"Ever wished the Bible was as easy to pick up as your favorite magazine?" asks one Christian bookstore advertisement. No, I don't. If that were the case I might treat the Bible with the same indifference, or in some cases, disdain, that I treat most magazines with.
However, despite my feelings to the contrary, apparently some publisher thought it necessary to turn the Bible into a magazine. Many different magazines, in fact, known as BibleZines. Wow! It seems our creativity, especially in coming up with names for things, has reached its zenith, don't you think? There are magazines for every age group, and for the most part, each magazine has a male version and a female version. It's really unbelievable how many of these things there are, so let me show you, proceeding by age group. There's:
Magnify, the kids magazine for girls and boys!
Blossom, for pre-teen girls!
Explore, for pre-teen boys!
Refuel, for teen guys! (Anybody see the hook there?)
Revolve, for teen gals! (Looking, obviously, like a fashion magazine, because we know that
all teenage girls obsess over their looks.)
Becoming, for today's woman!
Align, for modern men!
Redefine, for baby boomers!
Also,
Divine Health, for hypochondriacs!
However, my personal favorite would have to be:
Real, for urban youth!
That's right. We all knew it was coming. It was inevitable, like westward expansion, or conservative backlash against the Bush administration. We all thought if we ignored it, it might not happen, but there it is: a hip-hop Bible!
John 21:17 BPV (Big Pimpin' Version)
Jesus: Yo, Simon Bar-Jonah, called Peter! You love me, son?
Peter: Dawg, You know I gotcho back!
Jesus: If you love me, feed my hos, dawg!
Something tells me what publishers are really shooting for is that folks will be in a Barnes and Noble somewhere and will come across one of the few that they might carry and pick it up thinking it's a real magazine. Then again, they might get wallet shy at the register wondering why a magazine costs $20.
Personally, I've always been a little uncomfortable with changing or redesigning the Bible for different people, you know, beyond normal translation differences and study Bibles. There are children's Bibles, teen Bibles, student Bibles, women's Bibles, men's Bibles, bad girls of the Bible Bibles, clown Bibles, senior executive quality control technician's assistant Bibles. I mean, really, it's out of hand.
We don't take
The Scarlet Letter and illustrate it and dumb it down to make
The Scarlet Letter Read and Learn Book for Kids do we? No, we don't. I know, I know, the Bible is God's message to man and the most important thing we can ever read. But maybe if we spent more time teaching our kids about life, we wouldn't have to buy Bibles jampacked with all sorts of life lessons and tips and tricks, would we?
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On a side note, after much nagging and bugging on my part, and much kicking and screaming on his, my brother has finally started a blog. You can find it in my blogroll. It's called
No Accounting For Taste, and his blogger profile is under the name
Cooper McEnroy. It's a blog that will be filled, from what he tells me, with movie reviews, both old and new, and essays on film in general. It was borne out of his disappointment with the state of the movie industry, and movie-goers themselves. It is a frustration I share with him. He's a new blogger, so check him out and give him some support. He's already posted a welcome and a great review for the new movie
Children of Men.
I really don't understand what kind of shameless pride it takes to do something like that, but, whatever. That's the world for you.
Yes, that is a Joyce Meyer magazine, with, you guessed it, Joyce Meyer on the cover. Not only that, but if you peek down in the lower right corner there, you can see that Joyce Meyer ministries has got more fun on the way: The Penny, Joyce's "compelling" first novel. Give me a minute while I go pre-order that...
