Jason brings to my attention an eye-opening article on the bible-publishing business:
The popularization of the Bible entered a new phase in 2003, when Thomas Nelson created the BibleZine. Wayne Hastings described a meeting in which a young editor, who had conducted numerous focus groups and online surveys, presented the idea. “She brought in a variety of teen-girl magazines and threw them out on the table,” he recalled. “And then she threw a black bonded-leather Bible on the table and said, ‘Which would you rather read if you were sixteen years old?’ ” The result was “Revolve,” a New Testament that looked indistinguishable from a glossy girls’ magazine. The 2007 edition features cover lines like “Guys Speak Their Minds” and “Do U Rush to Crush?” Inside, the Gospels are surrounded by quizzes, photos of beaming teen-agers, and sidebars offering Bible-themed beauty secrets:
Have you ever had a white stain appear underneath the arms of your favorite dark blouse? Don’t freak out. You can quickly give deodorant spots the boot. Just grab a spare toothbrush, dampen with a little water and liquid soap, and gently scrub until the stain fades away. As you wash away the stain, praise God for cleansing us from all the wrong things we have done. (1 John 1:9)
“Revolve” was immediately popular with teen-agers. “They weren’t embarrassed anymore,” Hastings said. “They could carry it around school, and nobody was going to ask them what in the world it is.” Nelson quickly followed up with other titles, including “Refuel,” for boys; “Blossom,” for tweens; “Real,” for the “vibrant urban crowd” (it comes bundled with a CD of Christian rap); and “Divine Health,” which has notes by the author of the best-selling diet book “What Would Jesus Eat?” To date, Nelson has sold well over a million BibleZines.
Of course, my first concern is: are these books theologically sound? Do they treat the philosophy of religion with the seriousness that is its due? My next thought was to wonder how to counter this kind of glib cultural programming, and I suspect the only appropriate response would be a lengthy, in-depth, scholarly dissection of Anselm’s work, or perhaps an exegesis on the ideas of St. Thomas Aquinas. That’ll wake people up to the silliness being peddled to their children.
All the criticisms of Dawkins and Harris need to be inverted—it’s not that they are insufficiently schooled in theology, it’s that they’re just too freakin’ high-minded and serious, and they’re addressing on an intellectual level a bunch of ideas that are transmitted in the same way that fashion labels get traction.
Ah, but one does not have to worry about glossy bible magazines as they introduce pop-culture to scripture which will then convert teens to pop-culture even if they lived cloistered lives in bible study.
This does not help science of course, but then this approach would do the same thing to kids interested in science, i.e., convert them to pop-culture if they would be so tempted.
The deal here is that religion is religion and science is science. If you are really interested in either one you will have to face the reality of what it is. If you make either one pop-culture they are pop-culture and no one needs converting to pop-culture.
PZ, do you have the deep and scholarly knowledge of teen pop culture and deodorant stain removal necessary to comment meaningfully about this development?
No, it’s clear you don’t. Therefore: God exists.
If only there were a slick, glossy, flashy, style-over substance science magazine for kids…
“Seed Teens”, anyone?
Well, most folks already get most of their understanding of biology from CSI, so that’s somewhat analogous.
demented fuckwit criticizes revolve/refuel for being “based on far-left, very-liberal, anti-conservative, anti-Bible-Believer, teachings”
http://www.av1611.org/kjv/revolve.html
http://www.av1611.org/kjv/refuel.html
a favorite excerpt:
Revolve, at Amazon.
ouch.
My favorite re-packaging of that book:
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/
We all know your true motive: You are hoping that the sophisticated theology of Revolve will convert your daughter to Christianity, and then you’ll have someone to argue with.
The argument about Dawkins and Harris not taking theology seriously is a joke. They are not writing to or about theologians. They are writing to and about average Americans who are religious. Most of these people either don’t know much about theology or, in the case of fundamentalists and evangelicals, show outright disdain for theology and theologians.
They better change the name of that bookzine. Just take a closer lookzine.
Anybody else notice the word “evolve” hidden in the title? Obviously the work of godless Darwinian Dawkobots! (“They’ve invaded the Bible! Ahhh! *Horror film shriek*)
PZ: “Of course, my first concern is: are these books theologically sound? Do they treat the philosophy of religion with the seriousness that is its due?”
Oh, I doubt that they give philosophy of religion with the seriousness that is its due. They’d probably trash Hume, for example. :)
From the link provided by ray: There has been over 400 versions of the English Bible since the King James Bible was published in 1611.
So…could we say that the Scriptures have speciated? Just asking!
Let’s start a zine called rEVOLUTION.
We could sell it at Hot Topic.
If you want to package science for swooning teenage girls, I suggest you title your magazine Starstuff. As in, what Carl Sagan taught us we are all made of.
