So, I’ve decided to inflict some of my writing from my study onto you. The first is from an essay on Evangelism and Community Development, sharing the faith and sharing the power. You are welcome to download the PDF version if you want the full whack of academic writing.

Evangelism and Community Development – Dave Fagg

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Evangelism needs Christian community development because without it, evangelism can only trace the outlines of the personal and corporate vision that the ‘good news’ advocates. Christian community development is a powerful way to help people participate in the kingdom of God, and within such participation the stories and ideas of the gospel come alive. From the Christian community development side, evangelism provides a risk factor without which Christian community development easily slides into secularised self-help mush. Evangelism points to a larger, deeper transformation, one that community development methods, even Christian ones, can only grasp at.

Evangelism and Christian community development have a number of similarities that make them natural partners:
• Theologically, they share narratives and doctrines
• They work best at grassroots level
• They are both on about transformational change
• They both value voluntary methods of change highly
• They work by reframing present reality in the terms of the kingdom of God
• Both believe the resources for change are (partly) present already in people’s lives
• Both are inspired by the possibility of “real change”, by historically concrete changes in people.
• Neither makes sense in a secular context without the other: without Christian community development, evangelism will be co-opted by consumer spirituality; without evangelism, community development will be co-opted by the welfare economy.

Given these similarities, evangelism and Christian community development can co-operate and integrate…

Both evangelism and Christian community development suffer from a weak theological base. Although this is not the time to develop a detailed theology of evangelical community development, there are three central theological themes that enable a theological interface between evangelism and Christian community development.

First, the doctrine of the Trinity. Taking a social Trinitarian approach, we can see that a community of mutual relationship is at the heart of God. This application to Christian community development is obvious. For evangelism, the application becomes clear when we take WJ Abraham’s view of evangelism as “primary initiation into the kingdom of God”, because his view is an inescapably corporate vision of evangelism, in which people are drawn into a relational life with respect to their salvation and their identity.

Secondly, a partially realised eschatology. Both evangelism and Christian community development passionately advocate transformed lives in the present. A view of the kingdom of God that recognises its ‘now…not yet’ tension enables evangelism to be concerned with current reality, and Christian community development to recognise that its aims lie beyond the horizon of contemporary social work theory. This eschatology sees that Jesus’ incarnation, life, death and resurrection has planted a tree, the roots of which are deep and strong, which will one day flourish into a tree for all to shelter in. What is the effect of such eschatology? As NT Wright puts it:

It gives us a view of creation which emphasises the goodness of God’s world, and God’s intention to renew it. It gives us, therefore, every possibly incentive, or at least every Christian incentive, to work for the renewal of God’s creation and for justice within God’s creation…[T]here is continuity between our present work and God’s future kingdom…(Wright, 1999:24)

Thirdly, a keen appreciation of the Holy Spirit’s work. For evangelism, it allows us to be confident that the Holy Spirit has already been working in people, awakening them to the possibility of God. For Christian community development, this prevenient grace enables us to work simultaneously with the intrinsic strengths of a community, knowing that these strengths are not wholly human, their true source being the Spirit of God.

We are actors thrust upon a stage without a script. We have the first few acts of the play, and some inkling of the exciting but ominous end. So, how do we fill in the remainder of the play?

In the last post, I talked about why and how heaven shapes our life on earth. I used the metaphor of a stage play, where we have the script of the first few acts and some inklings about the end of the story, and have to improvise to fill in the gap. We have 2 rules: (1) to be faithful to the events of the story as it starts and ends…the story has to make sense as we move from scene to scene and; (2) to make sure our improvisation keeps faith with the meaning of the story contained in the script that we already have…our improvisation can’t just make up any old meaning – it has to make fit with the start and the end.

Improvisation
The problem is, most of us don’t like improvisation. So we avoid it in a few reliable ways. One of the most common ways is to worship the play. We come up with a script that uses the same language, plot, characters that are contained in the first few acts that we have been given. Because it’s all we’ve got, we stick to it rigidly. On the metaphorical stage, we endlessly repeat the first few acts. Meanwhile, the audience has walked out from boredom. Another common strategy is to ignore the play. We get fed up with sticking to the script and just have fun. I mean, something good is happening at the end, isn’t it? And repeating the same old lines was fairly boring and frankly some important parts of the story just don’t make sense in this day and age. So, we concentrate on amusing ourselves, and desperately trying to keep the audience’s attention. The last tried and true strategy is to watch the play. Improvising is too hard, and the antics of the worshippers and the ignorers is too much to bear, so we sit it out in the seats.

