As a rule, people on the academic left tend to become angry or disturbed when books get shredded. Throw in questions about academic freedom and religion and you have a combination that can inspire the spilling of seas of ink.
However, it seems that this may not be the case if certain kinds of books are shredded.
Thus, we end up reading about yet another major news story in the context of a “conservative news” outlet, that would be National Review Online, rather than being able to get the facts from a branch of the mainstream press.
What’s the story? Here is how Edward Feser sets the stage:
Wiley-Blackwell, a major academic press, was set to release its four-volume Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization this month. According to the encyclopedia’s editor, George Thomas Kurian, the set had been copy-edited, fact-checked, proofread, publisher-approved, printed, bound, and formally launched (to high praise) at the recent American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature conference. But protests from a small group of scholars associated with the project have led the press to postpone publication, recall all copies already distributed, and destroy the existing print run. The scholars’ complaint? The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization, they have reportedly argued, is “too Christian.” “They also object to historical references to the persecution and massacres of Christians by Muslims,” Kurian says, “but at the same time want references favorable to Islam.”
The key words, of course, are “reportedly argued.”
Then there is the crucial fact that Feser is a participant in the ECC project, which he openly notes in the article. Here is another key piece of the picture — hard facts from the age in which people can simply click “forward” and send controversial memos here and there in a matter of seconds:
As Kurian puts it, “This is probably the first instance of mass book-burning in the 21st century.” Last week, Kurian e-mailed a memo to his nearly 400 contributors informing them of Wiley-Blackwell’s decision, and of his intention of pursuing on their behalf a class-action breach-of-contract lawsuit. Kurian’s memo was soon distributed on the e-mail list of the Society of Christian Philosophers. …
The memo also claims that the “words or passages [the critics] want deleted” include “Antichrist,” “BC/AD (as chronological markers),” “Virgin Birth,” “Resurrection,” and “Evangelism.” “To make the treatment ‘more balanced,’” the memo says, the critics “also want the insertion of material denigrating Christianity in some form or fashion.”
The publishers, as you would expect, say all of this is nonsense. Meanwhile, looming in the background is the fact that the company had already approved the scholarship between the covers, PUBLISHED IT and then spent money to promote it.
However, do you trust a “conservative” news source to tell this story? Do you trust hearing about this story from a writer who is, in fact, a participant in the story that he is covering?
The memo is a hard news hook, no doubt about it. There is a story here.
Thank goodness, I can pass along the information that another version of the story has shown up at the Inside Higher Ed website, written by Scott Jaschik. Here’s a key paragraph:
As word of the dispute has reached some leaders in religious studies, many have said that they are baffled and concerned by how such a significant project could implode in this way. A scholarly encyclopedia of this scope is a major commitment for a publisher and the authors involved — and this one may be kaput after all the time and money sunk into printing, but before widespread distribution. “What puzzles me the most is how this could have gotten so far before Wiley decided to pull it,” said John R. Fitzmier, executive director of the American Academy of Religion.
What happened? I am sure that GetReligion readers will be shocked, shocked to discover that this is really a red pews vs. blue pews story, with the key figure being the editor of the series — independent scholar George Thomas Kurian. Also, it is not surprising that conflicts between Christianity and Islam are central to the disputed material.
Be prepared for lots of scare quotes, too.
Kurian describes himself as a Christian. And he said in an interview that he recruited only people “with some measure of Christian belief” to write the entries in the encyclopedia. He said that while some parts of the encyclopedia would deal with facts that would appear the same to a Christian or non-Christian, topics such as the virgin birth of Jesus would “seem absurd” to non-Christians and so needed to be read and written about “with Christian eyes.” In terms of his approach, Kurian said that “there are differences between so-called liberal Christians,” who are “Christians in name only and who say you can do anything you want” and “committed Christians” like himself. He said that he favored the latter group.
Kurian said that he was open with his publishers about his approach. … Further, he noted that prior to the printing of the book, Wiley-Blackwell copy editors and fact checkers did their standard reviews of all of the material, so there was no reason to be surprised by what was in the book.
And so forth and so on.
My point is that this is a perfect example of a story that needs mainstream coverage, from the start. Otherwise, if gets defined in terms of the dueling, “European” style, advocacy press approaches of people who may or may not have axes to grind.
But this could be a Catch-22. To write that story, mainstream journalists would have to wade into a tense, complicated story — one that would almost certainly cause great offense to traditional Christians and traditional Muslims. Checkmate?
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Comments (11) |
February 17, 2009, at 2:15 pm
Do I trust “conservative” news sources? No. I don’t trust “liberal” news sources, either.
