E-books in Academia: The Slow Revolution

Features Profiles Reviews

A QUARTERLY RESOURCE OCTOBER 2012 VOL.56

Growing in Life Serving in Faith

presented by

Advertisement

AbingdonPress.com | 800.251.3320

Visit us at A bingdon A cAdemic . com to learn more and request an exam copy today

Race and Theology

9780687494255 | $10.99

Rob Bell and a New American Christianity

9781426748448 | $17.99

A New History of Christianity

9780687027965 | $41.99

Is There A Future for Gods Love

An Evangelical Theology
9780687660339 | $21.99

The Ancient Near East

9781426753275 | $15.99

An Essential Guide

American Methodism
9781426742279 | $29.99

A Compact History

F ro n t c ov e r d e tA i l s : The Apocrypha t

9781426742354 | $15.99, Do Jews, Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God 9781426752377 | $17.99, The Homiletical Beat 9781426751431 | $16.99

For

has provided resources that challenge scholars, students, pastors, church leaders, and general readers to faithful scholarship, transformative practices, and social responsibility. Abingdon Academic publications offer a disciplined and balanced approach for a broad ecumenical audience.
more thAn

200

yeArs,

Abingdon Press

AbingdonPress.com | 800.251.3320

Visit us at A bingdon A cAdemic . com to learn more and request an exam copy today

Feature

Religion Update
measures digital sales at 15% of print sales and growing quickly. Elaine Maisner, senior editor at the University of North Carolina Press, says, We are seeing impressive growth in the number of digital editions we are selling of all our books, including in religion. Overall, at present, roughly 10% of our overall sales are digital, and, based on our data tracking, we might expect that figure to double or triple in the coming years. HOW DO YOU SPELL SUCCESS? The disparities in growth can be explained by differences in mission, strategy, and capacity. Publishers seeing the most digital penetration are generating books for crossover consumption in nonacademic markets, such as for educated readers of religion, and strive to reach broad audiences with accessible content. Unlike their less digitized peers, some have priced e-books lower than print versions and thus encouraged customers to go electronic. Just as important, theyve tapped in-house technical know-how to make their books available across wide ranges of reading devices. Such variation defines the field out of the gate, but these are early days. Experimentation is rife in academic religion as publishers can almost taste the possibilities as well as the peril that comes with adjusting business models. Behind it all are many opinions about whether to go all-digital as fast as possible, or preserve print production to serve a market that still treasures printed pages. Abingdon represents the digital-allthe-way camp. The Nashville publisher, whose academic division targets students primarily, stopped doing initial print runs earlier this year for the 25 new academic titles it releases annually. Abingdon is transitioning to print-on-demand, which produces only as many books as customers order; the house is clearing out all print inventory over the next 12 to 18 months. Seeing print-on-demand as a part of the digital switch, Abingdon plans to be almost entirely digital
W W W . P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY. C O M 1

The Digital Revolution in Religion Publishing Brings Business, Technical Issues

By G. Jeffrey MacDonald

The digital revolution has arrived at seminaries and religious colleges as e-books lighten backpacks and, in some cases, take pressure off burdensome book budgets. For publishers, now comes the hard part: figuring out how to sell into these niche markets digitally, profitably, and without driving anyone crazy in the process.

aintaining sanity in this arena can be challenging at times. Example: books rich in maps, art, and ancient language characters need formatting across various platforms and require new digital permissions for every image. On the reader side, it can be maddening in class when one persons page 50 is someone elses page 47 or 53. And note taking on a screen is still in primitive stages. When you have a lot of sidebars, language issues, or images, e-pub becomes less ideal because it creates technical problems, says Jeremy Wells, digital manager for Baker Publishing Groups Baker Academic and Brazos imprints. But in some cases, it can be made to Jeremy Wells work quite well. Therein lies the rub. Few areas of publishing hold as much promise in digital as academic religion, an industry segment whose eclectic mix of players stretches from university presses to diversified Christian publishers. The interdisciplinary nature of religious studies cries out for collaboration, inter-

active content, tools for carrying around dozens of booksto say nothing of relief from hefty print prices for specialized textbooks. All this lies squarely in digitals wheelhouse. Eventually, this will be nirvana for researchers, says Richard Brown, director of Georgetown University Press. With so much potential, digital has started to gain a following among students and scholars alike, especially in the past year. Digital represents 15% of sales at Baker Academic, up from 8% in the fiscal year ended April 30. Georgetown University Press saw its digital revenues more than triple from 2011 to 2012, while unit sales almost tripled. Even with rapid growth across the board, digital penetration levels vary widely from house to house. For all the recent increase at Georgetown, only about 4% of its sales are e-books. The same is true for Baylor University Press. Meanwhile, Abingdon Press, an imprint of the United Methodist Publishing House, sells 20% of its academic religion books in e-book format. InterVarsity Press

Religion Update
within five years, according to Paul Franklyn, associate publisher for Bible, theology, and leadership at Abingdon. We dont see the point in storing academic inventory, Franklyn says. All-digital is more cost-effective. Its more viable for an academic religion publisher to go digital as soon as possible. So thats the path that weve embarked on. Other presses have been less aggressive to hasten the transition. Rowman & Littlefield, for instance, ranks among several that price their e-books at the same level as print versions. (When R&Ls e-books sell for less than print copies, its a function of distributor or retailer discounting.) To be sure, the company embraces digital: its seen a 100% increase in digital sales over the past year. It also plans to open its own e-bookstore soon, where readers will find discounts and promotions. But editors admit the electronic kinks are far from worked out. I hear complaints that its more difficult to browse e-books to review and study than it is their print counterparts, says Sarah Stanton, acquisitions editor at R&L. It can also be more difficult to ensure that everyone in class is referring to or looking at the same passage on an e-book due to different reading devices, font sizes, etc. Ongoing experiments reflect divergent views on how best to maximize what digital has to offer. Baylor Press sees potential for new genres within the category. Its now developing manuscripts for Baylor Shorts, a forthcoming collection of minibooks that make economic sense to produce only in digital format. The electronic platform makes possible shorter volumes, Baylor University Press director Carey Newman says. Electronic publishing does have impact on the genre itself.

| Feature

Publishers are finding their best digital sellers in academic religion tend to be the same ones that do well in print. Some have enduring crossover appeal for nonacademic readers, such as Carl Ernsts Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam for the Contemporary World from the University of North Carolina Press. Others have become classroom staples, such as Baker Academics Encountering the Old Testament, which digital native students of Generation Y increasingly order in e-book form.

print examination copies) as they look for course material and research resources. On September 1, R&L kicked off a program to give professors free 60-day access to more than 200 electronic textbooks. Within two weeks, more than 100 had enrolled. IVP also reports receiving more and more requests from professors seeking e-book examination copies, which serve the added benefit of cutting publishers printing and shipping costs. Academic religion publishers would go further to make digital copies available, but many face limitations that FINDING THE WAY dont bind others in the industry. For FORWARD UNC Press, the biggest difficulty is Survey data are guiding publishers in securing all digital rights for every understanding how academic consumers image in its illustration-rich books, like to read. Abingdon cites research according to senior executive editor from the American Academy of ReliElaine Maisner. gion, which finds 20% of scholars and Technical hurdles pose headaches, too. students rely almost exclusively on Baylors books routinely include passages e-books. About 47% use e-books at least in ancient Greek, Hebrew, and Coptic, sometimes, while 52% work exclusively which cant always be supported on every with print. (For survey information from device. Unlike trade publishers, which the Society of Biblical Litcommonly offer all e-books erature, see What Research for all major devices such as Reveals in this issue, p. 4.) iPad, Kindle, and Nook, Were at a tipping point several in academic religion where about half of the acaoffer books on only certain demic market is poised for d e v i c e s . T h a t s p a r t l y electronic and half is not, because they lack the budFranklyn says. Were trying gets and/or in-house experto move to where we think tise necessary to offer conthe market is going to be in tent on every platform. Also, the next five years, and that not every platform delivers a Elaine Maisner will be almost entirely elecgood reading experience for tronic. their uniquely designed books. Driving digital adoption are breadThere are few devices and platforms and-butter factors, not bells and whisthat can really deliver the well-rounded tles. Academic religion books arent functionality that a student or professor cheap for indebted students of religion, needs, says Sally Sampson Craft, direcwhore often destined for professions that tor of digital publishing at IVP. Among pay modest salaries. By choosing electhe missing features: flexible search tronic versions of Abingdon textbooks, capacity, interior links from tables of they save 30%50% on books that roucontents and notes, note-taking tools tinely cost $40 or $50 in print. IVPs that integrate citations, and bookmarkpractice of pricing e-books 20% lower ing tools that function across a library of than their print counterparts helps e-books. account for the relatively deep digital Device-specific formatting is becompenetration at IVP. ing easier and more affordable as hardWhats more, professors seem to love ware makers build software for the task. perusing e-books (rather than unsolicited For example, Apples iBook Author pro COURTESY OF UNC PRESS