Note, this metaphor is not of a church service or gathering, but of our whole common life: discipleship, work, witness, worship…everything. We, the followers of Jesus, having been handed the Old Testament, the life of Jesus, the witness of the early church and some inklings of the end…tend towards slavish imitation, wilful ignorance, or surrender of our spiritual inheritance. But these 3 approaches aren’t the only way. Improvisation is the way. Improvisation isn’t making it up. It isn’t starting with nothing, it stays faithful to the message of what has been handed to us. But we take account of the changing stage on which we now find ourselves, and also keeps faithful to the ‘end’ that we know is coming and is already here. Our life here on earth, if we want to follow Jesus, has to make sense not only in terms of the EVENTS of the story of God and his heaven, but it also needs to make sense in terms of the MEANING of the story of God and his heaven.

Regardless of what view of heaven we have, it affects our practice of church, discipleship and mission. This is what eschatology is all about. Humans naturally work towards an end. We are narrative beings. We tell ourselves, sometimes literally, big and small stories. All these stories have ends (actual events & also meaning) which we bend our lives towards. If the story you tell yourself is one in which you are a hero, your life will bend towards egoism and heroic deeds. If the story you tell yourself is one in which you are a passive actor, then you will probably not act to take responsibility of your life.

In the same way, my view of the ‘end’, of ‘heaven’, shapes the way I live now as a disciple of Jesus. We instinctively work to bring about the ‘end’ that we desire or have been taught to desire. I think this is a human characteristic, regardless of the particular religious commitments we hold. Even for the thoroughgoing atheist, she has an ‘end’, a purpose of human existence, in mind, and her life bends toward that end.

If you believe that heaven is a place where you don’t have a body, then in this life the body won’t be a thing of value, and there’s not reason to value it. If you believe heaven will be an individual state of mind, psychology will be important to you. If you believe heaven is populated by your enemies, then that will transform your treatment of your enemies. If you believe that heaven is where people are physically beautiful, then the ugly will always be slightly suspect. And let’s not forget that these beliefs are not the ones we know we have, but the ones that lie deep inside us, often unconscious.

This characteristic of ours, to bend our lives toward the end, towards heaven’; this is the reason Jesus spends so much time talking about the ‘kingdom of God’, or the ‘kingdom of heaven’. He knows that our view of these ultimate events/meanings deeply shapes the way we live now. The Israelites thought the kingdom would be a place of freedom from oppression from foreign rulers – Jesus says the kingdom is within you. Children were exploited, ignored, seen as spiritually immature – Jesus stakes our entry to the kingdom on imitating them. We think we can get away with apathy toward the poor because God has forgiven us – Jesus tells the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

I’ll write a post someday about how our view of heaven affects our practice of church and mission (and vice versa), but in the meantime…What’s your picture of heaven?

What are we waiting for? And what are we going to do about it in the meantime?

Those are the two questions which shape this book. First, it is about the ultimate future hope held out in the Christian gospel; the hope, that is, for ‘salvation’, ‘resurrection’, ‘eternal life’…Second, it is about the discovery of hope within the present world: about the practical ways in which hope can come alive for communities and individuals…(Surprised by Hope, Tom Wright)

Most Christians don’t think about heaven, except that we would like to be there. Most of us do, anyway, and we tend to think it will something we will enjoy. We are put off by the fact that other people think it might be: (1) endless praise and worship services or (2) small group discussions about social justice while crocheting organic smocks or (3) theological lectures or…you get the picture. Other Christians think about heaven a lot though, for different reasons. The most pressing reason is that we want people that God loves, which is everyone, to be with God when they die. I think this is a good reason to think about heaven, but there are also other reasons to consider what we mean by ‘heaven’.

Surprised by Hope
Tom Wright stirred the heavenly cauldron recently, as he is wont to do, with a book about heaven called “Surprised by Hope”. I first heard a radio snippet of his views on heaven which was transcribed for an article in Time Magazine. In the radio snippet I heard, he said that heaven is not what happens after we die, but that it is “life after life after death”. This repetitive sentence momentarily confused me, which I don’t cope with well. So I bought the book.¹ The book explains what he meant by “life after life after death”. Heaven, in Wright’s view, is not the state that we go to immediately after we die, but a later event which happens when God brings all history to a close, renewing as God has promised. A disembodied state after death may be what happens…but it’s not heaven. It’s just a disembodied state after death. Heaven is what happens when God renews all Creation, as the end of Revelation indicates. When that happens, Wright says, we won’t be disembodied souls floating around, but in some way we will be living life in real bodies as God intended – radically different from how things are now, but in some ways radically the same.

