Beware Of Christian Bookstore Hypocrisy by Paul Proctor
BEWARE OF CHRISTIAN BOOKSTORE HYPOCRISY
By Paul Proctor
January 26, 2007
NewsWithViews.com
Last fall I wrote a couple of articles on the troublesome Christian Bookstore industry, the first of which was entitled Beware of Christian Bookstores!
It began this way:
"Want a shock? Go to your favorite Christian website, more specifically, to the page where they sell books. Type the names of known heretics and false teachers into the site's search engine; names of authors from the church growth movement, emerging church movement, Word Faith movement and even the New Age and see what pops up on the screen for sale. Brace yourself though, because you're probably going to be surprised. Believe it or not, some Christian bookstores are even selling the published works of homosexuals, pagans and occultists! But that's not all."
In a follow-up column, I published an open letter to American Family Association's, Tim Wildmon, questioning some rather disturbing contradictions between what he publicly opposes and what AFA offers for sale in their American Family Resource Center online. In the open letter article entitled, Dear Mr. Wildmon, one of my questions to him was:
"Why do you interview authors like Brian Flynn on your Worldview Weekend radio program about the dangers of new age mystical practices like Contemplative Prayer, as if you oppose it, when you've been selling the books of New Age and Contemplative authors from your American Family Resource Center all along?"
After apparently taking some heat for it over the last few months, Wildmon rationalized it all away in a brief yet revealing response published by his dear friend and loyal associate, Brannon Howse, over at ChristianWorldviewNetwork.com:
Tim Wildmon, President of the American Family Association Responds
Now, there's this little pious piece from the Southern Baptist Convention's own Baptist Press, criticizing Wal-Mart for selling pro-homosexual books over the internet - informing their readers that entering words like "gay" into Wal-Mart's online bookstore search engine would reveal problematic authors and titles:
Wal-Mart still dabbling in support of homosexual agenda
In all their righteous indignation, the Baptist Press had this to say:
"By offering book selections that cater to the gay and lesbian crowd, America's top discount retailer is demonstrating a desire to satisfy a vocal minority at the expense of losing the support of a large demographic that helped make Wal-Mart the successful business it has been for years…
But across the country, Southern Baptists are hard at work spreading the word about Wal-Mart's behavior. Donna Garner, a retired English teacher, is an example of a leader in the grassroots effort to help Wal-Mart live up to the family friendly description the company gives itself.
'I think we've done a pretty good job in our country of letting Wal-Mart know we've not been pleased at all with their decision to back the homosexual agenda,' Garner, a member of Highland Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, told Baptist Press.
Garner is part of a vast network of Christian women who use e-mail to monitor cultural developments such as Wal-Mart's initiatives toward improving its service to homosexuals…
'I just think it's very sneaky of Wal-Mart and really unnecessary to carry those books on the Internet,' Skeet Workman, a member of Garner's e-mail network and a Texas Baptist leader, said. 'They present one face in the store and yet they cater to another group online.'"
So, what's wrong with that, you ask?
Well, if you go to the ChristianResearchService.com website, click on the Master List, scroll down to the section subtitled, Homosexual/Lesbian/ Transgendered/Pro-gay, and enter each of the names listed there into the Southern Baptist Convention's LifeWaystores.com search engine, (select keyword: "author,") you will find numerous examples of the double-standard that continues unabated in the online Christian bookstore industry.
"Woe unto you…hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." - Matthew 23:27
Related Articles and Websites:
1. Beware of Christian Bookstores!2. Dear Mr. Wildmon3, Tim Wildmon, President of the American Family Association Responds4, Wal-Mart still dabbling in support of homosexual agenda5, Christian Research Service6, The Master List7, LifeWay Christian Stores8, American Family Resource Center
© 2007 Paul Proctor - All Rights Reserved
By Paul Proctor
January 26, 2007
NewsWithViews.com
Last fall I wrote a couple of articles on the troublesome Christian Bookstore industry, the first of which was entitled Beware of Christian Bookstores!
It began this way:
"Want a shock? Go to your favorite Christian website, more specifically, to the page where they sell books. Type the names of known heretics and false teachers into the site's search engine; names of authors from the church growth movement, emerging church movement, Word Faith movement and even the New Age and see what pops up on the screen for sale. Brace yourself though, because you're probably going to be surprised. Believe it or not, some Christian bookstores are even selling the published works of homosexuals, pagans and occultists! But that's not all."
In a follow-up column, I published an open letter to American Family Association's, Tim Wildmon, questioning some rather disturbing contradictions between what he publicly opposes and what AFA offers for sale in their American Family Resource Center online. In the open letter article entitled, Dear Mr. Wildmon, one of my questions to him was:
"Why do you interview authors like Brian Flynn on your Worldview Weekend radio program about the dangers of new age mystical practices like Contemplative Prayer, as if you oppose it, when you've been selling the books of New Age and Contemplative authors from your American Family Resource Center all along?"
