Missing the book for the trees
At InterVarsity Press’ Behind the Books blog, Dave Zimmerman has an interesting post about one of the unexpected challenges of being an editor in the Christian publishing industry: reading the books you’re editing in the right spirit. He describes the struggle to actually read a book without letting one’s ego and editorial habits get in the way of appreciating the book for what it is:
now my small group wants to read the latest trendy, manufactured, prefab, one-size-fits-all presentation of the mega-gospel. I commence re/adding the book, systematically mocking the trail of alliteration and acronyms that litter its pages, marvelling at the depth of Christian mystery that has been so effectively sterilized and commodified by this larger-than-life Christian celebrity with a word-processor and a PR department. Meanwhile, my friends and neighbors are reading the book, wide-eyed and mouth agape at this fresh look at the Savior they’ve been singing to half-awake every Sunday of their lives. Some of them wonder why nobody’s ever talked about Jesus this way before. And I am left silent.