Heaven Here on Earth
All very interesting. I like interesting thoughts, and so I’m a sucker for books like that. But does talk of heaven matter now? I think it does. And not just because I want everyone to be there. It matters to how we live our lives now. And no, I’m not saying that we earn our way into heaven by being extra good in our life now.

I think it matters because of 2 things: books and ends.

‘End’ is a funny word, elastic word. In a story, like the Bible or whatever story, ‘end’ usually means the chronological finish, when all the events have happened. In Peter and the Wolf, the end of the story is the procession of Peter, the animals, the hunters and the wolf with the quacking duck inside it. That’s where the story leaves us. But ‘end’ also means the ‘purpose’, the meaning, the message of the story. That, of course, is a matter for interpretation. What is the ‘end’ of Peter and the Wolf? Chronologically, it is the procession with Peter at the head. Meaningfully, it is the triumph of youthful risk over elderly caution. Or the success of nonviolent means of defeating your enemy. Or, to stretch things, a cautionary fable that mother wolves tell their wolflings. Both ‘ends’ have to make sense for the story to ‘work’. Chronologically, the end of Peter and the Wolf would be a nonsense if Peter played billiards with the wolf after capturing him. Meaningfully, our interpretation would be a nonsense if we decided the story’s meaning was to listen to your elders’ advice, because that is exactly what Peter refuses to do, and the story vindicates him.

So, for discussions about ‘heaven’, the ‘end’ is what happens chronologically, but also what heaven means, what it is, where it is, our place and part in it. Why is this important? Now we need to think about stories, which for me are often found in books.

Books – because yes, they are heavenly. If you have ever read a book, or watched a movie, or listened to someone tell a story, you will be familiar with the following narrative device. I can’t remember its name, but it goes like this: at the start of the story, a small glance at the chronological end of the story is revealed. For example, in the opening scenes of recent film Tomorrow When the War Began, the main character (Ellie) is narrating the story from the end, via a video recording. Then the story goes back to the events that led up to that, every now and then returning to Ellie’s narration. The effect is get us, the viewer/reader, to wonder how the story is going to get to the end. Given what we have seen of the end, and given that we know the initial events in the story, how will we end up at the end? In Tomorrow, the end sliver gives us the picture that something violent, bloody, unexpected has happened, and Ellie is a world-weary, tired but intrepid character. But the events at the start of the story show her as a care-free, happy, idealistic character. Our interest is piqued…how will the Ellie character be transformed from care-free to world-weary? What events will shape her? How will she respond? We are interested because our interest in the chronological end (how will the story make its way to the last events) but also in the meaningful end (what the story’s message is).

Our Role in Hope on Earth
Christianity is the same. Our story (the Bible) has given us slivers of what the end is, in both chronological and meaningful sense. In the book of Revelation, this is most clear, with graphic passages seemingly about the end of the world.² We also know some of the initial events that have set us on our way to the end – Jesus’ life, death and resurrection and the early church. But what will happen in-between?  To use a oft-used metaphor, we are actors thrust upon a stage without a script. We have the first few acts of the play, and some inkling of the exciting but ominous end. So, how do we fill in the remainder of the play?

Stay tuned…

1. Heaven is a large, dusty, wooden room with ceiling high bookshelves, a comfy recliner-type couch next a small table with one of those Tim-Tam packs that never runs out, except it’s Cadbury, and large cold glasses of milk…and no doors…so no-one can interrupt…
2. There is a fair bit of debate about whether Revelation is describing what the literal end of the world will be, or whether it is an allegorical way for the writer, John, to describe the society of his day. My opinion is that he is primarily describing the Roman Empire of his day, but also saying that ‘empires’ like Rome will be present in all times. When it comes to the questions of whether he is describing literal ‘end of the world’ events I think that is not his first concern, but I think we can safely say that John definitely thinks there will be an end to the human story

Briefly tempted to split this section into 2 separate parts, but I refrained. All parts of theology belong together, but these 2 especially. Why? Because the death of Jesus Christ chopped off the road the disciples were travelling. The great story of creation, law, prophets, kingdoms, exile and restoration that seemed to be leading to the climax of a triumphant ‘return of the king of Israel’ ground to a bloody halt on a mound of skulls. For the disciples, it spelt personal devastation and for some, the danger was so great they hightailed it to Emmaus. Others hid. A few braved the tomb.

