Wiley-Blackwell, a major academic publisher, is recalling all copies of its Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization and scrapping the print run after critics said the contents were “too Christian” and “too anti-Muslim.” The publisher was set to release the four-volume encyclopedia this month after it was completed last September, but a small group of critics that included contributors and some members of the editorial board objected to the final version.
“They determined that the introduction and many of the entries were too Christian, too orthodox, too anti-secular and too anti-Muslim and not politically correct enough for being used in universities,” said the encyclopedia’s editor, George Thomas Kurian, in an angry e-mail sent last week to nearly 400 contributors.
The book was intended to be a comprehensive work on the history and legacy of Christianity, looking not only at the religion, but at the aspects of society — such as art, literature, architecture, music, politics and scholarship — that it has shaped.
Now, the book’s publisher and editorial director want to “de-christianize” all 1,450 entries in the encyclopedia to make it politically correct before it can be reprinted, according to Kurian. He claims they want to delete words such as “Antichrist,” “Enemy,” “Beloved Disciple,” “Gates of Hell,” “Witness,” “Virgin Birth,” “Resurrection,” “Evangelism” and any reference with an “evangelical tone.” Chronological markers BC (”Before Christ”) and AD (”Anno Domini”) will also likely be dropped. The publisher further objected to “historical references to the persecution and massacres of Christians by Muslims, but at the same time wanted references favorable to Islam,” said Kurian. “To make the treatment ‘more balanced,’ they also want the insertion of material denigrating Christianity in some form or fashion. All of these I have refused to do.”
Kurian added, “This is the most blatant form of censorship in the history of religious publishing.” He plans to fight the modifications in court, and invited contributors receiving his e-mail to join him in a class-action lawsuit seeking restitution for the lost income and charging Wiley-Blackwell with breach of contract. The suit seeks to have Blackwell publish the encyclopedia as originally approved and printed, without change and without censorship of its Christian content, tone and character.
(borrowed from H.B. London’s Weekly Briefing)
