Amish Grace & Pop Culture
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Amish Grace Cover
Film depicting Nickel Mines shootings questioned (Cindy Stauffer, Lancaster Intelligencer Journal, 03/01/2010) ran on frontpage in south central PA the day after Donald Kraybill, one of the authors of Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy, spoke for the Emerging Scholars Network in partnership with Elizabethtown Brethren in Christ. If you’re interested in learning more about the Amish, I’d encourage you to
- listen to Kraybill’s 2/28/2010 presentation on The Riddle of the Amish (the audio begins with my brief introduction of Kraybill).
- pick-up a copy of Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy — coming out in paperback later this month. Note: the Amish Grace web site is a rich resource and All author royalties are going to Mennonite Central Committee for their ministries to children.
- visit the Amish Studies web site — maintained by the Young Center for Anabaptist & Pietist Studies, Elizabethtown College
How should followers of Christ respond to this popular culture depiction of the Gospel, academic research, and a minority group which desires as a people of God to be separate from popular culture.
Should we
- contend that certain forms of media can never do justice to events/material such as what is found in Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy
- post comments on the film’s website and other locations which encourage dialogue
- stand up against what appears to be a misuse of film rights to the title of a well researched book, it’s content, and those whom it represents
- turn the other cheek by neither entering the public fray nor watching the film
- watch/discuss the film
- watch/discuss the film only after we’ve read up on the Amish or are led in consideration of the film by someone who can provide insights regarding the Amish
- seek to produce more films/documentaries closer to the facts/truth, e.g.,
The Amish: Back Roads to Heaven (which ends with a brief summary on the Nickel Mines tragedy), The Amish: How They Survive, The Amish: A People of Preservation - other?
Note: Lifetime‘s website for the upcoming film is here and the trailer can be found here.
PS. ESN’s Week-in-Review will hit the web on Saturday morning.
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Tom: Most of David Weaver-Zercher’s work on the Amish focuses on how the minority group is mediated / appropriated / otherwise used by dominant North American cultures, whether for intellectual, aesthetic, or economic gain.
I’m said that Dave (by virtue of the fact that they’re adapting his own book) won’t be able to weigh in on the adaptation of “Amish Grace” by Lifetime TV. Having not seen the movie, I’m tempted to make a few observations, but I’ll limit myself to one.
There’s an ancient phenomenon called palimpsest wherein manuscript pages or scrolls from an early book were scraped clean and used again. Although the purposes was to remove ALL of the original ink, some of it still remained, leaving a shadow of the original beneath the new.
I think that’s what’s happening here, with the TV movie “Amish Grace” — we’re taking a story that’s largely without an “English” storyline and writing our own story upon it — a story that’s all about how to forgive in the midst of a tragedy like this, when that’s not even close to the dominant narrative that played out for the Amish that the film supposedly depicts.
The authors of the book talked with a number of Amish people after the tragedy, specifically about HOW they could extend grace and forgiveness to someone who so coldly took the lives of their children. All the Amish seemed confused by this question: “You mean some people actually thought we got together to plan forgiveness?”
That’s clearly not the route the movie takes — which, in my opinion, is fine (at least on one hand), since it teaches us a lot about how dominant North American cultures are still trying to wrap their heads and hearts around this completely Other form of living.
However, I’m concerned that — like most major network or Hollywood adaptations of religiously themed material — that the Lifetime film will eviscerate any reference to Anabaptism and especially the radical nature of Christ’s call.
Sorry to have written a novel!
[Reply]
Devin Thomas
5 Mar 10 at 11:35 am
Having watched the film for review and interviewed the executive producer, I think you should watch & discuss the film.
Will it present Amish theology & doctrine accurately? No. That’s not possible within the scope of 2 hours or 200 hours. Films are not meant to teach doctrine, but to entertain – in this case, with a purpose.
The purpose of the producers? To let the world see that this extraordinary act is what Christ really mean when He taught His disciples to pray “And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Let’s celebrate the fact that this story is being told on national television, and that it will air many times, and perhaps those who have a hard time with forgiveness will find the courage to do the hard, but right, thing.
[Reply]
Angela
22 Mar 10 at 7:27 pm
Devin and Angela, Thank-you for your feedback!
Angela, I’ll be hosting a film discussion of “Amish Grace” and would love to read/watch your film review and interview of the executive producer. Would you mind posting the link and/or forwarding it my direction?
Question: Part of the film discussion will explore ‘the purpose of film.’ If it’s ‘solely’ to entertain, is it able to accomplish (or should it attempt to accomplish) the laudable purpose of the producers, “To let the world see that this extraordinary act is what Christ really mean when He taught His disciples to pray “And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.””?
[Reply]
Tom Grosh
23 Mar 10 at 5:52 am
Update:
Amish Grace is now available on-line at
http://www.mylifetime.com/watch-full-movies-online/amish-grace
[Reply]
Thomas B. Grosh IV
5 Apr 10 at 8:53 pm
That’s a good question, Tom. Some of my co-workers were discussing the film today. I tried to explain to them (having not yet seen the film but having gleaned — I think — a great deal from trailers, various reviews, etc.) what the filmmakers are doing: placing in the mouth of an Amish character the frustrated questions and angry, vitriolic words that were often uttered by the “outsiders,” the English who stood beyond the peculiar religious community without understanding.
To my knowledge, the Amish didn’t ask these kinds of questions or utter those words, reared in a community where such radical forgiveness is part and parcel of living in obedience.
These observations, to my mind, raise again the question posed by Tom above: what was the PURPOSE of the filmmakers’ posturing in this way? Why choose an adaptation style that places the questions of outsiders in the mouth of a (supposed) insider? To generate empathy? To give more weight to the questions and objections?
I doubt that a viewing of the film will resolve these queries for me, but I look forward to conversing with Dr. Kraybill and others. Thanks, Tom, for providing both of these forums to continue this fascinating discussion!
[Reply]
Devin Thomas
6 Apr 10 at 8:51 pm
I’m just guessing here, but a standard strategy for mass-market movies and books about unfamiliar cultures is to create a main character who stands in for the audience. That’s why children and journalists appear so often as protagonists: they voice the “entry level” questions that the audience is expected to have about history, culture, practices, etc., without interrupting the plot for straightforward explication. Perhaps the producers thought that the mainstream audience couldn’t relate to a main character who didn’t express those emotions and questions.
Placing those words in the mouth of an Amish mother doesn’t seem to have gone over well, though – perhaps the main character should have been Dr. Kraybill! :)
[Reply]
Micheal Hickerson
7 Apr 10 at 11:17 am
I had heard about this story, but hadn’t heard about the criticism of the movie.
(note, I think the movie just has two more days on mylifetime, if you’ve been procrastinating)
Our family watched it the other day, and it did inspire some good questions and discussion with our children.
I liked the scene in the corn field the best, where there was at least one good quote in the conversation between the leader of the community and the reporter.
“conditional forgiveness is not forgiveness at all”.
[Reply]
Jon Daley
26 Apr 10 at 8:06 am