I keet them together because without the other, the Death of Jesus is insignificant in the train of martyrs, and the Resurrection of Jesus is a fairytale designed to keep the punters happy.

The Death of Jesus is only significant to Christians because of his Resurrection. Without it, Jesus is another crazybrave Jewish martyr like the Maccabees. We celebrate his Death, and the mandate it brings to suffer with the suffering, only because the Resurrection brings meaning and hope to that suffering. We take up our cross in confidence that even physical death is not the end.

The Resurrection of Jesus is only significant to Christians because of his Death. Without it, Jesus is another teacher, who died a normal death, and lives on in the desperate memory of his followers who want the dream to continue. We celebrate his Resurrection and the life it brings, only because of his radically faithful life that led to his public, political, brutal and voluntary Death. The Resurrection is God’s affirmation of Jesus’ life and message.

Jesus was killed by the Powers of darkness and evil. Jesus defeated the Powers! Hallelujah!

It is perhaps easy to write these things, but what effect does Jesus death+resurrection have? Why does it matter? We remember Creation, in which the ideal order of all things was put into place. Our rebellion against this order has created the injustice, hate and division that plague our world. Jesus’ death+resurrection has defeated the power of death that lies behind all our woes. What does this victory enable?

• Our personal failings, all that we are ashamed of, are no longer a bar to relationship with God. God has declared us to be just despite our obvious injustices and flaws. God extends grace to us.
• Our social injustices are declared offensive to God. In raising an innocent victim from an unjust death, God declares that victims of injustice will be vindicated.
• We are enabled to live fearlessly, in the knowledge that death is no longer the enemy to be feared. It has been put into its right place. We are free to live as God intends, empowered by the death-defeating power of the death+resurrection.

So, why isn’t everything hunky-dory then? There is no answer to this question that will not sound trite, bland and simplistic in that face of personal suffering and social injustice. No verbal answer can satisfy. Plenty of people have tried nonetheless.

My answer is this: though God achieves the ultimate victory in the battle against sin and evil, making this victory a visible and tangible reality is not completely up to God. Christlike compassion, forgiveness, justice and truth is a result of an unequal partnership between God and us. God invites us into relationship with him, a relationship that includes forgiveness of our trespasses and the active expression of Christlike love, truth and justice on our part. Because not all people are actively expressing such Christlike characteristics, God’s victory cannot be fully made visible and tangible. And even if everyone was doing so (happy day!), the consequences of previous hate, lies and injustice would still affect the present. So, when God brings our history to a close, his victory over sin and evil will be finally made a visible and tangible reality which we experience fully.

His main point, I think, sheds light on a key tension within my own movement, which in the fashion of Wendell Berry, I will call the Movement for biblically-based Christ-centred Spirit-empowered evangelism + justice-making + church-planting + community-growing + disciple-forming + godly child-rearing  + creation-caring + music-making + other good stuff which we haven’t thought of yet, which tends to exist on the fringes of inherited church structures.

Why doth it shed such light? Aly He points out that conservatism has an ‘organic’ approach to change. He doesn’t mean home-grown food. He means that change is tied to what has gone before, it ‘grows’ out of the past, as a plant grows from its roots:

…human society is organic. It is something that has evolved slowly and naturally, incorporating the wisdom of generations and gradually leaving behind those things that have proven themselves to be folly

Conservatism has no place for complete breaks with the past in order to forge a new and bright future, and when you put it like that, you can see why it has it’s roots in the French Revolution, which certainly tried to erase the past in order to blaze a new and more excellent future, mostly by killing its opponents.

What has this got to do with the above-mentioned movement? There is a tension in this movement, and therefore within myself, between wanting change to happen slowly, in continuity with the past and at the same time calling for massive reconstruction of the whole of our culture according to the radical vision of Jesus Christ. I want to move with the slowest person in the community, but I want the war to stop now. I want to value the past, the traditions, the hand that has fed me, but woe betide the church structure that stands in the the way of the prophetic voice of Jesus through the ages.  Waleed Aly would call these two approaches to change ‘conservatism’ and ‘revolutionary’.

Both of these approaches to change are needed in our movement. There are times when decisive, sudden and un-usual (that dash is intentional) change is needed, and times when slow, organic change is needed. I would also say that these approaches to change depend on each other. Revolutionary change will struggle to last, if happen at all, if the slow and incremental and organic changes have not been taking place. And organic approaches to faith will simply wither and choke on their own reverence for the present and past without the tectonic slide of revolutionary change.

