Just Plain Wrong

This week, the MennoBrarians discuss the 2007 made-for-tv movie, Saving Sarah Cain. The movie is about a young journalist (Sarah Cain) who unexpectedly becomes the guardian of her five Amish nieces/nephews/niblings after the passing of her sister. We chat about the many weird side characters, romantic relationships centered on cheesecake, and much more.  We always love hearing from listeners! You...

This week the MennoBrarians chat with Sarah Augustine about two of her books, "The Land is Not Empty: Following Jesus in Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery" and "So We & Our Children May Live: Following Jesus in Confronting the Climate Crisis" (co-authored with Sheri Hostetler). We chat Mennonite traditions, justice work, and much much more.  More info on Sarah and the C...

This week, the MennoBrarians do a deep dive into the world of fan fiction. The first half of the ep we chat about fan fiction generally - what it is, perceptions of it, and what fandoms we tend to read from. The second half, we chat about Amish and Mennonite themed fan fictions, of which there are about 200 on the site Archive of Our Own (a site that contains almost 18 million fics). Tillie pulled...

This week, the MennoBrarians discuss the Netflix movie, Amish Stud, a fictionalized story of the murder of Barbara Weaver in Wayne County, OH. Her husband, Eli Weaver, was convicted of her murder along with Barb Raber, a Mennonite woman who drove for the Amish and was having an affair with Eli. We chat true crime, Lifetime-style movies, and lots more.  We always love hearing from listeners! You ca...

The MennoBrarians first bonus episode?! This short episode is a continuation of our conversation with Bradley Kauffman from the Voices Together hymnal project, in which he provides some comments / feedback on two of the hymns selected in our hymn snake draft: There's a Wild Hope in the Wind and We are People of God's Peace.  We always love hearing from listeners! You can reach us at plai...

This week the MennoBrarians are joined by Bradley Kauffman, who was the project director for the Voices Together Mennonite Hymnal (aka "the purple hymnal") that was published in 2020. We chat about hymns and hymnals, the hymnal selection process, modern hymn writers / composers and much much more.  We always love hearing from listeners! You can reach us at plainwrongpod at gmail.com, or...

This week, the Mennobrarians chat about favorite Mennonite hymns, including holiday, hymn sing faves, and funeral songs.  We always love hearing from listeners! You can reach us at plainwrongpod at gmail.com, or on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. If you want to help support the podcast financially, please consider joining our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/plainwrongpod   or buying merch at...

This week, the MennoBrarians watch some TV shows! The first show we review is season 1, ep 2 of Glenn Martin, DDS, a cartoon show about a family traveling the country in a mobile dentistry RV. In this episode, Glenn decides his children are addicted to technology, and that the solution is to live briefly with the Amish.  In the second half of the episode we discuss 2 Broke Girls, season 2 episode...

This week is our 125th episode of Just Plain Wrong! We celebrate by doing a snake draft of our own podcast episodes selecting 1, the episode we would re-do if we could; 2, favorite media covered; 3, favorite interview; 4, favorite overall episode.  We also chat about Sunday evening traditions, the most popular ep from each season, and lots more. We always love hearing from listeners! You can reach...

This week, the MennoBrarians decide to switch things up and talk about the movie Holyman Undercover for only a small portion of the episode, and instead chat about our recent trip to Sarasota for our annual podcast summit. We talk about bad movies - ones that are fun, like Monsturd, and ones that are not fun, like Holyman Undercover - as well as Sarasota, Pinecraft, all the desserts we ate, and mu...

This week, the MennoBrarians snake draft our favorite, most niche, and weirdest Mennonite traditions. We chat MCC Relief Sales, hymn sings, baptism, and how we draw the line at washing saran wrap.  We always love hearing from listeners! You can reach us at plainwrongpod at gmail.com, or on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. If you want to help support the podcast financially, please consider joinin...

This week the MennoBrarians chat about the Amish romance novel, First Impressions: An Amish Retelling of Pride & Prejudice by Sarah Price. We chat about our favorite P & P adaptations, and do a detailed overview of how the author "Amish-ified" the classic novel. We always love hearing from listeners! You can reach us at plainwrongpod at gmail.com, or on Twitter, Instagram, and Fa...

This week, the MennoBrarians kick off Season 8! We celebrate the season start with a breakfast foods snake draft, some quick life updates, and chatting about some recent book and media favorites.  We always love hearing from listeners! You can reach us at plainwrongpod at gmail.com, or on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. If you want to help support the podcast financially, please consider joining...

