got a long fairly well.  They
both were persecuted in Europe (where they didn't support either state 
churchs or the catholic church), so they settled together in the US in,
I believe, the late 1600s.

Certain old order Mennonite groups can seem very Amish like, in that
they dress extremely plainly and drive horse and buggies.  Others old
order groups are less extreme, but would still stick out from society in
general quite a bit.  It is my opinion that old order Mennonites are
severely in the minority compared to more modern Mennonites, who are
rapidly blending in more.