Opinion of Amish romance fiction

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Yes, this is a thing.

Horrible Romance, for me, for a few different reasons:

1. First of all is the simple fact that it's romance fiction. Fiction about romantic love that has actual literary merit tends not to be published and marketed within the romance genre. There are exceptions--a few stopped-clock offerings from otherwise bad writers, some of the more highly regarded excrescences of various young adult subgenera, et cetera--but generally speaking this is the case.
2. Most if not all of these books are by non-Amish authors and as such portray Amish life in ways that range from slightly inaccurate to staggeringly wrongheaded. One is left with the impression that the characters are playing dress-up, much as one might at a Renaissance Faire or something of that general nature. The covers of many of these novels depict women who are obviously wearing makeup, and at least one author seriously expects us to believe that a girl growing up in a farming community--any farming community--could reach the age of seventeen without knowing how children are conceived.
3. One particularly common set of inaccuracies concerns portrayals of actual Amish theology in these sorts of novels. Most of them are written by Evangelical Protestants for an Evangelical Protestant audience. As such, the characters will at best espouse oddly Evangelical-seeming theological views and liturgical preferences that make no sense in an Amish context, almost as if their souls have been removed and replaced. Characters may express assurance of salvation rather than hope, may engage in highly emotive prayer and worship styles, may generally approach Christianity in an orthodox rather than orthopraxic frame of mind, and so on and so forth. At worst, the writers appear to be aware of genuine Amish theology but to some extent or another actively malicious towards it. In these novels, characters undergo spiritual transformations that end up with them abandoning various aspects of Amish ways of knowing in favor of Evangelical Protestant understandings, and occasionally attempt to spread these within their fictive communities. In general books in this latter category serve as nothing so much as signposts for a growing Evangelical Protestant tendency to idealize and fetishize the Amish and similar sects on the basis of perceived commonalities in relatively ancillary areas, such as sexual purity--a sort of perverse-mirror image of social libertine tendencies to idealize and fetishize the culture of Amsterdam, or democratic-socialist tendencies to idealize and fetishize Scandinavia or Canada.

[politicus]

Sounds awful.

[Bigby]

Yeah baby, churn that butter.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

How many of these have you read, Nathan?

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

How many of these have you read, Nathan?

Fewer than my original post makes me out to have, I promise. But when I found out about the genre's existence I had to read at least some, because representation of religion in usually-terrible mass media properties is my current area of academic study.

[afleitch]

In general books in this latter category serve as nothing so much as signposts for a growing Evangelical Protestant tendency to idealize and fetishize the Amish and similar sects on the basis of perceived commonalities in relatively ancillary areas, such as sexual purity--a sort of perverse-mirror image of social libertine tendencies to idealize and fetishize the culture of Amsterdam, or democratic-socialist tendencies to idealize and fetishize Scandinavia or Canada.

If 'Team USA' Evangelical Protestantism was a literal person, it should be taken out back and shot in the head. It's the theological equivalent of 'grey goo' and is generally affronted by anything that is culturally or theologically different than itself. If it at least tries to self replicate itself in culturally diverse and different areas then it creates genuine crimes against culture (see South Korea)

I know exactly about the books you are talking about and I've gotten about half way through one of them. It's representations of masculinity and femininity in 'traditional' culture is as close to the ideological pap about the noble savage that permeated Victorian and Edwardian low to high class literature. Except this is a hundred years later. They also write about historic Scotland too which seems to be a land of high church Anglicans, rural Catholic pockets and Presbyterianism striped of it's context.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

If 'Team USA' Evangelical Protestantism was a literal person, it should be taken out back and shot in the head. It's the theological equivalent of 'grey goo' and is generally affronted by anything that is culturally or theologically different than itself. If it at least tries to self replicate itself in culturally diverse and different areas then it creates genuine crimes against culture (see South Korea)

I'm not even sure South Korea is the most repugnant example, even within the Asia-Pacific sphere. Remember that thread on Papua New Guinea we had a while back?

[memphis]

You have your panties in a wad because the setting in a romance novel isn't portrayed accurately? I've never read a romance novel, but they probably don't get the facts about the lives of cowboys, firemen, or lumberjacks right either. It's just erotica for bored American women of a certain age. There's no need to "deconstruct" it.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

You have your panties in a wad because the setting in a romance novel isn't portrayed accurately? I've never read a romance novel, but they probably don't get the facts about the lives of cowboys, firemen, or lumberjacks right either. It's just erotica for bored American women of a certain age. There's no need to "deconstruct" it.

What kinds of inaccuracies are present is instructive. So is their extent and the question of what motives the authors and publishers might have had for including them. Aside from all that, though, forgive me if I'd rather continue doing the kind of research that I find interesting and fulfilling than listen to the likes of you telling me whether or not there's a need for it.