2 P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY O C O T B E R 1 5 , 2 0 1 2

Feature |

Religion Update
content adds to the already high costs of doing academic projects for niche audiences. How much more will cashstrapped students be willing to pay for an enhanced e-book version when they can find a used print copy online or from last years student who took the course? Will a brisk market for these items lie somewhere beyond the academy? Nobody knows for sure. But press directors such as Brown say theyre certain enhanced e-books will soon become a larger part of the academic religion landscape. Enhanced e-books are both exciting and daunting, Brown says. Theyre exciting because of incredible valueadded features such as maps and video clips and links, but daunting because of the cost and uncertainty [about whether] those additional costs can be offset by additional sales. (For more on enhanced e-books, see Religious Studies Offers Fertile if Challenging Ground for Digital Growth in this issue, p. 10.) Meanwhile, all in academic religion need to assess how theyll make up for declining sales to academic libraries, who are reportedly managing tight budgets by sharing electronic resources. They either share an e copy or simply purchase limited access until it is proven that an e copy or a hard copy is needed, Newman says. The days of selling 1,000 books to 1,000 libraries are gone. Despite problems, academic religion publishers see a promising way forward as they work out technical kinks and tweak business models. All agree digital will be a larger slice of the pie in years ahead, but how theyll serve that pie is sure to vary from house to house. I dont think academic religion publishers are going to persist unless they go all-digital as soon as possible, Abingdons Franklyn says. That can include print-on-demand, he adds. But how that book arrives on campus will be part of a new story.

gram, which gives publishers userfriendly tools for getting manuscripts onto iPads, is helping Abingdon hold down technical costs while making all its content available for iPads. Technical issues continue to pose problems, however, especially in the area of piracy. IVP neither applies digital rights management technology to its products, nor does it ask distributors or retailers to do so. The reason, Craft says, is that DRM causes a lot of problems for customers and isnt necessary to protect content if books are priced fairly. Others have struggled to protect intellectual property. Despite using DRM, UNC Press has seen massive problems with piracy, Maisner says, adding that enforcement services have been prohibitively expensive. Its a common struggle. Baker Academic, for instance, works with distributors and retailers who apply DRM standard, and invests in enforcement efforts. Still, violations continue. We have had problems with piracy, Wells says. When [theft is] brought to our attention, we try to go after folks that are distributing our content freely on the Internet. I dont know that you can ever completely control it, but we definitely do what we can. THE PRICING QUESTION Pricing presents an ongoing challenge as well. Consider Georgetown University Press. While its digital copies cost 20% less to produce since theres no paper, printing, or binding involved, new costs have cropped up with electronic publishing. For instance, the press now pays a staffer dedicated to handling e-books, a contractor to disseminate content across platforms, and digital storage fees. Hence e-books from GUP generally sell at the same price as the lowest priced print version. Our initial assumption was that every [e-book] should be priced at $9.99, given that this is what we were seeing with Kindle, and that was a bad assumption, Brown says. Trade books and scholarly monographs have different

pricing models in print, and as weve come to learn they need to have different pricing models in digital form, too. Unlike Abingdon and IVP, many in academic religion have concluded the same and are diverging from trade conventions and keeping e-book prices as high as print ones. The few who can afford to price e-books lower than print are the ones who also publish far beyond academic religion and can take advantage of in-house competencies. Abingdon, for instance, Richard Brown publishes Christian fiction as well as nonacademic church resources. Using digital know-how from other Abingdon divisions enables the publisher to hold overall costs down and pass along savingsfrom lower printing, warehousing, and transportation coststo academic customers via lower price points. As academic religion texts get primed for their full digital potential, pricing will require continued experimentation. GUP is bending its sameas-print pricing guideline for the spring 2013 release of Story of a Secret State: My Report to the World by Jan Karski, a Polish eyewitness to the Holocausts early days. While the hardcover print version will sell for $26.95, the e-book will go for just $16.95 because, Brown says, this book will have huge commercial appeal and extraordinary sales volumes will make the lower price sustainable. Pricing enhanced e-books poses particular conundrums. This is, after all, the domain where academic religion books could enter their finest hour by catalyzing interactive graphics and connecting communities of learners. But embedding video and other interactive

W W W . P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY. C O M 3

Religion Update

Feature

What Research Reveals: SBL Mines the Data

By Jana Riess

n the spring of 2011, the Society of Biblical Literature put some questions to its 8,700 members: were they using e-books? if so, how were they using them? which devices did they use personally, in their scholarly research, and in the classroom? The organization received more than 1,500 responses, which John John Kutsko Kutsko, the SBLs executive director, says is probably twice as much as [any of our] other surveys. He was encouraged by the response rate, which meant that SBL could reasonably rely on that data. But Kutsko also noted that the higher proportionate response was likely because SBL members have a dog in the race of e-books success. Monograph publishing is very important, he says. Tenure and promotion depend upon publishing, and I think members have seen a decrease in the [print] opportunities out there. A lot of trade publishers are curtailing their monographs. Responses to the survey showed SBL scholars opening up to e-books. While 52.6% said they had not purchased an e-book in the past year, a quarter (24.5%) had bought between one and five, and nearly another quarter (22.9%) had purchased more than five. Convenience is king. Respondents rated the portability of e-readers, which load multiple tomes on a single device, as a primary reason for liking them. This is particularly true when research involves travel to remote locations where print books might not be readily available. However, Kutsko cautioned, the survey results indicated that for their

research, scholars are still more likely to carry such digital books as PDFs on their laptops, not on e-reading devices. A sizable percentage of our members own Kindles, Nooks, and iPads. But they were used primarily for recreational reading as well as the more academic trade publishing house books, Kutsko says. When it came down to research, they wanted to do it on their computer where they could type and write and save. Among scholars who do use e-reading devices, the Kindle (63.4%) outsells the iPad (38.3%) by two to one and the Nook (just 8.6%) by nearly eight to one. Among the advantages of e-books, scholars indicated that their generally lower price was an attractive factor, as well as their ease of searchability. Kutsko noted that searchability is important not only when conducting ones own research but also in garnering citations of ones work in the research of others. Theres at least some indicationnot in the Ph.D. student profile, but certainly in undergrad profilesthat if the book isnt available digitally, and students cant search [electronically] for it, a book will get cited less, he says. Students today are less likely to physically go to the library and schlep a book from the shelf. Scholars are realizing that its important their work appear in digital formats because it will be cited far more often if it isand such citations may increase chances for tenure and promotion. Frequent citations are an indicator that youre part of a larger scholarly conversation, with a better chance for advancement.

