Original Christianity

Beyond the DaVinci Code: Tradition and Meaning in Religion Publi

ForeWord, Nov/Dec. 2005

Excerpt from:  
Beyond The Da Vinci Code: Tradition and Meaning in Religion Publishing
by Henry L. Carrigan, Jr.

     For over a decade now, religion books have dominated bestseller lists, and religion has remained the second fastest growing category—behind children’s—in publishing. At the 2004 Book Expo America in Chicago, Publishers Weekly released its own survey of trends in religion publishing, announcing that religion books accounted for over fifty percent of book buyers’ purchases in the previous year. The gargantuan sales of some popular books—The Purpose Driven Life, The Da Vinci Code, and the Left Behind series—certainly made religion publishing look like an unstoppable force. Yet, the survey pointed out that, apart from these books, the steady sellers in trade and independent bookstores were religion or spiritual self-help books (Chicken Soup for the Soul series) and books related to the Bible, such as commentaries or even newer versions of the Bible itself.
     Religion publishing has changed over the years, and today’s trends are not the trends that moved religion publishing into the limelight ten years ago. In the early 1990s, books of amorphous spirituality—often called New Age—full of the power of angels, spirits, crystals, and feng shui and sometimes tenuously connected to Eastern religions like Buddhism flew off bookstores’ shelves. 
     Ten years later, though, religion books have moved away from a shapeless spirituality to become more tradition-bound. Driven primarily by a new generation’s desire to return to the religious traditions of their youth—or to introduce those traditions to their children—religion publishing is fast becoming those readers’ church or synagogue or mosque or temple. These books provide touchstones with the traditions without the overlay of organized religion.
     The tremendous popularity of The Da Vinci Code, combined with the steady flow of books on the historical Jesus, piques readers’ interest in the origins of early Christianity and their curiosity about mystical or Gnostic gospels that provide more information about the first-century world of the early Christians. Peter Novak’s Original Christianity: A New Key to Understanding the Gospel of Thomas and Other Lost Scriptures (Hampton Roads, 1-57174-445-2) offers a new translation and commentary of one of these texts, the Gospel of Thomas. Former librarian Novak asks, “Could Christ’s original teachings have truly been lost?” He contends that the Gospel of Thomas contains Christ’s true teachings, namely reincarnation and purity, and that the early Christian Church removed these writings as dangerous when the Church formed its own authoritative list of writings.  . . .

excerpted from Foreword magazine, Nov. 2005