Evangelical fantasies in Amish country

Shipshewana, Indiana, is home to fewer than a thousand people and the Midwest’s largest flea market. It only takes a few minutes to drive its main street, bordered by signs advertising Amish furniture stores and locally made meats and cheeses. The town has all the makings of a Lifetime Christmas movie: historic houses, quaint shops that close by 5 p.m., and a beautiful landscape of farm fields and wooden barns. LaGrange County, together with neighboring Elkhart and Noble Counties, is also home to the third-largest Amish community in the United States. Shipshewana’s tourism industry relies on it.

The Blue Gate Restaurant and Theatre is at the center of town, a sprawling white building with cobalt blue doors. Tourists arrive by the busload to eat at the buffet of fried chicken, buttery mashed potatoes, cinnamon apples, and chocolate cream pies. Servers wear Plain clothing—long-sleeved, modest dresses in solid colors, the women’s attire of most Amish and some Mennonite communities. It’s all part of the experience for those who want to enjoy a good old-fashioned country meal served by smiling women in good old-fashioned clothing. After dinner, people often linger at the Blue Gate to enjoy entertainment at the performing arts center, which hosts national music acts as well as family-friendly plays such as a musical adaptation of Janette Oke’s When Calls the Heart.

A while back I spent a day in Shipshewana with friends. We did some holiday shopping at the flea market, and before heading back to Michigan we stopped at the Blue Gate for dinner. While we waited for our table, I became distracted by the products for sale, which made me feel like I’d stepped into a Family Christian Store in the early aughts: white dinner plates and wooden signs bearing scripture verses, children’s books like God’s Wisdom for Little Girls and devotionals like A Little God Time for Men.