Bookstore Blunders

For those of you who don't know, Urbana is a student missions conference that takes place ever four years in Urbana, Illinois, at the University of Illinois campus. It is hosted by Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, a campus ministry similar to Campus Crusade for Christ. Well, over Christmas break I attended this five day conference with about 20,000 other students. Urbana 03 has caused me to think about so many things that I will try to relate over the next few weeks.

I was especially excited to visit the bookstore that InterVarsity set up at the conference. I love books and I was nervous about bringing my wallet to the bookstore, thinking I was liable to spend more than I ought. I was mistaken as I was tempted to buy only one book. (I bought Operation World by Johnstone and Mandryk. I highly recommend it!) The bookstore disappointed me in some ways. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't for lack of books. They advertised over 20,000 titles. But I was surprised to see that the bookstore wasn't completely devoted to books on missions, but I was greatly astonished to see the lack of discernment in choosing how to fill the other shelves. To my dismay, I saw books by Greg Boyd to name one, a very vocal proponent of Open Theism. And I am not at all opposed to saying that I consider Open Theism heresy. Now, I am not at all for burning books or being the thought police. Open discussion is great and I don't believe in sheltering Christians from other worldviews. However, I knew that there were searching students at the conference who wouldn't know Greg Boyd from anyone else, and would buy such books trusting in the InterVarsity and Urbana labels. This thought alerted me to a problem that perhaps is prevalent among the Christian book industry. Just because the Christian bookstore sells it, doesn't mean that it is Biblical or edifying. I realize that there are many differing beliefs on a variety of doctrines that may be considered orthodox and I am not opposed to bookstores selling them all. But I caution myself and others to be discerning about what books to value, and to value them based upon their agreement with Scripture and not because of who published or sold them. And I would also like to see big publishers like Zondervan and IV Press to be more careful with their endorsements with the knowledge that their name can influence so many people. They are in a position to feed people, so let them feed people with Scripture-saturated, God-exalting food, not settling for anything less than what would cause his people to rejoice in his great reign.