Overall, Kutsko says, the findings showed that an increasing number of scholars want their work available in both print and digital. Its still very important to them to have a physical book, he says. In the survey, only 14.1% of respondents ranked it essential that their work be published in e-book format, compared to 73.6% who regarded a print version as essential. However, nearly half45.6%said it was very important that their work be published digitally. They felt that was a sign of their being engaged in the trends of the academy, says Kutsko. SBL is not just an organization but also an academic press, with 22 active series and a list of about 35 books a year, so it has a vested interest in taking respondents preferences seriously. If customers want SBLs books in e-book format, it will have to provide that. Shortly after the survey, SBL signed with BiblioVault, a digital distributor that is part of Chicago Distribution Services. Since the survey also confirmed that members wanted scholarly monographs primarily in PDF versions to read on their computers, the more heavily academic of SBLs offerings will be in that format, and SBL is in the process of digitizing its entire backlist to PDF. But SBL has also started converting some of its more accessible titles into flowable texts that are appropriate for the Kindle or EPub devices. We want to be selective and cherry-pick our books that have a wider use in the classroom or even among the wider public, says Kutsko. Some of those titles will include Oded Barowskis Daily Life in Biblical Times and Billie Jean Collinss The Hittites and Their World; Kutsko says the latter has gotten strong course adoption. Mindful of the rapid changes in the e-book world and in reading habits, SBL plans a follow-up longitudinal study in two years. By then it will also be able to tell whether our changes and strategies have been effective, Kutsko says. In a publishing landscape in which change seems the only constant, up-to-the-minute information is vital.

4 P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY O C T O B E R 1 5 , 2 0 1 2

Thank You booksellers!

In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the #1 international bestseller, The Purpose Driven Life, we want to thank you for contributing to the millions of people who have discovered Gods amazing plan for their lives through this one-of-a-kind resource.

And the best book ever just got better! Introducing the updated and expanded edition of the international bestseller, The Purpose Driven Life. Retooled and recasted for a . new generation, this book will take readers on a spiritual journey that will transform their answer to lifes most important question: What on Earth Am I Here For? Includes two new chapters and fresh insights from Rick Warren.

THE BESTSELLING NON-FICTION agazine HARdBACK IN HISTORY PW Magazine

hardcover, $22.99 978-0-310-32906-0

ON SALE November 6, 2012

Religion Update

Feature

Biblical Studies and E-books a Good Fit

By Kristin Swenson

eve come a long way from Uruk. That great Mesopotamian cosmopolis of oldthe birthplace of writing itselfis nothing but ruins today, but it gave to human culture a means of communicating that has never ceased to evolve. E-books were novelties and digital resources daunting to all but the tech-happy few (and children under 10 years of age) only a few years ago. Today, it is rare that a publisher doesnt present as a matter of course electronic versions of new and forthcoming titles. Readers are beginning to expect it. That is as true of people looking for titles in biblical studies as it is for those surfing the latest young adult fantasy wave. And with their maps, illustrations, and other beyond-text features, books in biblical studies are especially well suited to digital formats. All of our books, with very few exceptions, appear as e-books at the time of their release as conventional books, says Fred Appel, executive editor at Princeton University Press. The books we publish on topics connected with the Bible, such as Jon Levensons forthcoming book, Inheriting Abraham [profile and review in this issue, p. 15], are no exception. Similarly, all of Westminster John Knox Presss frontlist titles are immediately available in digital formats. Among those WJK will feature at this years joint meetings of the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature (AAR/SBL, Nov. 1720) is Living Countertestimony: Conversations with Walter Brueggemann by Walter Brueggemann (profiled in this issue, p. 14) with Carolyn Sharp. Alicia Samuels, director of electronic resources at WJK, reports the

press is steadily bringing backlist titles into electronic formats. Baylor University Press is very aggressive in e-book distribution, says Carey Newman, BUPs director. Two of the three macro-genre books that we publish electronically [as well as in print] without question are monographs and trade books. In biblical studies, Newman is especially excited to introduce to conferees at AAR/SBL Associations in the GrecoRoman World by Richard S. Ascough, Philip A. Harlan, and John S. Kloppenborg, and The Hermeneutics of the Apostolic Proclamation by Matthew W. Bates. NOT EASY, NOT CHEAP But delivering books in electronic formats isnt easy and isnt cheap. I really admire any publisher who can do all e all the time, says Newman. He notes the particular challenges invisible to most consumers in bringing a book into an electronic format, especially books acquired before contracts began to include language to manage digital content. It would be like loaves and fishes, Newman says, referring to biblical stories of Jesus miraculously broad distribution of limited resources. Paul Engle, senior v-p and publisher for church, academic, and reference resources at Zondervan, might concur, noting, There are significant hidden production costs that accompany producing digital versions.

Indeed, Sally Sampson Craft, director of digital publishing at InterVarsity Press, observes, One myth about digital publishing is that it costs virtually nothing to convert a print book into an e-book. Nevertheless, in biblical studies Zondervan has literally hundreds of titles of textbooks and reference books available in e-book and software formats, as well as other kinds of books such as Darrell Bocks new A Theology of Luke and Acts (profiled in this issue, p. 18). In addition to Bocks book, Zondervan plans to feature prominently at AAR/ SBL Constantine R. Campbells Paul and Union with Christ. Despite the practical difficulties, some publishers do go beyond simply reproducing a print title in electronic form, especially when those titles might be useful for classroom teaching. Engle says that for 25 primary texts Zondervan has hundreds of free electronic resources as well as aids for instructors, quizzes, and flashcards for students on its TextbookPlus Web site. Craft reports that IVP has partnered with Biblesoft, Laridian, OakTree, Olive Tree, QuickVerse, and Wordsearch to provide biblical studies and commentary texts on a variety of digital platforms. IVP plans to offer a mobile app this fall that will bring reference materials to users in yet another way. WHAT DO THE PROFESSORS SAY? Employing such mobile devices for classroom use is one new frontier, says Mark Hoffman, professor of biblical studies at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, Pa. More and more people are going to their smartphones or iPads, he observes, and content will need to be able to move onto those portable systems. Hoffman has been investigating and using digital technology in the classroom for many years; he is the unofficial go-to

6 P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY O C T O B E R 1 5 , 2 0 1 2

Feature |

Religion Update
weaknesses of each of the tools in his September 10, 2012, blog post Bible Software Decisions. Publishers have found that partnerships with these software companies help them meet their own goals of making content electronically available. Samuels notes that Westminster John Knox Press has engaged in licensing agreements to have our content available on the main Bible software platforms. Another digital resource that has found its way into the classroom is the ATLA religion database, produced by the American Theological Library Association, which allows subscribers to access any of thousands of articles in biblical studies for personal research or for classroom use. These tools make it possible to assign specific readings for classroom or online courses in place of or as secondary to a primary, hard copy textbook. Specific Web sites, such as Hoffmans Crossmarks.com, provide a clearinghouse of digital resources for faculty and

guy for digital resources in biblical studies at Gettysburg. Hoffman even taught a course specifically on the Bible and technology, which enjoyed the happy coincidence of finding its core text, From the Garden to the City by John Dyer, pop up as the free Kindle book of the day. One of the remarkable advantages of using such an electronic book in the classroom, Hoffman noted, is how he could share the notes and comments he made in the margins of his copy. Immediately available on each of the students devices, his annotations could serve as fodder for questions and discussion. Whether they teach online or not, most professors find it useful to have some electronic resources for their students as well as for their own research. Simply having a digital image of the object of study can be worth the proverbial thousand words. Henry Rietz, associate professor of religious studies at Grinnell College in Iowa, studies the

Dead Sea Scrolls and appreciates how one can enlarge and manipulate the images to reveal things that might be missed even when examining the Scrolls in person. Brooks Schramm, professor of biblical studies at Lutheran Theological Seminary, uses BibleWorks in the classroom with his graduate students. The software makes otherwise cumbersome tools such as lexica nimble and easy to access. Its also possible to allow students new to a biblical language to follow the professors reading with commentary from a single classroom screen. Logos Bible software is Rietzs electronic reference tool of choice. Accordance is the third in the trinity of Bible software tools increasingly employed by biblical scholars and teachers who want to introduce students to a package of sophisticated digital resources for biblical studies, from grammar and dictionaries to maps. Hoffman provided a detailed review of the features, strengths, and

