Some scholars say popular books depart from Christian teaching

Blake writes “The Associated Press
The lesson from this week’s best-seller list is simple: God sells. But what worries some scholars is that the hottest religious books depart from traditional Christian teaching or distort the faith’s origins.”

April 17, 2004 by Uncategorized 3

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3 Responses

  1. nbruce says:
    April 17, 2004 at 10:36 pm

    Christian books and scholars
    Usually I don’t agree with much that scholars say about Christianity, but on the DaVinci fiction and Left Behind series, I agree with the intent of the article. Do keep in mind, they are fictional works. As Christianity goes, Dispensationalism is fairly new, and hasn’t made many inroads in older denominations. But people are reading, keeping that skill alive.

    Reply
  2. shoe says:
    April 17, 2004 at 11:31 pm

    metamorphosis

    Granted, religion probably by nature isn’t as fluid as language, but isn’t this how things progress (granted, some would say, by way of regressing) and change? Religion, I believe, is fluid, internalizing some ideas and making them become “fact” and throwing away others.

    Unrelated but related thought:

    Da Vinci Code still has four hundred requests on it at my library. I don’t believe all those people take it as honest to god fact, despite what the author says. In fact, I’m sure some are reading it because they want to take exception to it. That’s fine. In fact, the fact that they’re reading it at all, even though their pastor might have told them not to or because it goes against their principals… well, that’s great.

    I had a professor that said every day you should do one thing that throws you out of your comfort zone. I don’t know if he had reading in mind, but if the shoe fits…

    Reply
  3. Fang-Face says:
    April 18, 2004 at 3:29 am

    Bestseller? Probablyl not.

    “Whether they feel negatively or positively about religion, people in American culture think about and care about it,” Garrett says. Jerry Jenkins, co-author of “Glorious appearing” with Tim LaHaye, calls the phenomenon “God hunger – people looking for something beyond themselves.”

    What a load of crap. As I wrote to a keypal one time:

    Yes, but you have to keep something in mind, F.R.R. A bestseller is a bestseller because it has sold a lot of copies. Not necessarily because it is any good. 🙁
    –Michael Nellis, 17 July 1995

    A book can get onto the bestseller list simply by having a large quantity of volumes ordered by the Retailers. That does not translate into high sales to the Consumers, and one thing you will never see on the New York Times Book Review page is how many copies got “remaindered”. Those are the copies which did not fly off the shelves and were simply returned to the publisher.

    And I don’t think the book industry should be so self-congratulatory. It’s an industry like any other and as such it worships its own God: The Bottom Line.

    If you want some food for thought along those lines then I recommend Holt Uncensored. You can subscribe to her electronic newsletter and get some interesting news about the industry.

    As for all the religious hysteria: There’s a reason it’s called “fiction”. And if Brown really is touting The Da Vinci Code as revealed truth, then odds are it is hate speech similar to
    The Protocols of the Elders of Zion    . So debunk it already. Just do it scientifically, not with an inquisition.

    Reply

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