Thursday, July 27, 2006

Must we really?

Katie, the keeper of the books, regularly grabs books that she thinks I'd like and puts them in a pile for me. As I went through the pile yesterday, I found that she had put this book: Swashbuckling Faith: Exploring for Treasure with Pirates of the Caribbean. I immediately started laughing. WARNING: HEAVY CYNICISM INCOMING! Must the Christian book industry try to make a buck of every single latest fad? Seriously! You should have seen the book store shelves filled with "Narnia" books. Okay, I repent of the cynicism (at least some of it). As a friend and I were talking yesterday, I'm sure that somewhere, someone is connecting to this. And if this comes from a good place -- that people really are wanting to wrestle through the spiritual implications of a pirate movie, then "good for them." But if it's just about making a buck, and trying to ride the wave of a movie industry juggernaut, then shame on us for exploiting the gospel of Jesus Christ to make a few more shekels.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I totally agree! It makes me laugh when i walk into a Christian bookstore and see a whole display of how Harry Potter, Narnia, now Pirates of the Carribean, ect ect are so spiritual. Some of the christian products make me laugh to. Scripture golfballs, i mean seriously!!

Anonymous said...

Sorry, I couldn't resist. I knew you would get a kick out of that one even if you never cracked the cover.

JGanschow said...

but the real question is can she recommend any good Christian ninja books?


and if you haven't yet, please visit: www.askaninja.com

Anonymous said...

If you haven't seen this already, the Relevant crew has some nice pictures of christian pirates at the International Christian Retailers show.

http://www.duellikerealmen.com/

Anonymous said...

OK, Jganschow, here you go:
disclaimer - i don't know how good these books are, only what they claim.
Christian Martial Arts 101 & the Instructors Edition; Martial Arts and the Christian Way - all three of these are by Wendy Williamson and I can order all of them. Here are some websites for other info.
www.geocitites.com/seishoryu/index.html; www.agapy.com/cma/books.html; www.paladin-press.com/authormo_1104.aspx

Hope this helps!

Will Branch said...

You don't know me but I came across your blog reading Brandon Brown's blog. I was just talking to someone last night about this issue. I feel like christian culture and the church (don't get me wrong because I love the church) seem so quick to jump on the fad band wagon. It seriously makes me sick. I was in a christian bookstore the other day and there were some books responding the the Da Vince Code. I got so mad. Uggghh!! (frustration gasp). God help us!!!