In this week's episode, the MennoBrarians look back on 2025 and chat about some of our favorite books and media from this past year.  Mentioned in this episode:  Erin’s 2025 Favorites The collected works of Ali Hazelwood Basketball, particularly the Iowa Hawkeyes and the WNBA Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid The music of Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa, and Chappel Roan Tillie’s 2025 Favorites Murder...

The MennoBrarians return for the first of our two holiday episodes, with a recap and discussion on the recently released movie, Christmas in Amish Country. You can find this movie streaming on Frndly, Philo, or live on the UpTV cable channel. In the movie, we follow Claire/Clara Stoll through her new restaurant's disastrous opening night, after which she decides to return home to Missouri and...

In this episode we discuss the highlights of season 7, share some stats and also stories and corrections from our listeners. Highlights include the story of how the More with Less cookbook got into trouble with a chain of restaurants, the rise of ebikes in Mount Hope, OH, and more. Additionally, here are some of the resources shared by Steve Nolt about the Old Order River Brethren including: A num...

This week the MennoBrarians discuss the selection chosen for us by our Discernment Committee level Patreon members: Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult, published in 2000. This book has it all: a mysterious murder, a lying Amish teenager accused of the crime, a cutthroat but disillusioned big city lawyer, and a 28 year old ph.d. student studying ghosts that turns out to be the baby's father. We chat...

This week is part 2 of our cookbook series! We chat with Amy Harris-Aber, about Community Cookbooks - informally published cookbooks often associated with families, camps, or churches. We chat about Amy's research on Mennonite cookbooks, discuss our fave recipes and cookbooks, and much much more.  Amy's website Amy's article on Russian Mennonite Community Cookbooks Cookbooks / artic...

This week, the MennoBrarians draft published Mennonite cookbooks. We chat cooking blogs, favorite recipes, and much much more.  Draft picks (stop reading if you don't want spoilers!):  Erin - Simply in Season Abby - More with Less Tillie - Extending the Table Tillie - Mennonite Community Cookbook Abby - There’s always room at the table - Kaleb Wyse Erin - Peppernuts Plain and Fancy Erin - The...

This week, the MennoBrarians chat with Karen Johnson-Weiner about her book, The Lives of Amish Women. The book captures the diversity of the experiences of Amish women, with Johnson-Weiner's research relying heavily on correspondence and interviews with members of Amish communities. We chat about her research, her friendships with Amish women, why there hasn't been much research publishe...

This week, the MennoBrarians chat about the movie "Holy Matrimony," a 1994 comedy movie starring Patricia Arquette and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. In the movie, Patricia Arquette's character, Havanna, is unknowingly dragged into a Hutterite colony by her boyfriend Peter who she is forced to marry, and then after Peter dies in a car accident days later, she must marry Zeke, Peter's 12...

This week, we chat with Eric Bradley, our friend, colleague, and the new Head Librarian of the Mennonite Historical Library (MHL). We chat primarily about genealogy and genealogy research, but also touch on MHL resources, Eric's faith journey, and much more. Some of the genealogy resources mentioned in this episode:  Swiss Anabaptist Genealogical Association https://www.saga-omii.org/ Grandma...

This week, the MennoBrarians draft poets! Specifically, Mennonite poets, or poets we make the case are close enough to Mennonite to count as Mennonite poets. We chat about the history of Mennonite poetry, share the bios and snippets from our favorite poems, and chat about our own poetry phases - including Abby doing a special reading of a poem she wrote as a tween, Snowflake, Snowflake.  Draft pic...

This week, the MennoBrarians chat about Carlos Whittaker's book Reconnected, a memoir about giving up technology and living with Amish for several weeks. We chat about the early days of cell phones, Carlos' experience with the Amish, which bits of his advice we liked, and much more.  Carlos Whittaker is a christian social media influencer, speaker, author, and podcaster, who promotes ide...

This week the MennoBrarians chat about the TV show Only in America, in which host Larry the Cable Guy visits different parts of the United States to learn about different cultures.  We cover episode 18 of season 1, "Larry is Amish" in which Larry visits Milwaukee, WI, Amish Country, and the Houston Art Car parade. It turns out, Larry doesn't actually visit the Amish, he visits an Ol...