Christian bookstores have developed a reputation for producing a highly sanitized customer experience, purging from their shelves any language, content, or theology that doesn’t meet their uber-conservative standards. Walk into your local LifeWay and you will find plenty of Precious Moments statues, specialty Bibles, Veggie Tale movies, and Thomas Kinkade prints...but little trace of art or literature that intrigues, agitates, and inspires—as true art should! The Christian bookstore experience is, in a word, safe. But safe is not how Christians are called to live, and safe is not what artists who are Christians are called to create. In fact, based on LifeWay’s own standards, the Bible itself—which includes profanity, violence, and sex—should be banned from the shelves.
Her critique is both true and sad. One of the reasons Kalos Press was formed was because we recognized this same problem, and sought to offer another venue. Part of the vision of our parent organization, Doulos Resources, is to give a publishing voice to resources that otherwise may not have an opportunity to be produced; Kalos Press carries out that vision in the literary part of the writing and publishing world.
We don't like that things are the way they are in "Christian Publishing" — but we don't believe that the traditional models of Christian Publishing are the only way. Evans is right: there are too many books that aren't being published because of editorial standards that, too often, strip the real life out of the books. Our hope at Kalos Press is that the 500+ comments on Rachel Held Evans' post are an indication that we're not alone in our beliefs to this end.
Click here to read the whole post from Rachel Held Evans.
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