(The image to the right is called “The Foreign Tree”. According to the site I got it from: These painted engravings ridicule the unrest wrought by French revolutionaries by contrasting French subversion with British stability. The “British Liberty Tree” (depicted in the preceding image) is assigned to the mock Latin genus of “Stabilissimus,” while the more sickly looking “Foreign Tree” in this image is put in the genus “Subitarius.” Notice in the background of the latter, a guillotine, symbol of all that is wrong with France.)

At the same time, I was asked to speak at the AGM of the Bendigo Chaplaincy Committee, a band of stalwarts who support the various chaplains in Bendigo. Here’s part of what I said, and you can read the whole speech here:

Charles Taylor, author of “A Secular Age”, puts it like this:

The shift to secularity…consists…of a move from a society where belief in God is unchallenged and indeed, unproblematic, to one in which it is understood to be one option among others, and frequently not the easiest to embrace.

Our culture’s whole approach to religion has changed: in our public spaces, in our individual beliefs, and in the soil in which faith takes root. Most of us are conscious of these changes, but our minds haven’t caught up with the reality. So, in some way, our minds still operate in the past, where God was central. But the rest of our culture is living in a different world.

What do these changes mean for chaplains? Chaplains mostly know these things – I’m saying them because chaplains rely on us, and we need to have a realistic view of the context they work in, and realistic expectations of what they can achieve.

1. God and public space: Chaplains used to occupy public space in schools through sermons at Easter and Christmas, Christian reflections in school newsletters and the like. As a teenager at a state school, I clearly remember the chaplain preaching at Easter and Christmas, and as a primary school student, being taken to the local church for an Easter service. Now, it’s becoming rarer for chaplains to give a Christian message at state school assemblies, as was once common. We can’t expect our chaplains to publicly proclaim the Christian message in compulsory school activities. We can’t expect Christians to be given privileged access to schools simply because we are Christians. That time is going and will soon disappear.
2. Individual Belief and Practice: when few people believe or practice a religion, is there a place for chaplains to foster religious practice in schools? When parents are not religious themselves, is it ethical for a chaplain to encourage religious practice in young people and children? In any case, chaplains are not building on a foundation of familiarity with the stories of Abraham & Jesus. More likely they are confronting an ignorance of these. We can’t expect chaplains to spend lots of time discipling young people, producing biblically literate young people
3. The atmosphere of belief: it is difficult for chaplains to encourage belief in a context where belief is now seen as odd, and unsupported by the majority of institutions in our country. Chaplains now have to rediscover what it means to create soil in which the seeds of faith can grow. That is a hard task, because we haven’t had to do it before.

I’m starting a new radio show on Phoenix FM. It’s shape will evolve, but I’m wanting to publically engage the community with great music, discussion of contemporary issues concerning faith, spirituality and church. It hopefully won’t be stereotypically “Left” or “Right”.

The first show’s theme is “The Rise of Spirituality” and will feature Andy Vincent from Cornerstone Community, an interview with Brent Lyons-Lee on his book Emerging Downunder as well as me fumbling with the confusing array of switches, slides and dials that I will be grappling with!

Date: Sunday 30th May 2010
Time: 6-8pm AEST

I hope you tune in: if you are in Central Victoria, the frequency is 106.7FM, and you can also listen online

Missionaries need to talk over people. Regularly. Frequently. With godly vigour and fervour. I’ve been through some soul-searching over this one, people, but the kingdom of God requires rudeness beyond measure, inconsideration like we have never dreamed of. Yes, we need to start interrupting monologues with witty comments and jokes. Brothers and sisters, divert the flow of verbal sewerage into the decontamination plant of conversational purity with well-placed questions. Ah yes, even questions that have nothing to do with the conversation whatsoever. Place a gag in those overworked gums of that child of God, fill that space where they drew breath with a barrage of your own trivial stories…

Well, maybe I got a bit sweaty about that one, a little extreme. So, in the interests of paradoxical truth, let me know speak of the opposite. Keeping my trap shut is a lovely phrase, which I’ve never thought about until now. ‘Trap’ being my mouth….now that’s an intriguing metaphor. What does my mouth entrap exactly? Most of the time, myself. Little wonder that short passage in James has become so famous.

