Christian publishing giant destroys critics of its Pride Month LGBTQ+ reading list
Pride month has generated a giant controversy in the Christian literature world after posting a "Books to Read for Pride Month" guide.
"Eerdmans Publishing Company, founded in 1911, has been a leading publisher of academic and faith titles over the last century, including ones by William Lane Craig, Mark Noll, Richard Muow and N.T. Wright. Its commentaries are found on pastoral bookshelves across the world. But the publisher this month endorsed Pride Month," Christian Headlines reported Tuesday. "Several Christian leaders this week spoke out about the publisher’s stance on Pride Month."
On Tuesday, the company responded to its and explained why it reposted its reading list in a thread posted to Twitter.
"Regardless of your doctrinal and ethical convictions, #PrideMonth is a good time for listening to LGBTQ+ voices," Eerdmans Publishing wrote.
"This weekend, we took down our post because the overwhelming vitriol was alarming, and we wanted to protect our authors. We stand by our EerdWord post, so we have tweeted the link again," the company explained. "But we think we should also offer some explanation."
"Some of the replies to our original tweet could be summarized as: 'With this tweet, you have gone over to the dark side. Your company is now useless and we hope you go bankrupt and your employees become jobless.' For those who thought that cursing and reviling would be an appropriately Christian response to an invitation to try to understand LGBTQ+ Christians, we offer no response. Their self-revelation speaks for itself, and it grieves us," the company wrote.
"For our conservative Christian readers and friends who may be disturbed by the slander of the revilers, we want to explain the misunderstandings they voiced. The revilers say we have changed our position and begun to teach heresy. There are several problems with that accusation," the company continued. "We do not think it is for us as a publisher to define doctrine for the church. We are not the pope, or an ecumenical council, or even a pastor. Our role is to publish books, representing both settled and experimental positions, that serve the church in its ongoing deliberations."
"We therefore routinely publish books that contradict each other on many contested doctrinal points. We publish conservative and liberal books; we publish Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant books. We are not confused. We are a publisher that serves the ecumenical church," the company explained. "With regard to Christian understandings of LGBTQ+ people, Eerdmans has been publishing books for quite a few years by authors who have come to an affirming conclusion on biblical and theological grounds. This is not new for us. At the same time, Eerdmans has continued and will continue, to publish books by and for people who have not come to this conclusion."
The company then described the type of books it will not offer.
"Eerdmans does not publish books that deny the existence or ignore the voices of LGBTQ people, propagate false teaching about discredited/harmful 'therapies,' or in general condemn/revile LGBTQ people. Too much of that has been done over time, and we want no part in continuing it," Eerdmans wrote. "We reject the tendency to promote division and discord by categorizing Christians into two camps, considering 'us' to be right about everything and 'them' to be wrong. We decline to swear loyalty to one faction’s 'us' and join their hostilities against all corresponding 'thems.'"
The company ended the thread with a second link to it's reading list.
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