Kristine asks, “So…could we say that the Scriptures have speciated?” I say, “Woo hoo!”
Nah. The bible has mutated like a virus.
“All the criticisms of Dawkins and Harris need to be inverted–it’s not that they are insufficiently schooled in theology, it’s that they’re just too freakin’ high-minded and serious, and they’re addressing on an intellectual level a bunch of ideas that are transmitted in the same way that fashion labels get traction.”
That’s a baffling comment, at least in regards to Dawkins writing. “The God Delusion” is hardly high-minded and it treats absurdity with the humor and disgust it deserves. Perhaps it should be redone as a graphic novel?
If you’re calling for a dumbed-down tabloid approach to teaching objective realism, there’s the “Weekly World News” with articles about what kind of pizza was served at the last supper presented in ironic glory in context with Batboy and the dreaded hot tub kraken. The Flying Spaghetti Monster (p.b.u.h.) and the Blasphemy Challenge are about as good as it gets for attracting adolescents (of all ages). But the lampoon approach will still only get traction with kids who have learned to think critically. I just can’t wrap my brain around seriously offering acne prevention advice along with some “lite” humanist persuasion.
“Creationism evolves. It’s mutating and spreading”
— book review in New Scientist about a book that refutes a couple of cre_ti_nist arguments
“Creationism evolves. It’s mutating and spreading”
— book review in New Scientist about a book that refutes a couple of cre_ti_nist arguments
Erm… make that “review in New Scientist of a book that refutes”…
Erm… make that “review in New Scientist of a book that refutes”…
These things really make me wonder if fundie Christianity is adaptive within the socioecological context these people live in.
I suppose the Book of Mormon would mark a speciation event. All the rest is just “microevolution”, so doesn’t count.
Speciation? Lords, no! The Bible has simply gone through a small number of relatively minor changes, i.e. microevolution. Macroevolution of The Bible does not exist and is an unscientific hypothesis! The versions of the The Bible that exist today are descended from a set of fixed Kinds handed down by GOD HIMSELF to the original translators of the KJV.
(All those previous versions don’t count, of course, because honestly who speaks Hebrew, Greek, and Latin anyway?)
I would disagree with quork about the microeveolution. The various species of Protestant have found themselves in an environment whereby guarded coexistence is better for survival than competition and conflict. For the moment, anyway.
Why would a “serious” book like that use phrases like “Do U Rush to Crush?”? I really don’t see the meaning of writing “you” as ‘u’ even though it should appeal to younger people. In my opinion they lost my respect at that point even though other stuff might be good enough.
This is weird. I just got an e-mail in my spam bucket from Amazon, saying the following:
I’m wondering just what these “books on religion and spirituality” were. I bought Breaking the Spell at the Harvard bookstore and The Varieties of Scientific Experience at the Barnes-and-Borders-a-Million of our friendly neighborhood shopping mall. Asimov’s Guide to the Bible I got used, as a gift. What books could they possibly mean?
That’ll do it. I had a similar episode last year. Apparently the anti-religious are not a large enough demographic to have our own category in Amazon’s software.
I’m working on a book for teen girls. The working title is, “How to Make Your Boyfriend Shout Out for Jesus!”
It’s going to contain lots of, uh, tips.
OK, PZ, you got me there. Outstanding riff, and point well-taken: of *course* the level of discourse in the evangelical churches is several notches below anything Richard Dawkins has ever written, and it follows that much of the hand-wringing regarding Dawkins’ failure to engage theology more broadly is misplaced—if indeed the Biblezine readers were his target audience.
But, you know, sometimes if you preach to the choir, even the choir gets restless. Based upon what I’ve read, it’s not theists, much less fundies, who’ve been making that complaint. Shoot, as a group the fundies aren’t even *aware* that those sort of distinctions exist, much less complain because they weren’t considered.
It will be interesting to see if this argument is even addressed when Christianity Today gets around to reviewing it, since that’s the closest thing to a sophisticated literary magazine operated by evangelicals.
I saw Revolve for the first time at a Christian friend’s house. Quite frankly, it looked blasphemous.
Perhaps the ultimate in Bible absurdity is the Personal Promise Bible, http://www.personalpromisebible.com/
I like to call it the Mad Libs Bible — you can get your name put into it, as well as some other info, like your spouse’s name and some places.
GWW: Just what the Clearasil crowd needs, apparently, a teen version of the Gospel according to Alex Comfort, no doubt with a chapter on methods of resurrection.
I’d feel better is such a thing actually existed, frankly! Perhaps Drew Pinsky could put it together, and fill it with the practical advice, straight talk, warts n’ all that young people actually need? We can joke all we want, but what actually happens to a lot of them is tragic…SH
Scott Hatfield:
Starting, I suppose, with the George Carlin Commandments?