Yet, I feel strangely unmotivated writing about shutting up and letting someone else talk. ‘Being a good listener’ has become such a part of “good” Christian identity that I am loathe to add to the mass, or morass, of verbosity about why we should listen and how we should listen and that listening to people’s stories will change the world. It’s all so…polite, which is probably why I vented my spleen previously.

But, I will manfully try to justify why keeping your trap shut is a missionary virtue:

• I don’t often have anything useful to say: in mission, you will often befriend people who are in pain. They may be isolated, unemployed, ill, mentally unwell, oppressed, abused, dirt poor; often simultaneously.  I haven’t experienced this kind of enduring multiplicity of pain, my daily experience of hardship being lack of chocolate. Talking much in the face of this pain is harmful; the best we can do is make sure they know we’re listening

• When I do have something useful to say, it doesn’t need many words: in graced moments, the right thing worms it way through thickets of useless platitudes. Our words and the situation of the person happily congeal. When this happens, stop. Keep your trap shut. Say your bit and don’t wreck it by (my personal downfall) repeating the same truth in 3 other ways.

Well, that’s about all I can think of at the moment.

At the same time, I’ve been organising publicity for a Christmas Eve celebration, and wanted to find a nativity image for a poster. Corny, cliché, soppy are words that come to mind. Finally, I found one by Fritz Eichenberg, a refugee from Nazi Germany who became a Quaker. He also contributed many wood-gravings to the Catholic Worker.

This engraving is called “Christmas”, and I want to reflect on it briefly.

Firstly, apart from Mary and Jesus, the people’s characters are ambiguous. The figure on the right is probably Joseph but the trio could either be the shepherds (indicated by the sheep) or the three kings. Secondly, there is a combination of biblical story and an urban context. The scene is dark, Mary and Jesus sleep on a bed of hay, farm animals surround them (though not actually in the text) and an angel sings above them. However, the backdrop is urban and Joseph holds an oil lamp. This is a consistent theme of Eichenberg’s religious imagery. I immediately think of “Christ of the Breadlines”, in which Christ stands in a line of men waiting for food. Eichenberg repositions biblical stories and themes into poor urban scenes.

Thirdly, and most intriguely, there is an ‘underground’ meaning to this image, and that’s where it differs from any other nativity scene I can remember. Beneath the scene of familial bliss, albeit poor, is a disturbing scene. Literally under the floor lie 3 beasts, from left to right, 2 crocodiles or dragons and a pig. I’m not sure what the pig means (link to a Roman military cult), but I think the crocodiles represent Egypt. The Egyptians feared crocodiles so much because of their ubiquity on the Nile, that they had a god, Sobek, who was the deification of the crocodile. In some versions of Egyptian stories, he crawls out of the ‘waters of chaos’ to create the world. There are resonances with the Nativity story in a couple of ways. Egypt itself is the archetypal enemy of the people of God. The crocodile’s presence introduces the memory of freedom from oppression. It also brings to mind the holy family’s flight to Egypt  from Herod’s massacre. Sobek’s creator status beings into view an ensuing battle of myths.

I admit that I could be reading a little into Eichenberg’s intentions here, but a the very least he is inserting a minor note into a peaceful scene, reminder of the violence that is soon to envelop the destiny not only of Jesus’ infancy, but of his life.

But what I did find is the perfect gift in the “well, i don’t know….but I suppose if it gets them reading the Bible it’s OK” category….Princess bibles! The perfect gift for every little girl who wants to be God’s princess:

Girls long to be loved and adored, and give their heart to their hero. God is that hero! The characteristics focused on in this Bible storybook will help your little girl blossom into the princess she was created to be. Virtues to create beauty such as compassion, sharing, and truth are highlighted in fun and engaging ways. The perfect format for girls to learn about their destiny as a daughter of their King…(Amazon)

Suffice to say I registered the supreme consumer protest and refused to buy it for my purple-loving niece, far be it from me to damn the Princess Bible to hell and back, if only because numerous people will come out of the woodwork to testify to it’s life-changing effects. One might get quite exercised about the package the word of God comes in, but that’s not a good idea, given smelly, long-haired prophets et al. A princess bible is just the logical extension of religious products that buy into our sense of identity to sell themselves to us. Think surfer bibles, youth bibles, couple bibles, singles bibles, family bibles, Veggie Tales-branded bibles, award bibles etc. But as the medium is the message, a critical view on packaging is needed.

When does the packaging of the Bible become a distraction from its content? My short answer is that if the packaging means you don’t feel you can scribble, tear, smudge and otherwise scruffify your Bible in your efforts to read and understand it, then it’s a distraction.