Religion Reading from Rowman & Littleeld Publishers

A Journey to Waco
Autobiography of a Branch Davidian
ByCliveDoyle withCatherineWessinger andMatthewD.Wittmer 2012 298 pages 978-1-4422-0885-8 $38.00 Hardback

My Life in Jewish Renewal

A Memoir
ByZalmanSchachter-Shalomi withEdwardHoffman September 2012 258 pages 978-1-4422-1327-2 $32.95 Hardback

The Moment
Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright, and the Firestorm at Trinity United Church of Christ
ByCarlA.GrantandShelbyJ.Grant October 2012 200 pages 978-1-4422-1997-7 $40.00 Hardback

Occupy Religion
Theology of the Multitude
ByJoergRiegerandKwokPui-lan October 2012 164 pages 978-1-4422-1791-1 $39.00 Hardback

Digging through History

Archaeology and Religion from Atlantis to the Holocaust
ByRichardA.Freund October 2012 252 pages 978-1-4422-0882-7 $39.00 Hardback

Simple Guides to the Gospels Set

ByPaulJ.McCarren,S.J. October 2012 4 volumes 978-1-4422-1988-5 $70.00 Paperback set Individual volumes $19.95 each

www.rowman.com|800-462-6420|| |800-462-6420||

PW Religion.indd 1

W W W . P U B L I S H E R S W E9/20/12 Y . C PM M 7 E K L 4:58 O

Religion Update
students at a particular institution and beyond. Others have done similar things for their institutions that nevertheless achieve a broader reach. Matthew Skinner, associate professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary in Minnesota, says that although he does not use particular e-books in the classroom, he helped create Luther Seminarys Enter the Bible Web site and is a contributing editor for the Bible pages of Odyssey Networks, a multifaith coalition that produces and distributes interfaith romances. Martien Halvorson-Taylor, associate professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia, is answering her schools call to hybridize more coursesthat is, allow for some of the learning to take place in virtual classrooms or online environments. On her digital wish list, HalvorsonTaylor expressed the need for a better-curated database of high-quality images tailored to biblical studies courses, and also collected images of classical art and popular culture she could use to supplement discussions about biblical interpretation. These are some things that the Society of Biblical Literature hopes to satisfy with its Bible Odyssey project, an interactive Web site supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and designed to make balanced, biblical scholarship available to the general public. However, Halvorson-Taylor, along with what appears to be the majority of biblical studies professors, has a preference for traditional print textbooks for classroom use. STILL IN LOVE WITH PRINT Indeed, while Engle notes that Zondervan has watched sales of e-books and software rise with each passing year, We continue to see strong physical textbook sales, as many students prefer the physical text or choose to have both digital and print. Samuels reports that WJK did provide additional electronic perks with some of its key introductory textbooksbonuses such as disks or specialized Web site accessbut she says there hasnt been much success or traffic to the site. Rietz reports that he has invited students to use digital textbooks in the past, but they were not enthusiastic about them. He distributes some readings electronically, but thinks students might share his own proclivity for hard copies. Reading is still for me a very tactile process, Rietz says, and he values the ability to underline with a pencil, make marginal notes, and recall a passage simply by its placement on the page. The delight of a book in ones hand, with its notable heft, maybe interspersed with the distinct paper quality that hints of full-page pictures, an index, and handwritten notes will not disappear any time soon. Yet the expectations of readers to have digital versions of the books they want to read in ever more mobile formats will continue to grow. And the extraordinary possibilities for research and teaching provided by multimedia platforms promise to astonish scholars and students of biblical studies for years to come.

Lets build a translation on common ground. Then lets live it like we mean it. LiveOnCommonGround.com

Conict, tension, and the paradox of Christian oneness

A Brutal Unity is a stunning achievement. Stanley Hauerwas, Duke Divinity School Massively learned and beautifully written. Matthew Levering, University of Dayton A powerful theological re ection on division and Christian complicity in violence. Timothy Longman, Boston University

Available now at booth 714

BAYLOR UNIVERSITY PRESS

Books for Good 1-800-537-5487 baylorpress.com

Religion Update

Feature

Religious Studies Offer Fertile if Challenging Ground for Digital Growth

By Henry L. Carrigan Jr.

hen Johannes Gutenberg invented a machine for using movable type to copy manuscripts, he also invented the publishing industry. His innovation changed the course of religious history as well, loosening the grip of the clergy on the Bible and making it possible, for the first time, for individuals to own and read Christianitys sacred text themselves. Six hundred years after Gutenberg equipped publishers to print Bibles and other books in a format that people could carry in their pockets, a new publishing revolution enables readers to carry hundreds of books on a single lightweight electronic device. Religious studies professors and students have long had access to the full texts of out-of-copyright books in a mammoth digital library named in honor of the publishing revolutionary, Project Gutenberg. While this open access collection proved a boon for researchers, it functioned more as a reference tool than as a nimble repository of newly published books in religious studies and theology. Even so, Project Gutenberg blazed a trail of demand for digital books that vendors such as Google, ebrary, NetLibrary, Project Muse, and others later followed. Even though I do not use electronic books for research, says Elon University professor of religion Jeffrey Pugh, I do use digital reference tools such as ProQuest and Project Muse to retrieve articles from journals. However, I usually print them out to read

rather than reading them on my iPad. The main customer of many of these vendors continues to be academic libraries, where individuals can discover new religious studies titles and read them onscreen, but might have limited ability to download the full texts to an electronic reading device like a Kindle, iPad, or Nook. Recognizing consumers cravings for digital editions of new books they can purchase for their own e-readers, religion publishers have moved swiftly, so that this season almost every new religious studies book is available in both print and e-book format. These publishers have forged agreements with Amazon, Google, Barnes & Noble, and Apple in addition to the library consortia with whom they work. Paul Engle, senior v-p and publisher for church, academic, and reference resources at Zondervan, points out that all of Zondervans academic titles, with minor exceptions, are available digitally through either e-book formats, software downloads, and/or mobile downloads. They are carried by Logos, Olive Tree, Accordance, WordSearch, and Laridian. Jeremy Wells, digital manager at Baker Academic and Brazos Press, says their books are available for Kindle, Nook, iBookstore, Sony, Kobo, and other e-reading platforms, and Baker Academic and Brazos will have select academic titles available electronically for library platforms, textbook platforms, and Bible software users.

All of the religion publishers PW spoke to now publish simultaneous print and digital editions of new books and have begun converting backlist to digital. Oxford University Press senior editor Theo Calderara says, The days of publishing books only in print are over for us. Everything we publish is available digitally, usually in several formats: Kindle and Nook for individuals, Oxford Scholarship Online for institutions. Fred Appel, Princeton University Presss executive editor for religion and anthropology, says that Princeton produces two formats for its e-books, a Web-ready PDF suitable for online access on library and reference database platforms and EPub for retail platforms. MULTIPLE OPTIONS So professors, students, and interested general readers can choose to read this falls important religious studies books on their device of choice, or curled up in a corner with a print book. David Dobson, executive director of publishing and editorial director at Westminster John Knox, says its big titles, Dont Stop Believin: Religion and Pop Culture from Ben-Hur to Zombies (Oct.), edited by Robert Johnston, Craig Detweiler, and Barry Taylor, as well as ethicist Glen Stassens A Thicker Jesus: Incarnational Discipleship in a Secular Age (Oct.), will be released in e-book form, available through multiple channels of sale from Amazon to Google, as well as in print. Georgetowns two biggest books this fall are also available in both formats. Just out is Emily Gills In Defense of Same-Sex Marriage: Religious Freedom, Sexual Freedom, and Public Expres-

10 P U B L I S H E R S W E E K L Y O C O T B E R 1 5 , 2 0 1 2

Feature |

Religion Update
Zondervans Engle says the house has made enhanced features available to professors for more than 25 of its primary textbooks on www.TExtbook-Plus. Zondervan.com. UNCs Elaine Maisner says, We have published two enhanced e-books in our African-American studies list, but we have not yet published an enhanced e-book in our religious studies list. We are considering, in future, making all of the digital versions of almost all suitable titles enhanced e-books to some degree. Kathy Armistead, Abingdons lead editor for Bible, theology, and leadership, tells PW that Abingdon is excited about Ralph Hawkinss forthcoming How Israel Became a People (Feb.). According to Abingdons director of Bible, reference, and e-publishing, Paul Franklyn, Hawkinss book

sion of Civil Equality (Aug.); moral theologian Cathleen Kaveny examines Laws Virtues: Fostering Autonomy and Solidarity in American Society (Oct.). Among the books were publishing in print and digital formats this fall, says Oxfords Calderara, are an exciting new book by Tariq Ramadan on the Arab Spring, Islam and the Arab Awakening (Oct.), and The Bible and the Believer (Sept.), an interfaith study of the way that Catholics, Protestants, and Jews read the Bible, by Marc Brettler, Daniel Harrington, S.J., and Peter Enns. This fall, the University of North Carolina Press releases in print and e-book format two books that focus on the tremendous diversity within American religious history: The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America by Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey and A Peculiar People: Anti-Mormonism and the Making of Religion in Nineteenth-Century America by J. Spencer Fluhman.

