I am still not over the retention rate of the Amish people reaching 90%.
Aside from Reg’s hint of any group strongly differing in culture and national identity from its neighbours like the mentioned Druze and Yazidis, by now I figured out more detail hardcore-reading about Ana-baptism.
I will compare three groups of Anabaptists:
Amish
Hutterites
Twelve Tribes
All are strongly religious, conservative valued, pronatalist, patriarchical (at least on paper as we shall see), prefering rural lifestyle with strong cultrual ties, all prefer to work in close communion with each other, separating themselves from “the outside english world” as much as possible (keeps ZOG taxes and influence low!).
Only Hutterites and Twelve Tribes practice voluntary communism of goods. Amish and Twelve Tribes practice home-schooling. Amish and Hutterites have a strong national identity and rich history aside from their strong faith. Amish and Hutterites believe in youth given a chance to experience the world before making a decision for joining the group definitively.
With the Amish, every family works on its own account. Limited support for poorer families of the same branch of Amish are provided. Hence, there are both successful and poor Amish families.
I know by now that Amish are pretty pragmatic concerning deviation from scripture. The (in)-famous “Rumspringa” time of the youth as well as “Bed Courtships” does consist of more than just smoking a cigarette and holding hands.
While Amish are family oriented with the father as highest authority, it is less with the Hutterites and almost none with Twelve Tribes.
E.g. a Twelve Tribes woman (3rd person) can pick on your children’s behavior and can chastise them or have you (as a father) chastise them in front of the group. It can be a humiliation of the father (or mother). This undermines patriarchical values which keep the family together.
Amish are quite “pragmatical” when it comes to views and branching out. If one (head of the) family decides for example “bikes for kids are OK”, it gets done. If they need to branch out of their group for this new “family policy”, they do so. If there isn’t a branch yet for their views, they build up one.
All work is primarily done for the own pockets of one family unit (in comparison to Hutterites, Bruderhof and Amish). The American Dream.
Even though the bible states that the “true believers” are of one spirit and mind, Amish and other Mennonites have no problems whatsoever argueing, splitting off, dividing. So much so that Mennonite Anabaptists as a whole(!) became famous for being in odds with each other like no other religious group.
Twelve Tribes are much more inflexible on this, insisting of the biblical command to be a “united front”.
Twelve Tribes have a VERY-near end-times anticipation (< 60 years from now) demanding 144000 pure-chased male virgins with only words as pure as fire coming out of their mouths to be produced by then by the clan members thereby putting a lot of pressure on the group’s youth. This also seems to drive out many.
Hutterites and Amish due to their long history dating from centuries ago have a much more relaxed view on this topic. Yes, they believe in the end-of-times, but don’t hassle to produce mandatory virgins on a tight timeline, but rather to simply distinguish every day if some thing is in god’s will or from Satan. End-of-times preparation is less a central group policy than group survival and thriving of one’s family economically.
Much more pragmatic and relaxed if you ask me.
This inflexibility, the powerlessness of the father figure, the very near apocalyptic end-times views of Twelve Tribes as well as the inability to provide youth with an apprenticeship program seems to drive young people out despite having a biblical life-style and strong clan identity.
Amish and Hutterites are less cultish. They accept other groups as followers of Yeshuah beside them. E.g. Hutterites fully acknoledged other Mennonite groups with different practices than their own as equally holy in god’s eyes while Twelve Tribes AFAIK don’t recognize any other group as valid.
And Amish branch off at family will anyways (E.g. just compare a Swartzentruber Amish to a Beachy Amish. Almost two different ways).