February 17, 2009, at 2:49 pm
I don’t think it’s a red/blue issue but rather it’s a bias issue.
My question is what standards should an encyclopedia be held do that an ordinary book is not. Wikipedia, for example, tries to enforce a neutral point-of-view. I also presume that the Britannica and other such encyclopedias have the same perspective.
His statement about his bias being in the book sounds to me like an automatic disqualification for writing a reference encyclopedia where there’s a presumption of a neutral voice.
This might not be how the story has been covered, but it’s how I think the story should be covered.
February 17, 2009, at 3:34 pm
Any indication that real actual Muslims were bothered by the appearance of these volumes? or is the publisher just doing some PC/multiculti nonsense so as not to appear offensive to the currently reigning gods?
I see that there are all sorts of other questions about such an undertaking (a ‘scientific’ i.e. an academic perspective on subjects or a ‘believing’ one or both?) but surely these ought to have been answered during the writing and editing parts of the process; good Lord. I suspect that there are issues we aren’t yet aware of.
February 17, 2009, at 5:31 pm
Is this serious? If so, can someone explain to me how the hell you discuss *Christian* societies and the influence of *Christianity* upon them without using *Christian* terms and explaining *Christian* doctrines like the Virgin Birth and Evangelism.
It would be like writing a history of the Peninsular War without any reference to Napoleon.
February 17, 2009, at 5:40 pm
We do need to see an example of what was considered offensive. Writing about - to take an example - the Virgin Birth, you can fall either into the Scylla of “The birth of the super-hero element of the Christian origin myth is paralleled by other similar legends in Middle and Near Eastern cultures such as Dionysius (and so on and so forth)” or the Charbydis of “Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, was born for us in fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah (commence sermon)” when, if it’s an ‘encyclopaedia’ type undertaking, the middle ground of “This doctrine is central to Christianity and holds that Christ was both divine and human. Exegesis of the Old Testament by the early Church held that the prophecy in Isaiah referred to this event because (give explanation).”
However, even if the man was trying to write an apologetics tract rather than a textbook, he still has a valid point in that you do need to use Christian terms and explain those terms in a work of this nature.
February 17, 2009, at 6:04 pm
In the “other” story, the one in Inside Higher Ed, someone in the comments quotes fragments from the introduction that supposedly sparked complaints.
And so on. I know they are fragments, and taken out of context, but it does strike me that they could have been phrased in a less inflammatory fashion. Take the first lines: Something like wtte “Muslim conquest wiped out most of the original Christian communities in North Africa and the Middle East.” would have been (AIUI) historically accurate without raising the ‘rampant hostility showing’ red flag.
It would have been nice to see the whole thing, or at least articles from it, though.
Given that the whole work actually did get published it does look as if whatever happened has more to do with complaints received after the fact than with the actual text and concerns about it. News stories ought to make this clear, if this is indeed the case.
February 18, 2009, at 9:07 am
Goodness, yes, I can see why statements like the above could lead an editorial board to decide for it to be recalled and scrapped. The “like locusts” passage especially.
A small point of interest here to any person or library who may have already received a copy: because of the tension surrounding this event, and the likely rarity of the book once it is pulped, it would seem the “wise thing to do” here would be to hold on to the copy one has for posterity (and possibly even research value, what this sad incident says for our own times).
It does seem like the biggest problem here was too much trust in the editor - he was somehow able to add his introduction without it being read by the editorial board.
February 18, 2009, at 1:12 pm
The story I read about this (I cannot find it now) indicated that it was the introduction (quoted above) that caused the problem more than the rest of the content of the encyclopedia.
February 18, 2009, at 3:18 pm
In order for the publishing house’s explanation to make sense, don’t we have to believe that they think you publish an entire run of costly books before you put the copy through an editing process?
That makes no sense to me.
February 18, 2009, at 6:01 pm
In NRO’s “Corner”, an opinion site, someone was doing reporting:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MmNhMjI2NmFiNDE1NDFlOGVmNTczMmI1NzRiNmU0MjI=
He sent questions to the publisher, and got answers (of sorts) back. Why isn’t this on somebody’s news pages?
Here’s part of it:
It is really very strange that the text was printed and bound before the editorial board reviewed it. That just seems so out of SOP for a publisher that it’s difficult to believe. OTOH, it’s also difficult to believe that stuff like the lines I quoted earlier made it through editorial without question.
Unless there’s a difference between the standard editorial process and this ‘editorial board’ that gets talked about. In which case I wish someone with knowledge would make it clear to those of us trying to follow the story.
February 20, 2009, at 2:58 pm
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