TO ENHANCE OR NOT? While religion publishers strive to reach a large and diverse audience by providing their books in various formats and on various digital platforms, only a few currently publish enhanced e-books, though most academic religion publishers are considering it. Although Baylor has yet to publish any enhanced e-books, Newman wants to experiment with such formats in the future, especially for Baylors trade titles. For example, many of our titles discuss contemporary film or music as a religious experience. It would be interesting to embed audio clips in an e-book version, perhaps with a narration by the author, Newman says. Baker Academic has plans for an enhanced e-book version of the popular, graphics-rich Introduction to the New Testament, but no timetable yet.

STOCK THE AUTHORITY IN READABLE REFERENCE

REFORMATION COMMENTARY ON SCRIPTURE

[It] can only be likened to stumbling into a group Bible study only to discover that your fellow participants include some of the most signicant Christians of the Reformation and postReformation era.
Sinclair Ferguson, First Presbyterian Church, Columbia, South Carolina
VOLUMES INCLUDE Genesis 111
978-0-8308-2951-4, $50.00

Ezekiel, Daniel
978-0-8308-2962-0, $50.00

Galatians, Ephesians
978-0-8308-2973-6, $50.00

ivpress.com To order, call 800.843.9487

Religion Update
will be Abingdons first enhanced EPub with the iPad authoring tool from Apple, iBooks Author. In addition to the printed book, says Armistead, the enhanced e-book will include an introductory video and four-color maps and images. BUT WHERE ARE THE ADOPTIONS? In spite of the apparent popularity of e-books, few publishers are seeing many adoptions by professors for classroom use. Bakers Wells notes, Generally adoptions happen at the title level and are not based on format. Princetons Appel says, Were not seeing many e-textbook adoptions, but we also have no way to track this data since various e-reader companies do not report it to us. Baylors Newman says that one of the publishers bestselling Kindle titles, Scott Pooles Monsters in America, continues to find homes in a variety of col-

| Feature

lege courses. Maisner, at UNC, reports, It seems professors continue to prefer to assign printed books for course use, for the most part, though a number of professors, depending on the field, are experimenting. We are considering ways to incentivize the assigning of e-books in course use. While religious studies publishers are committed to making their books available electronically, many religious studies professors with whom PW spoke have not yet begun adopting electronic textbooks for their classes. Jeffrey D. Long, professor of religion at Elizabethtown College, says that he does not see any strong advantages or disadvantages to this format, and so I dont currently assign electronic books in my courses. Charles Zimmerman, professor of religion at Otterbein University, does not assign digital format texts in class, but I increasingly find that students are using

Kindle or other electronic forms of the assigned texts in some of the courses I teach. Elons Pugh and Elizabethtowns Long echo Zimmermans comments about students comfort with electronic reading devices, and Pugh estimates that about 25% of students in his classes ask him if they can purchase their books on a Kindle or other device to use in the class. While religious studies professors might be slow to adopt e-books in their courses, all of the ones with whom PW spoke acknowledge that they will certainly consider adopting such digital format books as students use them more and more. Elizabethtowns Long indicates that he is comfortable with students using them in class and is open to assigning them in the future. Meanwhile. to also reach audiences beyond the academy, academic religion publishers continue to move creatively into digital.

STOCK THE AUTHORITY IN READABLE REFERENCE

THE IVP BIBLE DICTIONARY SERIES
Unique among reference books on the Bible, the volumes of The IVP Bible Dictionary series bridge the gap between scholars and those pastors, teachers, students and laypeople desiring in-depth treatment of select topics in an accessible and summary format.
VOLUMES INCLUDE Dictionary of the Old Testament: Prophets Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels
978-0-8308-1777-1, $60.00

978-0-8308-1784-9, $60.00

Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch

978-0-8308-1781-8, $60.00

Dictionary of Paul and His Letters

978-0-8308-1778-8, $60.00 978-0-8308-1779-5, $60.00 978-0-8308-1780-1, $60.00

Dictionary of the Old Testament: Historical Books

978-0-8308-1782-5, $60.00

Dictionary of the Later New Testament & Its Developments Dictionary of New Testament Background

978-0-8308-1783-2, $60.00

Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry & Writings

ivpress.com To order, call 800.843.9487

Spiritually Grounded.
978-1-58743-327-6 256 pp. $17.99p

Coming April 2013

978-0-8010-3909-6 256 pp. $22.99p

978-0-8010-3578-4 224 pp. $22.99p

978-1-58743-325-2 224 pp. $16.99p

Coming February 2013

Coming January 2013

LT

Tel: 1-800-877-2665 Fax: 1-800-398-3111 For subsidiary rights inquiries, email subrights@BakerPublishingGroup.com subrights@BakerPublishingGroup.com y rights inquiries, g q g @ g p

Religion Update

Profiles

IN

Profile
when religion doesnt go along with the status quo. Rieger believes that the Occupy movement was a good place to examine this idea, because of the large number of individuals involved and the diversity of the group. He observed in the movement what he calls genuine expressions of alternate forms of Christianity, such as the Occupy chaplains, who worked within the movement to address social issues. Alternative forms of religion can also offer different views of God, says Rieger. When people talk about God they think of God at the top of everything, the ultimate dominant power, he says. In the Occupy movement, images of God came from the bottom up. The view of God was not as a commander-in-chief, but as the one who walks with the people, which offers some parallels of Christianity with Jesus of Nazareth, who walked in solidarity with people. From this idea, Rieger coined the term deep solidarity, the recognition that all people are in the same boat. He says: For middle-class people, it means realizing that we are not just helping out the poor, we are also affected by the same problems. Kerry Weber

Joerg Rieger

Finding Deep Solidarity

Growing up, Joerg Riegers German Methodist faith was tied to social concerns. But the interconnectedness between the two didnt fully hit home until years later, when he began to study issues of faith and social justice. Now, as the Wendland-Cook Professor of Constructive Theology at Southern Methodist University, in Dallas, hes convinced that there is no faith without social engagement. Riegers interest in how power, faith, and public life intersect led him to coauthor his newest book, Occupy Religion: Theology of the Multitude (Rowman & Littlefield, Oct.). Along with coauthor Kwok Pui Lan,who is the William F. Cole Professor of Christian Theology and Spirituality at Episcopal Divinity School and past president of the American Academy of Religion, Rieger explores faith in the context of a society struggling with issues of power, race, class, and gender. Rieger says his collaboration with Kwok embodies the books broader message, which is, in part, that individuals and communities from various faith backgrounds can come together for the common good and create alternative forms of religious expression. Religion is a response to power, but it is also shaped by power, Rieger says. A lot of people say religion is a reflection of the status quo or the powers that be, but what interests me is what happens

Walter Brueggemann

Speaking to the Academy and the Church

Lets be clear. Living Countertestimony, Carolyn Sharps collection of writings by and about Old Testament scholar Walter

