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1. Amish -- Amish Mennonite
   The Amish church, a branch of the Mennonites, is a Protestant religious group descended from the 16th-century Anabaptists. The Amish take their name from Jacob Ammann, a Swiss Mennonite bishop who in 1693 broke away from the main body of Mennonites, feeling that they had strayed from the strict austerity of their forebears. Ammann's followers began emigrating to Pennsylvania from Switzerland and Germany about 1710, and by 1787 had established 70 congregations there. The Amish later spread to Ohio, Indiana, and Ontario in Canada. Today they still exist in all these areas (and others), numbering about 40,000.
2. Anabaptists -- Dutch Mennonites
   Anabaptists first came to North America in the late 17th century. The largest number of early immigrants were Mennonites, who settled in Pennsylvania. The Amish in Pennsylvania were another important group of Anabaptists arrivals. In the 19th century, other waves of Mennonites came from Switzerland and Russia and settled in the Midwest, along with another Anabaptist group know as the Hutterites. These groups were joined by others that were similar in form, though not technically Anabaptist: the Church of the Brethren (known as Dunkers), the Church of the United Brethren (Moravians), the Schwenckfelders, the Shakers and others. All of these groups have been called, collectively, "the historic peace churches." Until the 20th century, they generally stayed out of political involvement or movements for social change.
3. Anabaptist -- Centuries
   The character of Anabaptist groups went through some significant transformations over the course of the early modern era. While the first Anabaptists were voluntary converts to the new faith, most Anabaptists after the middle of the sixteenth century were born into established communities of faith. They accepted both adult baptism and political discrimination as part of their inheritance. It was only after the first generation of the Reformation that nonresistance (which denominational historians emphasized in their interpretations) rose to the central position that it enjoyed throughout most of the rest of the early modern period. Over the course of the sixteenth century the separatist Anabaptists' radical rejection of mainstream society diminished, and secular governments tended to be more accepting of the peaceful, withdrawn dissenters the Anabaptists had become.
4. Harbin -- Songhua River
   Harbin is the capital of the modern province of Heilongjiang (literally Black Dragon River), People's Republic of China. That province is one of three in the region of Dongbei (literally East-North), formerly known as Manchuria.
5. Amish
   All aspects of Amish life are dictated by a list of written or oral rules, known as Ordnung, which outlines the basics of the Amish faith and helps to define what it means to be Amish. For an Amish person, the Ordnung may dictate almost every aspect of one's lifestyle, from dress and hair length to buggy style and farming techniques. The Ordnung varies from community to community and order to order, which explains why you will see some Amish riding in automobiles, while others don't even accept the use of battery-powered lights.
6. Anabaptist -- Anabaptist Church
   A fifth feature of Anabaptist ecclesiology is its radical congregationalism. From its inception, Anabaptism was markedly anti-clerical and non-hierarchical. It placed emphasis on servant leadership and the responsibility of every believer for ministry, mission and discernment. "For the Anabaptist, the church was neither an institution (Catholicism), nor the instrument of God for the proclamation of the divine Word (Lutheranism), nor a resource group for individual piety (Pietism). It was a brotherhood of love in which the fullness of the Christian life ideal is to be expressed".
7. Anabaptist -- Anabaptist Movement
   Not all early Anabaptists were committed to non-violence or "non-resistance" as they called it. Some Anabaptist sects were positively militant. In 1535, a group of revolutionary Anabaptists seized the city of Münster and proclaimed the advent of God’s kingdom on earth, forcing baptism on its inhabitants and putting some resisters and opponents to death. By the 1560s... a principled rejection of violence had become the dominant ethos of the movement. It was considered one of the primary ways believers could imitate Christ. A corollary of this was a refusal by many Anabaptists to swear oaths, since this not only violated Jesus’ command against oath-taking and devalued truth (Matt 5:33-37) but also entailed acceptance of the principle of state coercion.
8. Anabaptist -- Jesus Christ
   Anabaptist responses to persecution varied. In the immediate aftermath of the Peasants' War a small minority chose to fight back, though futilely. Some believers recanted when threatened with punishment, while others stayed steadfast in the face of hardship, hoping for rescue upon Christ's imminent return. When confronted with the choice, some preferred martyrdom over the betrayal of their faith; about two thousand died for their faith, about as many as the martyrs drawn from the far more numerous Protestant churches. Another option was Nicodemism, hiding their forbidden faith from central authorities while pretending to conform. Many chose exile.
9. Amish -- Communities
   Amish holidays earmark the rhythm of the seasons and religious celebrations. A day for prayer and fasting precedes the October communion service in some communities. Fall weddings provide ample holidays of another sort. Amish without wedding invitations celebrate Thanksgiving Day with turkey dinners and family gatherings. New Year's Day is a quiet time for family gatherings. In many communities a second day is added to the celebrations of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost.
10. Anabaptist -- United States
    There is evidence that individual hymns were published in the early part of the sixteenth century; ... it was not until the middle of the sixteenth century that Anabaptist hymnals appeared, both in the Dutch and German languages. The most significant of these was the Aussbund Etlicher schöner Christlicher Geseng, wie die in der Gefengness zu Passaw im Schloss von den Schweitzern, and auch von andern rechtgläubigen Christen hin and her gedicht worden. Allen and jeden Christen, welcher Religion sie auch seyen, unparteilich and fast nutzlich zu brauchen. (title) page of the 1583 edition).6 Commonly called the Ausbund (meaning “Selection of the Best”), it became a very popular hymnal among the Anabaptists.7 Many of the contests were written in the castle of Passau in Bavaria where some of the Swiss leaders were imprisoned between 1535 and 1540. The first publication included fifty-three hymns and appeared in 1564; the first full volume of 130 hymns was published in 1583. It has since gone through approximately eleven European and twenty American editions, the latest being in 1949.8 It first served congregations in Switzerland and Germany and eventually was brought to the United States, where it is still used by the Amish Mennonites.

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