Magazine Featuring Female Pastors Pulled From Shelves, 'Treated Like Pornography'
ATLANTA — The five women on the cover are dressed in black and smiling — not an uncommon strategy for selling magazines.
But these cover girls are women of the cloth, featured in Gospel Today magazine's latest issue, which the Southern Baptist Convention has pulled from the shelves at its bookstores, though the magazine is available for sale upon request.
The group says women pastors go against its beliefs, according to its interpretation of the New Testament. The magazine was taken off stands in more than 100 Lifeway Christian Bookstores across the country, including six in metro Atlanta.
Published for nearly 20 years, Gospel Today is the largest and most widely distributed urban Christian publication in the country, with a circulation of 240,000. The magazine's publisher, Teresa Hairston, said she was just reporting on a trend, not trying to promote women pastors.
"They basically treated it like pornography and put it behind the counter," she said. "Unless a person goes into the store and asks for it, they won't see it displayed."
Click on the Fox News link above to read the rest of the article.
HT: Quixote
6 comments:
I'm boycotting Lifeway. As long as they keep enforcing their backwards repressive views on customers and treating women the way they do I'll never spend a dime of my money with them ever again.
I hope their company eventually goes bankrupt and a better one comes in to fill their place (like Cokesbury maybe).
Bryan L
A Cokesbury on every corner!
I see your point, but I'm just grateful that there even are Christian retailers still in business. All the good ones have gone under, not being able to compete with the internet. The only ones left in our area are almost entirely trite and trendy. As long as they sell good books I can cut them a lot of slack if I don't agree with their policies.
You make an excellent point, Ryan. I would probably hold your perspective if I were not blessed with the options I have. I live in the Austin, TX area, and we have several Family Christian stores and two Cokesbury stores. And Austin is the liberal city of Texas! (Although I have heard that it is the highest book purchasing city per capita.)
I just wanted to say that it was good to hear your comments on Dr. Brown's blog. I find it kind of funny that you live in the Austin area, as I went to school there for a spell (UT) and can confirm the perception of its liberalness. I also find it funny because many of the bloggers on his site are from all over the globe... and you are just a skip and a jump up I-35 from me! :) By the way, what's a Cokesbury? I've never seen one in my area.
Dez,
Thanks for dropping by. Cokesbury is a Christian bookstore. There is one on Austin Presbyterian Seminary campus, and there is one in South Austin. They carry a lot of liturgical church supplies and scholarly books. They also have a store in San Antonio.
http://www.cokesbury.com
It was great interacting with you at Line of Fire. I look forward to more chats.
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