Anyway, there’s always the Guide to Getting It On…
@quork:
The thing is, I didn’t buy any of my “antireligious” books through Amazon! And when I actually hop over to their site and look at my “personalized recommendations”, they look pretty reasonable. Amazon suggests Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell because I ordered Frankel’s Geometry of Physics. (I already own the Nutshell book, as it happens.) Because I purchased George Sarton’s Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece, Amazon suggests that I buy Sarton’s Hellenistic Science and Culture in the Last Three Centuries B.C. Again, I already own it, thanks to happenstance in a used-book store. The funniest recommendation is the one I got for buying Meera Nanda’s Prophets Facing Backward. Amazon suggests Science and Social Inequality: Feminist and Postcolonial Issues by Sandra Harding. . . well, “know thine enemy” and all that.
Since my “personalized recommendations” don’t include any Bibles, whether of devotional or study varieties, I have to suspect their e-mail system is cocked up.
I am constantly hearing complaints from people about “the kids” using so many abbreviations. Like “u” for “you.” I’m nearly 70. When I was very young, I noticed that my older relatives (grandparents and the like) often used this abbreviation and others such as “thru” for “through.” My mother told me it was just something that old people did, and I shouldn’t do it. It still looks odd to me, but I don’t associate it with young people especially. Of course, now that I’m old people myself, I can’t associate it with old people either.
Who owns faith? In my faith, Jesus wrenched ownership of faith away from the priests and handed it over to whoever has ears to hear. But it didn’t take long for the ‘organization’ to take root and again the priests hijacked back the faith that Jesus gave us. Theology is the art of wrenching faith from individual minds in order to claim ownership and thereby marginalizing the true owners. But for some who are fortunate enough to live in a time and place where the priests are weak, individuals can reclaim ownership of faith without fear of stakes and flames. Faith is not science, faith is not the provable, faith is what prevents us from becoming immobile, for some it is merely that which allows them to cross a street with confidence that some driver fiddling with a cell phone will not run them down. For others it is something never thought about, for life is but a sequence of events and we merely move from one to the other is the most pleasant manner possible. But for me it is the freedom to discern all thoughts, to seek the more better way, even when living in a changing world that promises nothing. In the end the Bible is a book (in any translation) that one should be able to rip the pages from to start the campfire to cook the next meal, for only then does the Bible transform from being a noun to becoming a verb — and then the more better way comes alive in you.
Salon covered this a couple of years ago.
IMO, the winning paragraph:
The lack of intellect in evangelical theology isn’t surprising. Most are even proud of it. Maybe because you can’t defend a literal interpretation of the bible on an intellectual basis.
That’s a baffling comment, at least in regards to Dawkins writing. “The God Delusion” is hardly high-minded and it treats absurdity with the humor and disgust it deserves. Perhaps it should be redone as a graphic novel?
The point is that Dawkins takes religious belief more seriously and accords it more respect than its own adherents do. When they’re not bitching that he hasn’t studied their fairy tales hard enough, they whine that he’s not playing fair, that he’s trying to take their security blanket away, that whether or not their beliefs are true or make any sense, they feel so good. They don’t want to be engaged rationally because they know the fairy tales aren’t true. They just want to be left alone to suck their thumbs in peace.
Please tell me that the personal promise Bible puts in the spouse name for all of Song of Songs, because that would be hilarious and creepy all at the same time. And wouldn’t it be interesting if it substituted for all the stories, to really personalize it? “PZ, you must sacrifice your son Alaric”…
Some synchronicity:
“”Pop Atheism” might include popular atheist TV and movie characters, professional athletes, political figures, etc. Look for the first billion-dollar IPO for the Web service that gets atheists together for “rituals,” dating and political and business networking.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-tech28dec28,0,1897236,full.story
John Brockman is publisher and editor of Edge (edge.org)
Scott Hatfield quiped:
8-0 ROTFLMAO! Scott, you devil! Is this an example of Christian locker room (or choir room) humour? Wow, my mental image of you just took a hard left. Thanks, that made my day.
Comeon, I linked to that article in one of the comments weeks ago. Nobody reads what I write (ok, it was debated a little at the time, os it’s not quite true – it’s only PZ who doesn’t read what I write in his comments).
Poor you. :P
I do need to get off these intarweb thingies. They seem to do nothing more than expose me to an increasing mass of irrationality which hurt my brain. Check out the reviews of the various Biblezine things at Amazon. While some are the generic ‘sky daddy loves us all’ saccharine, there are those nuggets of Christian knowledge: American founding fathers were evangelicals, every Bible is the exact word of God, not a single contradiction, and my personal favorite that this book is the only path to morality.
Is a sad day when going into the next room, flipping on Spike, and watching a holodeck episode of Star Trek will feel like I am basking in a warm zephyr of logic and internal consistency.
