October 6, 2012

• Never Let a Theologian Out of the Library

  I got really, really annoyed yesterday at the [mega-chain bookstore].

  Something in the kids’ section caught my eye.  It was in the Religion section, and that, too, caught my eye, because it had gotten so much larger.

  It used to be two smallish shelves, right under the kids’ cookbooks and art books.

  Now, it takes up an entire bookcase, all to itself.  And it’s filled with . . . well, I get ahead of myself.

  

  So, the reason I stopped in front of the bookshelf at all was this book.
  I understand why Catholic families don’t just pick up Bibles without checking to see whether they follow the Catholic or the Protestant canon.  I’m not sure the texts that are different between the two would really make much difference in a children’s Bible.  But I was somewhat startled by the relative size of the words.  With most other children’s Bibles, the word Bible is the largest word on the cover, or it is the same size as several other words.
  Here, this is a Big Book of CATHOLIC Bible stories.
  I found that amusing enough to make me stop and look.

  But [mega-chain bookstore] had so many more delights in store for me that day!

  Because right next to the Big Book of CATHOLIC Bible stories was this:

  

  I swear, my jaw dropped to the floor, and I had a hard time getting it back up with the rest of my face.  (At least “Bible” is still the largest word on the cover.)

  I have a hard enough time with the whole Daddy’s Little Princess motif in parenting circles.  Now God gets to play along.  Whee.

  Two Bibles down was this glittering monstrosity:

  

  And right next to that?

  

  With “Full color ‘Princess’ presentation section.”
  Oh, thank goodness.  Because otherwise, some princess out there might not realize this Bible was for her.

  But this wasn’t the section that made me spit my latte out my nose.

  This was:

  

  Oh.  Because Curious Kittens need Jesus, too, right?
  Thank goodness it’s an NIV.  We want to make sure those Curious Kittens become evangelicals.

  I didn’t realize the publishing industry had fallen on such hard times that it needed to expand the stupid designer Bible market into the kids section.

  Or is it the church that has fallen on such hard times that even the standard dumbed-down kiddie version of the Bible isn’t enough to bribe kids into caring?  Is it the church that is so desperate that it must put a princess tiara on its kiddie Bibles?

  • 7:31 pm
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