This Week in Religion: Selling the Amish "brand" – with or without Amish values

Lead story

Amish culture prizes peace − but you wouldn’t necessarily know it from a stop in Amish Country tourist towns

Editor's note:

Picture Americana and perhaps you picture “amber waves of grain": some serene scene of red barns, sun-dappled roads and close-knit community.

It’s an idealized image – but it also looks a lot like Amish Country. Little wonder that so many non-Amish Americans flock to places like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana each year, especially during autumn. For decades, tourist towns have catered to many visitors’ fascination with the Amish’s slower, faith-focused way of life – a fascination infused with nostalgia for supposedly simpler times.

But there’s always been a divide between actual Amish values and the “Amish brand” some tourists seek. And today, that divide is growing even starker, according to University of Dayton professor Susan Trollinger. On a recent research trip, she was shocked to see gift shop items featuring Christian nationalist motifs and firearms – “all antithetical to the core values of the Amish,” who are deeply committed to pacifism and the separation of church and state.

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