After apparently taking some heat for it over the last few months, Wildmon rationalized it all away in a brief yet revealing response published by his dear friend and loyal associate, Brannon Howse, over at ChristianWorldviewNetwork.com:
Tim Wildmon, President of the American Family Association Responds
Now, there's this little pious piece from the Southern Baptist Convention's own Baptist Press, criticizing Wal-Mart for selling pro-homosexual books over the internet - informing their readers that entering words like "gay" into Wal-Mart's online bookstore search engine would reveal problematic authors and titles:
Wal-Mart still dabbling in support of homosexual agenda
In all their righteous indignation, the Baptist Press had this to say:
"By offering book selections that cater to the gay and lesbian crowd, America's top discount retailer is demonstrating a desire to satisfy a vocal minority at the expense of losing the support of a large demographic that helped make Wal-Mart the successful business it has been for years…
But across the country, Southern Baptists are hard at work spreading the word about Wal-Mart's behavior. Donna Garner, a retired English teacher, is an example of a leader in the grassroots effort to help Wal-Mart live up to the family friendly description the company gives itself.
'I think we've done a pretty good job in our country of letting Wal-Mart know we've not been pleased at all with their decision to back the homosexual agenda,' Garner, a member of Highland Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, told Baptist Press.
Garner is part of a vast network of Christian women who use e-mail to monitor cultural developments such as Wal-Mart's initiatives toward improving its service to homosexuals…
'I just think it's very sneaky of Wal-Mart and really unnecessary to carry those books on the Internet,' Skeet Workman, a member of Garner's e-mail network and a Texas Baptist leader, said. 'They present one face in the store and yet they cater to another group online.'"
So, what's wrong with that, you ask?
Well, if you go to the ChristianResearchService.com website, click on the Master List, scroll down to the section subtitled, Homosexual/Lesbian/ Transgendered/Pro-gay, and enter each of the names listed there into the Southern Baptist Convention's LifeWaystores.com search engine, (select keyword: "author,") you will find numerous examples of the double-standard that continues unabated in the online Christian bookstore industry.
"Woe unto you…hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." - Matthew 23:27
Related Articles and Websites:
1. Beware of Christian Bookstores!2. Dear Mr. Wildmon3, Tim Wildmon, President of the American Family Association Responds4, Wal-Mart still dabbling in support of homosexual agenda5, Christian Research Service6, The Master List7, LifeWay Christian Stores8, American Family Resource Center
© 2007 Paul Proctor - All Rights Reserved
posted by Tim Wirth | 6:57 PM
1 Comments:
Big Daddy Weave said...
Lifeway has responded. From Mainstream Baptists...
LifeWaystores.com improving efforts
to filter questionable titles from third-party distributor’s list
LifeWaystores.com is enhancing its efforts to ensure that questionable books are filtered out of a massive list of titles available online through its third-party distributor. In fact, the third-party distributor makes 130,000 titles available to LifeWay, while adding sometimes as many as 1,000 new titles each week. Lifewaystores.com includes only about 100,000 of these titles, having eliminated nearly 25 percent of the books for a variety of reasons, most often because of inappropriate content, according to Mark Scott, vice president of the Christian stores division of LifeWay Christian Resources. In addition, LifeWay filters the titles electronically based on information from publishers and the reputation of authors and publishers for producing biblically-based material. Every week, dozens of inappropriate titles are removed successfully. And, says Scott, the electronic filtering and human-review processes are being improved to meet the high volume of new books hitting the Christian retail market.
“Even so, no system is perfect, and because we’re human and make mistakes, a few inappropriate titles occasionally make it through our filtering system and onto the online list,” says Scott. “When we become aware of these titles – often through an email from a customer – we investigate them, and if we confirm them to be inappropriate, we remove them immediately.”
That’s what happened this week as several Web logs reported that LifeWaystores.com was offering a number of pro-homosexual titles. “We checked it out immediately and found that, in fact, several titles did appear on our third-party distributor’s list,” says Scott. “We were unaware of these and removed the titles immediately. We appreciate it when such titles are brought to our attention and we invite our customers to contact us if they discover titles or authors about which they are concerned. Our customers place a high degree of trust in us to provide biblically sound resources. We value that trust and strive to maintain it.”
LifeWaystores.com also will be providing “Read with Discernment” tags on certain titles that are requested for scholarly study but may not appropriate for a broader Christian audience. ”Many of the titles available through the distributor are made available for critical study or research so that pastors, seminary students and ministry leaders have access to material that helps them understand and develop responses to the diversity of religious thought in a postmodern world,” says Scott.
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