[memphis]

All you're doing is digging desperately for a story in which religious people in America are somehow the victims because that, in turn, makes you feel noble for exposing some trifling little concern. It isn't as if the novels are accusing them of poisoning wells. In a country where people are suffering under the weight of unemployment, cancer, and all the rest of the humanity's plagues, you're sounding the alarm because the details of Amish people's theology and worship style are not accurately presented in romance novels? By all means, cry wolf on that account.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

All you're doing is digging desperately for a story in which religious people in America are somehow the victims because that, in turn, makes you feel noble for exposing some trifling little concern. It isn't as if the novels are accusing them of poisoning wells. In a country where people are suffering under the weight of unemployment, cancer, and all the rest of the humanity's plagues, you're sounding the alarm because the details of Amish people's theology and worship style are not accurately presented in romance novels? By all means, cry wolf on that account.

What do you expect somebody studying sociology of religion with a focus on mass media representations and different religious groups' popular images of one another to be interested in or spend her time on, exactly? Are every one of your interests and every one of the things about which you have strong opinions actively calculated to advance grand initiatives against the great scourges and scandals of our time? If not, why does it bother you so much that not all of mine are either? The notion that people are capable of caring about more than one thing seems to elude you. You also, on an unrelated but perhaps equally risible and asinine note, seem to have entirely missed the part where I'm criticizing one, powerful, religious group for ill-serving another, by and large not powerful, religious group, and are instead accusing me of presenting some sort of mythological undifferentiated entity called 'religious people in America' as 'victims'. Likely you've missed this because you're a gibbering lackwit who would rather just inveigh against those who don't share his empty, facile non-opinions about issues between different types of religious people, issues that he doesn't understand and which don't really concern him. From someone else I'd find all this cause for concern, but I've learned by now not to be surprised or particularly bothered by the depths of puerility that you find yourself able to plumb.

[memphis]

Ad hominem attacks are always the foundation of a winning debate strategy. Well played, sir

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Ad hominem attacks are always the foundation of a winning debate strategy. Well played, sir

I'd submit that at the very least, if nothing else, they're more interesting and frankly more pertinent and relevant to the topic at hand than is your strategy of blindly regurgitating anti-intellectual bromides in response to the no doubt appalling fact that there's not some sort of direct and immediate practical application for every academic interest, every critical thought, and every attempt to learn or expound more about any aspect of society. Also, I'm not a 'sir'.

[politicus]

Nathan, why do you let memphis get to you every time?

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Nathan, why do you let memphis get to you every time?

Because I enjoy composing my responses to him.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Nathan, I recommend you stop trying to take the concept of 'authenticity' as a real thing seriously.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Nathan, I recommend you stop trying to take the concept of 'authenticity' as a real thing seriously.

It's less the lack of authenticity that bothers me and more the fact that these novels end up serving a distinctly ideological function, one with which I disagree and to which I object.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Nathan, I recommend you stop trying to take the concept of 'authenticity' as a real thing seriously.

It's less the lack of authenticity that bothers me and more the fact that these novels end up serving a distinctly ideological function, one with which I disagree and to which I object.

I see no contradiction here. Romantic fantasy novels are all about authenticity, they are not known for their empiricism. Why single out the Amish? Nobel Savage fantasies are all over the place.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=203357.0

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

How many of these have you read, Nathan?

Fewer than my original post makes me out to have, I promise. But when I found out about the genre's existence I had to read at least some, because representation of religion in usually-terrible mass media properties is my current area of academic study.

I've seen these in book stores and wondered about them, so it's interesting to hear your perspective on them.  I think they've made a few into TV movies.  Have you come across any of these books that are any good and maybe avoid these pitfalls, or at least make an interesting read?  Was there one book that started this fad?

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

How many of these have you read, Nathan?

Fewer than my original post makes me out to have, I promise. But when I found out about the genre's existence I had to read at least some, because representation of religion in usually-terrible mass media properties is my current area of academic study.

I've seen these in book stores and wondered about them, so it's interesting to hear your perspective on them.  I think they've made a few into TV movies.  Have you come across any of these books that are any good and maybe avoid these pitfalls, or at least make an interesting read?

Not really. I'm considering continuing to look, but I'd want a specific incentive to do so, like making it an official research project or something.

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The Shunning, by Beverly Lewis, and its sequels.

[Beet]

Incidentally, Nathan (or anyone else), what is the Amish attitude towards novels? Are they considered "something new" and hence banned? What range of books to the Amish read, in general, besides the Bible and strictly utilitarian ones (such as trade journals, etc.)?

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

I don't think the Amish actually produce many (or any) novels, or non-utilitarian books in general, but at least some orders of Amish (there are at least half a dozen different sub-sects of Amish, ranging from barely more conservative than other conservative American Mennonites to almost as conservative as those German Mennonite colonies in Belize) do read them, particularly in recent years. Specifically, I've heard anecdotally of Amish fans of Barbara Kingsolver.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Nathan, I recommend you stop trying to take the concept of 'authenticity' as a real thing seriously.

It's less the lack of authenticity that bothers me and more the fact that these novels end up serving a distinctly ideological function, one with which I disagree and to which I object.

I see no contradiction here. Romantic fantasy novels are all about authenticity, they are not known for their empiricism. Why single out the Amish? Nobel Savage fantasies are all over the place.

I imagine Nobel Savage fantasies are dynamite!