Sidenote number one: Ofttimes my wife wanders by and notices me entranced by the CRT, eyes fixed, and vocal track stuck in a fixed soft loop of, “But, but, but….”. She knows the remedy, no matter what programming happened to have triggered my condition, is to gently rub the back of my skull as she coos, “Star Trek, sweetie, Star Trek.”
And I finally remembered what prompted me to begin writing in the first place. While browsing at Amazon, I noticed that these Biblelets were New Testament only. I ask ye all, good or bad thing that a large number of Christians are voluntarily cleaving the word of God in twain?
The upside from my POV is that without the OT baggage, primarily Genesis, the majority of objections to biology, physics, geology, astronomy, history, archaeology, linguistics and human knowledge in general disappear. Does make for a slightly saner body of Christians.
The downside being that without the OT baggage of rape, murder, pillage, sacrifice and blatant contradiction with the majority of human knowledge, it does become harder to start the prototypical casual Christian down the path of free thought. Actual verses from the OT having historically been my most effective deconversion tool.
In response, I propose Playheathen , for the sophisticated aatheist.
I must have read and followed your link, Kristjan, because I know I’d seen that story a couple weeks ago.
PZ,
In answer to your question, no this Revolve travesty is not theologically correct. It is a fundamentalist screed, that mostly serves to want girls to take on the values of pre-1960s where girls were giggling sock-hoppers and being a wife was indistinguishable from domestic servitude.
Revolve is a nasty thing and should be burned.
Read Revelations, and use that instead.
I wouldn’t look good in twain. All my suits are made for a whole person.
I’ve seen one of those bibles, in church no less (attended a wedding). At first I thought it’s just a glam mag or something, but the 40-something lady reading it was quoting verses to the minister from it. Disturbing how the religionists try to spread their fairy tales nowadays.
P.S. The review by “Auros” at the link provided by cleek rawks galaxies:
A truly breathtaking work of vapid extremist guiltmongering,…dumbs it down, wraps it in “hip” language and glossy paper, interprets it in the most repressive, mind-numbing manner possible, and then hawks it to young women at an impressionable age, when they’re trying to establish their own identity…All non-Christians should take note of the continuing efforts of a very small segment of the Christian population to brainwash the rest of society into conformance with their anti-sex, anti-feminist, anti-pretty-much-anything-joyous-or-beautiful-or-even-slightly-risky, narrow-minded worldview. LOL!
How many pervs looked at the pretty girls on the cover and clicked “search inside”? Oh yes, thank you Amazon! “Blab T&As!” Oh, er, uh–
And it seems that there is a Refuel version for boys???
“mostly serves to want girls to take on the values of pre-1960s where girls were giggling sock-hoppers and being a wife was indistinguishable from domestic servitude.”
Sounds theologically correct to me.
The christian bible is too long anyways. The tanakh is a much better length. If we get American teens hooked on Judaism we can finally win the “War on Christmas!” =p
So in other words, the modern equivalent of the stained glass window. Designed to inspire the illiterate simpletons who can’t handle “deeper” theological issues.
Same as it ever was.
bPer: Glad to bring a smile to your face, but of course the original salaciousness was all GWW’s.
I’m not sure that many of my fellow believers would cotton to (or even get) my attempt at humor, but I think regardless of what we believe, all of us in the human condition need to keep a sense of humor handy. And sex IS funny, after all…SH
Whoever linked that Personal Promise Bible has introduced me to a new and dangerous drug. Some samples:
‘A Sexy Kraken’
‘A Drunken Stupor’
‘A Septic Tank’
‘A Randy Goat’
Yes, yes, yes – juvenile humor.
Uh, llewelly, you wouldn’t happen to be a fan of Ghastly’s Ghastly Comic, would you? Because he’d be all about sexy krakens, if he hadn’t retired the strip.
Oh, to get the sexy kraken bible printed in bulk and do a substitition with all the Gideon bibles…
You might be suprised, but I don’t disagree at all with this response to the criticism of Dawkins in question: it is appropriate and accurate, and more defensible as a response to such criticism than the Courtier’s Reply.
Blake Stacey: Amazon has great selection and decent (sometimes great) pricing. But their pattern matching is very odd. I once got a recommendation that read: “Persons who bought ‘Supervenience and Mind'” (like I did) “also bought” … wait for it … fresh underwear!
All the criticisms of Dawkins and Harris need to be inverted–it’s not that they are insufficiently schooled in theology, it’s that they’re just too freakin’ high-minded and serious, and they’re addressing on an intellectual level a bunch of ideas that are transmitted in the same way that fashion labels get traction.
Even if it were the case that Sam Harris isn’t hip enough, this is what we have Brian Flemings for. Mr. Flemings is very big on the new media.