Mennonite Weekly Review

The authors of a book on the 2006 killing of five Amish girls in a Lancaster County, Pa., schoolhouse have distanced themselves from a TV movie about the tragedy.

Lifetime Movie Network has scheduled a March 28 premiere for Amish Grace, based on a book by three Mennonite scholars.

The authors — Donald B. Kraybill, Steven M. Nolt and David L. Weaver-Zercher, who collaborated on Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy — released a statement saying they chose not to be involved in the film “out of respect to our friends in the Amish community and especially those related to the Nickel Mines tragedy.”

The authors said they did not own the film rights and were not involved in their sale.

They described the film as a fictionalized account loosely based on their book.

“Amish people are skeptical of movies and books about Amish life that blur fact and fiction, and particularly a movie that addresses such a painful subject,” the authors wrote. “For that reason and others, we decided not to assist the filmmakers in the course of the movie’s production.”

Lifetime describes the film: “The peaceful Amish community of Nickel Mines is forever changed when a gunman senselessly takes the lives of five girls in a schoolhouse shooting before taking his own life.

“What transpires afterward takes the community by storm, as the media descend on the town and criticize its Amish leaders for their notion of unconditional forgiveness of the shooter and their outreach of support to his widow, Amy Roberts.

“Devastated by her daughter’s death, Ida Graber finds herself struggling with her community’s belief in the transcending power of forgiveness. Deeply conflicted and unable to forgive the gunman and his family, Ida is tempted to leave the only life she’s ever known before re-embracing her faith.”

The authors of Amish Grace said they were unable to comment on the film’s merits. But Herman Bontrager of Akron, Pa., who acted as a spokesman for the Nickel Mines Amish community after the shooting, offered criticism of the film.