Brueggemann (Westminster John Knox Press, Oct.), is not a festschrift. Yes, some of the writings are by former students, and yes, Brueggemann is (at least allegedly) retired, but the book is about Brueggemanns ongoing, living work, not an ode to his past accomplishments. Brueggemann, in his late 70s, remains as prolific as ever. Just this year, in addition to Living Countertestimony, hes released the second edition of his popular textbook Introduction to the Old Testament, which he co-wrote with Tod Linafelt (WJK, July); published two books with Fortress (The Practice of Prophetic Imagination, Jan., and Theology of the Old Testament, June); and done the collection Remember You Are Dust (Cascade, June). And from his home in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he has lived the past several years, Brueggemann goes out to speak two or three times a month. Im very fortunate that I dont have any big health problems, he says. I feel good and I can get up in the morning and do what I do. I have lots of opportunities because I dont think there are a lot of very serious scholars who are interested in doing their work for the church. Bringing serious scholarship to the church has always been a priority for Brueggemann, who is an ordained minister in the UCC (United Church of Christ) as well as a scholar who has taught at Eden and Columbia theological seminaries. He accepts that there will always be some colleagues who dont understand his commitment to translating biblical studies for the people in the pews. Ive been criticized for trying to do too many things and not being a master of any of them. But you make those tradeoffs, he says. I think I would be bored and it would be hard for me to sustain interest in one thing forever. Over his long career, hes seen many changes in biblical scholarship, including the move beyond historical criticism. When I started over 50 years ago, historical critical methods were the only methods there were, he says. [Now] you get feminism, liberationism, and social sciences. While he enthusiastically welcomes these new methodologies,

14 P U B L I S H E R S W E E K L Y O C T O B E R 1 5 , 2 0 1 2

Profiles |

Religion Update
understanding and self-definition of each religion, especially in relation to the two others. Levensons interest in Abraham is part of a lifelong fascination with religion and religious difference. During college Judaism became his chief passion, so he decided to make it his career. Having earned an undergraduate degree in English at Harvard, he went on to pursue graduate work there in Near Eastern languages and civilizations. His background in English literature has been a boon in his research: I do think we need more English majors giving close readings to texts, whether those of the British and American canons, the Bible, the Quran, or other sophisticated literatures, he says, explaining that the verbal particularity of the texts are essential to understanding them correctly, especially in cases like the Hebrew Bible, where theres much more subtle literary artistry than even many biblical scholars

another change has him concerned, which is the tremendous pressure on junior scholars to publish. Its too bad, he says. That was not on the horizon at all when I started my work. Despite his busy schedule of speaking and publishing, Brueggemann finds time to enjoy life in retirement reading, listening to music, and going to the movies. I also work out, he says. I hate it, but I do it. Jana Riess

Jon Levenson

Understanding Faith Across Cultures

Harvard scholar Jon Levenson marches or waltzesto his own steady beat. Hes a fan of Lawrence Welks music and of Norma Zimmer, who was one of Welks Champagne Lady singing partners. My children even bought me a record player this yearthey still manufacture themand a Lawrence Welk album to play on it, says Levenson, 63. But his

primary passion is religion. In Inheriting Abraham: The Legacy of the Patriarch in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Princeton, Sept.), Levenson, professor of Jewish studies at Harvard Divinity School, examines how the patriarch Abraham has been understood by the three faith traditions. I try to give a balanced view of the commonalities, including the debts the traditions owe to each other, as well as the differences among the three, he says. One reason to focus on Abraham is that the interpretation of texts and traditions about him are a good guide to the self-

reated in partnership with Todays Christian Woman, the Everyday Matters Bible for Women is designed to help women develop spiritual practices that will make their lives richer, not harder.

Special Features:
EVERYDAY MATTERS: Two-page articles focus on understanding and practicing a spiritual discipline EVERYDAY PROFILES: Profiles of twenty-five women in the Bible who experienced many of the same challenges that we face today EVERYDAY REFLECTIONS: Selections that illustrate how to personalize and apply Gods word EVERYDAY Q & AS: Short articles delve into difficult topics and offer practical help The contemporary language of the New Living Translation combines with content from todays foremost Christian writers, who have contributed over 300 reflections, articles, and meditations.

Jacketed Hardcover $44.95 978-1-59856-705-2

Flexisoft Leather $79.95 978-1-61970-012-3

Religion Update
understand. Conservative in the classical sense of the word, Levenson worries that politically charged interpretations are overtaking close readings. If the humanities are dying, suicide is one of the causes, he says. Levenson has an honorary doctorate in divinity from Baltimores St. Marys University and Seminary, a Roman Catholic institution, though hes not exactly sure why they chose him. They were honoring the outgoing president at that time, and I was told that Jewish-Christian relations was a central interest of his, as of Cardinal Keeler, who was present at the graduation ceremony. His book Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life (Yale) won several awards, including the 2006 National Jewish Book Award. Levenson says hes embarked on a new project: When I get a chance, I work on a little book on the love of God in Juda-

| Profiles

ism, to me another fascinating and much misunderstood topic. Diane Reynolds

Lamin Sanneh

Going Home, Coming Home

During a trip to the Gambia, West Africa, four years ago, Lamin Sanneh took his adult children to the compound where he grew up. The rundown location seemed far removed from his current life in the United States as a scholar, author, and Ivy League professor. My children wanted to know what motivated me to get out of that world and to the world that they are familiar with and that they take for granted, he says. I felt an obligation to tell them. Now others will have the opportunity to learn that story. In Summoned from the Margin: Homecoming of an African (Eerdmans, Oct.), Sanneh, 70, describes his journey from childhood days in a polygamous, Muslim household in West Africa to his conversion to Roman Catholicism and his current roles as the D. Willis James Professor of Missions and World Christianity and a professor of history at Yale University. It made sense to think of my career as a kind of summons, he says. Coming to faith in the church, in Christianity, was the fulfillment of so much of my religious preparation and of what I imagined religion and faith community to be like. It was a coming home and discovering it for the first time. Helen Kellers autobiography, The Story of My Life, and the stories of Jesus in the Quran helped Sanneh gain a new perspective on the meaning of suffering, but it was a commentary on St. Pauls Epistle to the Romanspurchased in a supermarketthat introduced him to

the idea that God is love. I read that and was really upset, he says. Paul put it intellectually, and it was so crisp, and I couldnt say it better, and I didnt want to believe it, because Christianity wasnt what I was looking for. Sanneh also chose to study Islam to help facilitate greater understanding between Christians and Muslims. After his conversion Sanneh met with his father in an attempt to explain his new religious path. I had a strong feeling that I must go back to the Muslim community privately and tell them that I didnt hate Islam, and not only did I not hate it, I have a lot of respect for it, and Im grateful for what it has given me. Kerry Weber

Darrell Bock

Beneath the surface lies a thread that connects us all

Discover how just one person can be the start of the change we all strive for. A book for all ages, for all time: wonderful, wacky, and bursting with truth!
Six Weeks to Yehidah weaves a spellbinding tale that is rich with imagistic prose, glittering landscapes, and elements of mystery that leave the reader yearning for a sequel. APARNA
MUKHEDKAR THE CRITERION

The Jesus of Faith and History

Every so often, a hint of Texas bleeds through Darrell Bocks radio-worthy voice. He is a New Testament professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, after all. But this is not a man embedded in the American South. Since his graduate days in Aberdeen, Scotland, Bock has visited more than 30 countries during a career that includes stints as president of the Evangelical Theological Society and corresponding editor for Christianity Today. Ive spent about 15% to 20% of my time in an overseas context, Bock says. He has just returned from a work trip to Australia and New Zealand; the year before that (the academic year 2010 2011), he was on sabbatical in Germany, his fifth full year in that country. The team responsible for the research reflected in Bocks recent book, Who Is Jesus? (Zondervan, June), is an international group of evangelical scholars, all

2011: The Forward National Literature Award 2011: January Magazines Best Childrens Books of the Year 2012: Finalist: Readers Favorite Award 2012: Finalist: The National Indie Excellence Award 2012: The Pinnacle Book Achievement Award

