Tuesday, September 16, 2003


Can't tell a book...
By Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

"Revolve" comes in cool magenta, rust orange and periwinkle blue and looks like an especially thick "Mademoiselle" or "YM."

Headlines splashed across the cover include "Beauty Secrets You've Never Heard Before!" "Are You Dating a Godly Guy?" and "How to Get Along With Your Mom."

But unlike other teen mags, this 'zine isn't loaded with anything R-rated. Because it's not really a magazine. It's a Bible.

But it's not your mom's King James Version. Rather, it's "Cosmo" meets Christ for only $14.99. ...

...But Os Guinness, author of the new book "Prophetic Untimeliness: A Challenge to the Idol of Relevance," says efforts like "Revolve" shows Christians aping secular culture.

"Never have evangelicals tried so hard to be relevant and never have they been so irrelevant," he said. "There are so many versions of the Bible, at the end of the day, they all mean less. This is a triumph of marketing over mission. Niche markets are death to taking the Bible seriously."...