My brother last night was giving me a hard time for owning some books published by Zondervan. He was not giving me a hard time, he was furious...he wanted me to burn every single one of the books....
He then spouted out, what sounded like to me a conspiracy theory. One that I was quite unfamiliar with. He said that Zondervan publishes the "Satanic Bible."
To be honest, I was too, unfamiliar with the "Satanic Bible." So I asked him what he meant, was he using a coded name for the NIV translation or was there an actual "Satanic Bible?" And if there was such a thing why the heck would Zondervan have anything to do with it? A sub-point I told my brother was that almost all of my "Christian" books are from Zondervan and I have no desire to burn them all. I like my books!
So I pushed him aside until he could come up with some facts or at least give me some idea of what he was talking about. he did not.
So I did some research of my own:
The Satanic Bible does exist.
It is ridiculous. It was published in 1969 by University Press of America and is associated with the "Church of Satan" and "First Satanic Church."
there actually is a follow up book the "Satanic Rituals" apparently Anton LaVey, did not get everything right the first time or he did not have enough fun the first time seeing that the second book in '72. And a third book later, the "Satanic Witch."
(yeah it gets worse.)
So what is the relationship of University Press of America to Zondervan?
They are all owned by News Corporation. Zondervan is a sub division of HarperCollins.
University Press of America is a part of Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group. (this company along with HarperCollins publishes the Satanic Bible.)
In the end both publishers are owned by News Corporation.
So it is quite a stretch to make acusations that Zondervan is evil. It is NOT true that Zondervan publishes the Satanic Bible. It is true that the same company owns both the NIV and the Satanic Bible.
Does this make Zondervan authors hypocrits? Should we purchase our Christian books from Zondervan if we are risking having our money also publish The Satanic Bible?
There are great points on both sides of the debate. Should Zondervan try to move out of the corrupt ownership? What can they really do? What can we really do?
I mean we live in a corrupt world! And it is not going to change. We have to live in but not of the world...if we avoid Zondervan becuase they are associated with New Corp this we will end up being legalistic...think about all the other companies you should aviod as Christians, that are also corrupt and owned by New Corp:
Filmed Entertainment - News Corporation
20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox Espanol
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
20th Century Fox International
20th Century Fox Television
Blue Sky Studios
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Fox Studios Australia
Fox Studios LA
Fox Studios Baja
Fox Television Studios
Television - News Corporation
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Sports Australia
Fox Television Stations
FOXTEL
STAR
Cable Television owned by News Corporation
Fox Movie Channel
Fox News Channel
Fox Sports Digital
Fox Sports Enterprises
Fox Sports Espanol
Fox Sports Net
Fox Sports World
FUEL
FX
National Geographic Channel
SPEED Channel
Stats, Inc
Direct Broadcast & Satellite Television - News Corporation
BskyB
DIRECTV
FOXTEL
Sky Italia
Magazines - News Corporation
Inside Out
Donna Hay
News America Marketing
Smart Source
The Weekly Standard
Gemstar
Newspapers - News Corporation
Australasian region Newspapers:
Daily Telegraph
Fiji Times
Gold Coast Bulletin
Herald Sun
Newsphotos
Newspix
Newstext
NT News
Post Courier
Sunday Herald Sun
Sunday Mail
Sunday Tasmanian
Sunday Territorian
Sunday Times
The Advertiser
The Australian
The Courier Mail
The Mercury
The Sunday Mail
The Sunday Telegraph
Weekly Times
United Kingdom region Newspapers:
News International
News of the World
The Sun
The Sunday Times
The Times
Times Education Supplement
Times Higher Education Supplement
Times Literary Supplement
TSL Education
United States region Newspapers:
New York Post
Books - News Corporation
Harper Collins Publishers
- Australia
- Canada
- Childrens Books
- United States
- United Kingdom
Regan Books
Zondervan
Other Investments - News Corporation
MySpace.com
Festival Records
Mushroom Records
National Rugby League - Australia
News Interactive
News Outdoor
Nursery World
Playboy
AskMen.com
I do not think we are using our time effctively if we are being so defensive! I think we are wasting our energy avoiding giving News Corporation our money...
God will judge News Corp. He will judge Zondervan and he will judge us.
(And seriously, all the Christians who watch FOX News....(Rupert/News Corp's favorite people to market to are Christians...) - they also market to the 'other side' with the Satanic Bible...maybe the makers of the Satanic Bible will switch publishers....)
But does that mean we should aviod purchasing books from Zondervan completely?
I personally will not go that far. God is using this publisher, despite the fact that it is owned by corrupt leader, Rupert Murdoch.
As far as other reason why you may not want to choose Zondervan (and the NIV)....well I could spend another entire post on that....