All Things That Matter Press ISBN: 978-0984651702 * $16.99 Paperback 6x 9, 170 pp., Kindle, Nook Distributed by Ingram, Baker & Taylor www.melissastuddard.com

16 P U B L I S H E R S W E E K L Y O C T O B E R 1 5 , 2 0 1 2

Profiles |

Religion Update
high. So Bock keeps writing. Kristin Swenson

members of the Institute for Biblical Research. For a decade, they met annually in such cities as Jerusalem, Chicago, and Tbingen in the pursuit of linking the historical Jesus with the Christ of faith, which is the books subtitle. Bock cochaired the group with Robert Webb, a Canadian scholar. With Who Is Jesus? (a condensed version for general readers of the teams 850-page technical report), Bock comes full circle from the questions that needled him when he first became a Christian. Bock grew up in a largely secular household, but came to the Christian faith in college. Thinking about historical questions concerning the person of Jesus was a critical part of his conversion experience, and he has pursued those questions ever since. He is best known for his refutation of claims popularized by The Da Vinci Code book and film that the historical Jesus was married. But I dont see Hollywood as the bad guy

here, Bock says. The problems, in his opinion, lie rather with a prevailing skepticism and efforts in certain university contexts or mass market television programs, especially those that show up around Easter or Christmas, to relativize Christianity and neuter it. The most difficult of the 12 core events in the life of Jesus that the IBR Jesus Group investigated in doing the research reflected in Who Is Jesus?, Bock says, was the resurrectionthe article of faith that three days after Jesus had been killed, he came alive again in a fully material body. This is a thorny historical problem of natural laws, but for many Christians, Bock included, its absolutely crucial to a Christian identity. One cannot be a Christian, in Bocks view (appealing to the biblical Paul), unless one believes in the historicity of the resurrection. If, as Bock believes, Christianity is the single best way to be in a relationship with the living God, then the stakes are

Rita Nakashima Brock

Waging Peace
Why is there not more urgency among Christians about the moral cost of war? Rita Nakashima Brock raises this question in her latest book, Soul Repair (Beacon, Nov.), co-written with Gabriela Lettini. When the Iraq War started, it was very popular, even though virtually every religious body condemned it as unjust, illegal, and immoral, Brock says. Now, with veterans

New Thoughts this Fall from the Swedenborg Foundation Press

[A book] for anyone who wants to know not only where New Thought came from, but also where it might go and grow from here.
Rev. David F. Alexander, New Thought Center for Spiritual Living The History of New Thought From Mind Cure to Positive Thinking and the Prosperity Gospel John S. Haller Jr. Foreword by Robert C. Fuller 408 pages / 978-0-87785-348-0 / hc / $29.95

The only way to make sense of John Chapmans life is through Swedenborg. Ray Silverman shows us why that is so.
Howard Means, author of Johnny Appleseed: The Man, the Myth, the American Story The Core of Johnny Appleseed The Unknown Story of a Spiritual Trailblazer Ray Silverman Illustrated by Nancy Poes 152 pages / 978-0-87785-345-9 / pb / $14.95

This freshly translated work is of the most profound signicance for anyone interested in understanding Swedenborgs thought.
Antoine Faivre, professor emeritus, Sorbonne True Christianity, Volume 2 Deluxe Edition Emanuel Swedenborg Translated by Jonathan S. Rose 704 pages / 978-0-87785-502-6 / pb / $29.95 704 pages / 978-0-87785-501-9 / hc / $80.00

Swedenborg Foundation Press | (800) 621-2736 | info@swedenborg.com | www.swedenborg.com

W W W . P U B L I S H E R S W E E K L Y . C O M 17

Religion Update
suicide rates much higher than the national average and no end to Middle East entanglements in sight, Brock hopes the time has come for national soul searchingand acknowledgment that ordinary people suffer the most from wars brutality. War is inherently morally compromising, and moral injury after war occurs in healthy peoplea sociopath cannot experience it, Brock says. Soul Repair continues the theme begun in Brock and Rebecca Ann Parkers groundbreaking book, Saving Paradise (Beacon, 2009), that peacemaking is at the heart of Christianity. Both books address the religious substructures of violence in Western European culture, especially war, Brock says. In researching Saving Paradise, I was surprised to discover that the early church had no images of crucifixion and believed Jesus life and resurrection revealed how humanity can liveCeasing and well in the earthly PW Ad wisely of Notions_Layout 1 10/9/12

| Profiles

Wisdom Publications
A very accessible helpful commentary from one of the most revered Japanese Zen masters of his generation. Martin Collcutt, author of Five Mountains A delightful volume. TheZenSite.com

This January from

paradise, she notes. The ancient church dealt with violence as a mortal sin, even if done in self-defense or for a just war. They regarded the soldiers soul as broken and in need of repair, so they quarantined him for rehabilitation. The ancient penance system was focused on restoration of the person to paradise, not punishment. Brock didnt start out in life dreaming of writing. I was a voracious reader, and I had a strict, fierce eighth-grade English teacher who made us diagram sentences and embedded grammar in my brain. I got top grades in writing classes, but I had to stop reading white male voices and find my own voice. In fact, she thought her career was over before it had begun when she was fired in 1982 from her first full-time teaching position for attending a feminist conference in New York. But the feminist theological community came to her defense. 3:32 Although progressive in her Christianity, Brock sometimes receives her most serious and thoughtful responses from conservatives. Loyal opposition often pushes me beyond my comfort zone and leads me to deeper thinking, she says. I dont look for enemies, and I also get nervous when there is too much unanimity in a group. That said, Im not afraid to take a position that makes enemies. Unlike many writers, Brock enjoys collaborating. She has co-written books and articles with about a dozen different women. I do it for two reasons, she says. The work is better with a good collaborator, and I dont like being a lonely writer. I find the ideas get better as we trade sections back and forth. Diane Reynolds

Timothy George
The CEASING

of NOTIONS

Reading the Bible with the Reformers

Timothy Georges life is, as he puts it, rich and fullmaybe too rich and too full. But he enjoys it allwriting, teaching, speaking, and being dean at Beesom Divinity School in Alabama. These days one of his ongoing projects is as general editor of the Reformation

An Early Zen Text from the Dunhuang Caves with Selected Comments

Soko Morinaga
Introduction by Martin Collcutt 9781614290414 | $15.95

wisdompubs.org

Commentary on Scripture series, which in August released Genesis 111, the third volume of a projected 28 total. George expects that InterVarsity Press will publish two to three volumes a year until the series is completed. Its a big project, he acknowledges. I hope I live long enough to see it done. For George, editing the series has indulged his lifelong passion for Reformation thought. He earned his doctor of theology degree from Harvard University with an emphasis on the Reformation, and has taught many courses on Reformation history and theology at Beesom, where he has been dean since the institution was founded 25 years ago. In the commentary series, one of Georges main ambitions is to provide a chorus of voices from [the Reformation]not just the usual suspects like Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli, but many others. Martin Bucer, a Strasbourg reformer who wrote an enormous amount of commentaries, is included, as is Wolfgang Musculus, a Protestant theologian whose writings dealt with the nitty-gritty everyday issues of life, George says. George has also encouraged the series authors to add two groups that are often overlooked in collections of Reformation writings: women and Anabaptists. There werent that many Anabaptists who were allowed to write, because they were being hunted down, he explains. And there were women who made important contributions, like Argula von Grumbach and Katharina Schtz Zell. Despite his determination to be comprehensive, George looks to Martin Luther as the great genius of the era. The Reformation wouldnt have played out

