{"id":377,"date":"2014-02-06T00:45:09","date_gmt":"2014-02-06T00:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=377"},"modified":"2014-08-12T22:56:12","modified_gmt":"2014-08-12T22:56:12","slug":"a-tale-of-two-publishers-pastors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/a-tale-of-two-publishers-pastors\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tale of Two…Publishers…Pastors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Those of us who live in Grand Rapids are fortunate.\u00a0 Many of the major religious publishing houses are located here.\u00a0 My daughter Lindsey, a journalism major, has been applying to the various publishers.\u00a0 The feeling she received from Zondervan Books was that they exist to sell.\u00a0 Money is the bottom line, so they prefer light populist books such as Historical Christian Romances and mass appeal novels on Heaven and the successful Christian life \u2013 and of course \u2013 Duck Dynasty!\u00a0 She felt she didn\u2019t want to work there.<\/p>\n

Eerdmans Publishing (publisher of our current reading) on the other extreme pushes the envelope.\u00a0 They love to publish titles that cause one to question and think.\u00a0 They are open to most subjects, even when difficult and controversial.\u00a0 Even their youth books (Lindsey applied in that department) contained titles that were well written and approached difficult and controversial subjects.\u00a0 She wished she would have been hired by Eerdmans.<\/p>\n

Baker Book House publishing finds its niche between those two extremes and also deals with seminary texts as well as popular romance books that guarantee a sale.\u00a0 Although they carry my book By Any Means<\/em>, it wasn\u2019t spiritual enough to allow me a book signing!\u00a0 Because of that, Lindsey didn\u2019t even apply \u2013 good daughter!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind<\/em> by Mark Noll believes that evangelicals have moved from an Eerdmans mentality to a Zondervan mentality.\u00a0 Maybe he has a point \u2013 while Zondervan is growing and moving into a new building, Eerdmans is struggling to stay open.<\/p>\n

Noll first presents reality and the why it\u2019s important to cultivate a mind of critical thinking.\u00a0 He suggests that we have a heritage of \u201cone of the mind\u201d from the reformers, greatest composers and even American Jonathan Edwards.\u00a0 Historically there was a tension between spirit and philosophy, but most understood that all spiritual movements involved serious thought.<\/p>\n

But our evangelical worldview began changing.\u00a0 In reaction to parts of the enlightenment and secular universities, the bible began to be seen as a scientific text, which could be used to prove any issue on any subject.\u00a0 Instead of being able to study scientific ideas and questions from a relation of spirituality, compartmentalization of study versus faith has resulted in a mindset of caution and doubt toward any thought not initiated from a biblical proof-text.<\/p>\n

Pentecostalism, dispensationalist and the holiness movement have contributed to evangelical\u2019s fear of a \u201clife of the mind.\u201d\u00a0 A microcosm of this subjective preponderance over an objective thinking mind can be seen in a \u201ctale of my two pastors.\u201d\u00a0 An earlier pastor, with whom I\u2019ve served, scheduled weekly book studies on leadership topics and popular authors such as Ortberg and Willard, engaging us in discussion and prayer.\u00a0 These gatherings, along with a monthly meeting for pastors in which we discussed culturally relevant topics and their relation to faith might not qualify completely for a \u201clife of the mind,\u201d but it did allow opportunities for question, debate and engagement with society.<\/p>\n

A new pastor came along, aligning more with the holiness and Pentecostal traditions.\u00a0 Soon, the book studies were cancelled and instead, devotional guides and seasons of prayer were scheduled.\u00a0 The Pastors meetings went by the wayside in favor encouraging DAWG (Day Away With God) days.\u00a0 The church is noticeably different, with more fevered worship, healing services, and witnessing but\u00a0 little more disconnectedness from society and less thinking.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t a condemnation but a picture that Noll was trying to illustrate.\u00a0 Both expressions are needed, and as Noll says \u201cwe need reflection alongside of action.\u201d(243). However, much of what makes American evangelicalism so distinct and so individual isn\u2019t necessary essential to a life of faith.\u00a0 And as Americans export this type of Christianity around the world, let\u2019s hope that the pendulum begins the swing back to a more balanced position.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Those of us who live in Grand Rapids are fortunate.\u00a0 Many of the major religious publishing houses are located here.\u00a0 My daughter Lindsey, a journalism major, has been applying to the various publishers.\u00a0 The feeling she received from Zondervan Books was that they exist to sell.\u00a0 Money is the bottom line, so they prefer light […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,160,161,147,159,158],"class_list":["post-377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-john-ortberg","tag-mind","tag-noll","tag-pastors","tag-publishers","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1701,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions\/1701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}