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Hats Off wrote:

Josh wrote:Pilgrim’s Progress is a common book on a CA’s shelf, although I fear not as common as it used to be as low quality fiction crowds out quality material such as this or Martyr’s Mirror.

Talking about what is on the bookshelf, I was quite amused upon checking the bookshelf at the Bible camp where I do some work. The camp is run by Bible Chapel dispensationalists; the bookshelf featured mostly Beverly Lewis titles and similar Amish romance books.

Hats Off wrote:No, it is Galilee at Renfrew.

Josh wrote:Pilgrim’s Progress is a common book on a CA’s shelf, although I fear not as common as it used to be as low quality fiction crowds out quality material such as this or Martyr’s Mirror.

Valerie wrote:I confess to having read a few Beverly Lewis books- she seemed to always try & work in the Gospel in the one's I read- I felt like she was trying to reach people in both the Engisher world & the Amish world- (in her own way)

In this passage, the bishop’s desire for Katie is inextricable from his position as bishop: he first discovered his sexual attraction to her when she knelt before him to receive baptism. The passage also emphasizes the age difference: he is already an established leader in the community when he realizes that she has come of age; likewise, he must wait for her to be old enough to join him in the “long empty” bed. Through the bishop’s relationship with Katie, Lewis intertwines authority, sexual desire, and punishment, and Katie breaks away from the bishop’s spiritual and sexual authority when she runs away.

Through the efforts to regulate Katie’s romantic, material, and spiritual desires, Lewis sets up a quintessentially Gothic scenario: Katie has sinned by cherishing the musical memory of her first love, Dan, and by longing for “fancy” fabrics (and this desire for fancy fabrics reveals that she is not, in fact, Amish by birth, but one of the English).

As I have argued, Lewis’s novels draw on Gothic motifs to emphasize an image of the Amish as “fallen” because of their rigid adherence to rules, a rigidity that can be salvaged through a turn toward evangelicalism. (14)

silentreader wrote:

Hats Off wrote:No, it is Galilee at Renfrew.

Any dairy farmers from the Ottawa Valley supporting that?

Josh wrote:

Valerie wrote:I confess to having read a few Beverly Lewis books- she seemed to always try & work in the Gospel in the one's I read- I felt like she was trying to reach people in both the Engisher world & the Amish world- (in her own way)

Typical Beverly Lewis books portray the Amish as essentially unsaved and in need of the Protestant gospel.

See the article in Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies: Volume 1, Issue 2 (October 2013) called Loving in Plain Sight: Amish Romance Novels as Evangelical Gothic.

In this passage, the bishop’s desire for Katie is inextricable from his position as bishop: he first discovered his sexual attraction to her when she knelt before him to receive baptism. The passage also emphasizes the age difference: he is already an established leader in the community when he realizes that she has come of age; likewise, he must wait for her to be old enough to join him in the “long empty” bed. Through the bishop’s relationship with Katie, Lewis intertwines authority, sexual desire, and punishment, and Katie breaks away from the bishop’s spiritual and sexual authority when she runs away.

Through the efforts to regulate Katie’s romantic, material, and spiritual desires, Lewis sets up a quintessentially Gothic scenario: Katie has sinned by cherishing the musical memory of her first love, Dan, and by longing for “fancy” fabrics (and this desire for fancy fabrics reveals that she is not, in fact, Amish by birth, but one of the English).

As I have argued, Lewis’s novels draw on Gothic motifs to emphasize an image of the Amish as “fallen” because of their rigid adherence to rules, a rigidity that can be salvaged through a turn toward evangelicalism. (14)

Sounds like the kind of a book a Christian should stay far away from.

Josh wrote:

Valerie wrote:I confess to having read a few Beverly Lewis books- she seemed to always try & work in the Gospel in the one's I read- I felt like she was trying to reach people in both the Engisher world & the Amish world- (in her own way)

Typical Beverly Lewis books portray the Amish as essentially unsaved and in need of the Protestant gospel.

See the article in Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies: Volume 1, Issue 2 (October 2013) called Loving in Plain Sight: Amish Romance Novels as Evangelical Gothic.

In this passage, the bishop’s desire for Katie is inextricable from his position as bishop: he first discovered his sexual attraction to her when she knelt before him to receive baptism. The passage also emphasizes the age difference: he is already an established leader in the community when he realizes that she has come of age; likewise, he must wait for her to be old enough to join him in the “long empty” bed. Through the bishop’s relationship with Katie, Lewis intertwines authority, sexual desire, and punishment, and Katie breaks away from the bishop’s spiritual and sexual authority when she runs away.

Through the efforts to regulate Katie’s romantic, material, and spiritual desires, Lewis sets up a quintessentially Gothic scenario: Katie has sinned by cherishing the musical memory of her first love, Dan, and by longing for “fancy” fabrics (and this desire for fancy fabrics reveals that she is not, in fact, Amish by birth, but one of the English).

As I have argued, Lewis’s novels draw on Gothic motifs to emphasize an image of the Amish as “fallen” because of their rigid adherence to rules, a rigidity that can be salvaged through a turn toward evangelicalism. (14)

Sounds like the kind of a book a Christian should stay far away from.

Valerie wrote:Wow, its been about 10 years since i read any but they sure weren't like that!