18 P U B L I S H E R S W E E K L Y O C T O B E R 1 5 , 2 0 1 2

Profiles |

Religion Update
imagination through the conduit of our senses, the portals of the body. So Christian liturgical practicesincluding the Eucharist, but also a whole range of practices as simple as the meter of the psalms and kneeling in confessionare means by which God captures our imagination and sanctifies our perception. Smith is at first glance an odd juxtaposition of postmodernisthe wrote a book called Whos Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Churchand an advocate for a return to the premodern or ancient-future faith. But the juxtaposition makes sense, he said. What he finds most helpful in the postmoderns is their critique of the Enlightenment, which offers a way for the church to re-appreciate pre-modern wisdom. Small c catholicism is most true to this vision, he said, a historic faith and practice shared by those who accept the Nicene Creed and shared liturgical tradition. In church, he embraces ancient ritual traditions as performed poems, enacted dramas. Liturgies, he says, whether Christian or secular, shape and orient us because they tap into our storied nature in tangible, tactile ways. They work at the nexus of body and story. Smith finds this enactment powerfully in the movie The Kings Speech, which he analyzes in Imagining the Kingdom along with such writers as Walker Percy, David Foster Wallace, Nicholson Baker, Thomas Wolfe, and Graham Greene. The secular world works on the same dynamic as church liturgies, Smith said, which is why the liturgies of consumerism or nationalism also capture our imaginations, even when we dont notice. Growing up in Canada has given Smith an outsiders perspective on American life. Im especially sensitive to the temptations of nationalism in this country, he said. Coming from another country isnt such a bad place to be as a Christian theologian: as Augustine said, Christians are pilgrims in any and every sector of the earthly city. Diane Reynolds

the way it did without his revolutionary act of translating the scriptures. Of course, he had lots of warts. But he would be a fascinating person to have dinner with. And he points to John Calvin, whose commentaries have not gone out of print since the 16th century, as the better scholar... such a careful exegete. Like the indefatigable Reformers, George has multiple writing projects in the works, including a book on the Virgin Mary for evangelicals (published by Thomas Nelson) and a profile of great evangelical leaders of the 20th century (for Baker Academic). He travels frequently as part of his international ecumenical work with the Baptist World Alliance. In his spare time, hes also learning to cook. Im a novice. Im not ready for Emeril yet, but Im learning. Jana Riess

James K.A. Smith

Faith is In Our Bones, So Lets Move Them

Theologian James Smith enjoys physical action in and out of the church. Out of church, he pursues skiing, hiking, gardening at a community plot alongside his wife, Deanna, and chipping away at the restoration of his 112-year-old house. Liturgy is akin to an exercise programor perhaps, Smith said, paraphrasing Mark Twain, like carrying a cat by the tail, teaching us something we can learn no other way. As we build muscle memory through repetitive movement, so we build faith through the physicality of worship, a theme Smith explores in his new book, Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works (Baker, Feb. 1, 2013). Liturgical practices, Smith says, inscribe a story in our bones. They capture our

Religion Update

Reviews

Books in

Brief
Inheriting Abraham: The Legacy of the Patriarch in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Jon D. Levenson. Princeton Univ., $29.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-691-15569-2; $29.95 e-book ISBN 978-1-4008-4461-6

evenson, a well-known biblical studies scholar and professor of Jewish studies at Harvard, makes a contrarian argument against those who would oversimplify the differences between the three religions that claim Abraham as a seminal figure. Its not surprising that he knows Judaism in fine and persuasive detail, but the formidable

nuance of his arguments about the development of Jewish regard for Abraham makes his treatment of Christian and Islamic views of the patriarch look comparatively lighter in weight, especially with respect to his analysis of Islamic views. Educated general readers interested in biblical studies may be awed by how closely Levenson reads a text. Scholars should appreciate the way in which the author makes heavily footnoted academic argumentation accessible to nonspecialists. Believers also owe a debt to Levenson, whose academic rigor does not preclude respectful recognition of living tradition and communities of faith for whom the meaning of Abraham is more than academic. (Oct.)

O c c u p y f o r c e s religious people to reimagine the divine, and, borrowing from Islamic and Christian liberation theologians, they view Jesus as the quintessential resister to the elites of his day. Christ exemplifies the multitude because if one person suffers, we all suffer, they write. Their concept of a theology of the multitude identifies God with the oppressed, emphasizes solidarity and relationship, and questions the patriarchal implications of God the father. A new theology would not only reclaim a radical image of God, but the authors also re-envision the theological concept of immanence to mean a new world growing in the midst of the old, where the faithful ask who has power rather than whether God exists. (Oct.)

Living Countertestimony: Conversations with Walter Brueggemann

Walter Brueggemann with Carolyn J. Sharp. Westminster John Knox, $20 trade paper (176p) ISBN 978-0-664-23425-6

Occupy Religion: Theology of the Multitude

Joerg Rieger and Kwok Pui Lan. Rowman & Littlefield, $39 (180p) ISBN 978-1-44221791-1; $38.99 e-book ISBN 978-1-4422-1793-5

heology should be conducted in the public square, promoting debates about justice, according to Rieger and Kwok, professors of theology. They provide a comprehensive overview of how faith communities responded to the Occupy movement, with fascinating asides about the faith and spirituality tent in Boston, where Zen Buddhists, Muslims, and Jews held prayers and services. Occupy also strengthened interfaith alliances and dialogue, culminating in the Occupy Faith national gathering, where faith leaders agreed to a platform for economic and educational parity, among other issues. The authors argue that
20 P U B L I S H E R S W E E K L Y O C T O B E R 1 5 , 2 0 1 2

his volume of conversations with and addresses by the pre-eminent and prolific Old Testament interpreter Brueggemann goes behind the curtain to disclose some of the intentions of the man whose writings have helped form two generations of seminary students. The conversations provide a portrait that is personalbut not overly familiarof a biblical theologian deeply engaged with the Old Testament and the God presented in the sacred text. As boldly as Moses, Brueggemann has interrogated God and not settled for easy answers. The behind-the-scenes perspective is revealing, but also keeps a respectful distance, so that Brueggemanns intellectual preoccupations and their consistency emerge. Those who respect his work or owe him intellectual or spiritual debt will delight in this insider view. New seminarians might find this a thoughtful gift. (Oct.)

Everyone claims God for their side. But who is on Gods side?

LEFT RIGHT YOUNG OLD RICH POOR TRADITIONAL PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL CON POOR OO O CONSER REPUBLICAN DEMOCRAT LEFT RIGHT YOUNG OLD RICH POOR TRADITIONAL PR PROGR GHT HT H LIBERAL CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN DEMOCRAT LEFT RIGHT YOUNG OLD RIC P RICH ICAN CAN C TRADITIONAL PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN DEMOCRAT LE LEFT R RAL A YOUNG OLD RICH POOR TRADITIONAL PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL CONSERVATIVE R REPUB IONAL O LEFT RIGHT YOUNG OLD RICH POOR TRADITIONAL PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL CON POOR CONSER O REPUBLICAN DEMOCRAT LEFT RIGHT YOUNG OLD RICH POOR TRADITIONAL PR PROGR GHT H LIBERAL CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN DEMOCRAT LEFT RIGHT YOUNG OLD RIC PO RICH ICAN C TRADITIONAL PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN DEMOCRAT LE LEFT R RAL A YOUNG OLD RICH POOR TRADITIONAL PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL CONSERVATIVE R REPUB IONAL O

978-1-58743-337-5

320 pp.

$21.99c

Jim Wallis thinks our life together can be better. In this timely and provocative book, he shows us how to reclaim Jesuss ancient and compelling vision of the common gooda vision that impacts and inspires not only our politics but also our personal lives, families, churches, neighborhoods, and world.

Tel: 1-800-877-2665 Fax: 1-800-398-3111 For subsidiary rights inquiries, email subrights@BakerPublishingGroup.com

Fa ll New R ele ases

CHeCk OuT OuR

Holy Nomad
The Rugged Road to Joy
9781426748592 | $15.99

The Christian World of The Hobbit

9781426749490 | $14.99

Undead

Revived Resuscitated Reborn

9781426753459 | $15.99

Heaven on Earth

Realizing the Good Life Now

9781426749049 | $15.99

Called to the Fire

Forgiveness
Finding Peace Through Letting Go
9781426740442 | $14.99

A Witness for God in Mississippi

9781426753282 | $21.99

To learn more about Abingdon Press books, please visit A bingdon P ress . com or call 800.251.3320