Incredible? No. Unfortunately, all too credible.

[fpb]

An academic publisher - and academic publishers are in my experience none too well financed - is willing to take a monstrous hit in their pocket rather than be found to be in any way sympathetic to Christianity: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/damian_thompson/blog/2009/02/11/encyclopedia_of_christian_civilization_pulped_for_being_too_christian

This is the world we live in. This is what they call toleration. I say it's about time to start hitting back by any means the law gives us. There are more of us than there are of them, and I want to know why we let them silence and persecute us.

Comments

[annie-from-aust.livejournal.com]

What an outrage ! I will be saying BC and AD until the day I die.

[hobsonphile.livejournal.com]

I think it's possible a lot of us mistakenly believe that because Jesus did not defend himself - and refused to allow his apostles to do so - that means we should likewise take the abuse. But we are also called to evangelize; it's a duty.

(Speaking for myself - because admittedly, I've let people effectively silence me - I've been reluctant to start fights on the internet because I don't like getting into conflicts with people I can't see face to face.)

[sevenorora.livejournal.com]

How can a 'Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization' be 'too Christian'?

In the age of Freedom of Speech and Information, sencorship is more present than it was in the previous centuries...

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

I think I'm going to have to wait and see with this one. The publisher is alleging editorial negligence:

The Encyclopedia was commissioned in 2006 as a major cross-disciplinary reference work on the subject of Christian civilization. Mr. Kurian was known to us as an experienced compiler of encyclopedias, but not as a religious scholar. Accordingly, it was agreed with Mr. Kurian at the outset that an editorial board of prominent Christian theologians and scholars would be appointed to provide expert guidance on the composition of the work and its preparation for publication. Mr. Kurian approved and helped to appoint an editorial board consisting of six such experts and was responsible as Editor for overseeing the review and editing by the board members.

Concern about the content of the Encyclopedia was first raised in November 2008, prior to publication, when we received communications from contributors about the book’s introduction, written by Mr Kurian.

In the course of reviewing the situation with the editorial board (many of whom had similar concerns to those raised by the contributors), we learned that few if any of the contributions to the Encyclopedia were reviewed by the editorial board members as required both by high standards of scholarship and our agreement with Mr. Kurian. Instead, they were only reviewed (if at all) by Mr. Kurian himself. We have therefore asked the appointed editorial board to review the work for scholarly integrity and accuracy prior to publication—the task they were originally recruited to perform-- and the majority of the board has accepted this appointment.

We appreciate that the review process has delayed publication and we understand the concerns of contributors to see their work published. However, we do not feel that we would be fulfilling our responsibilities to our customers or protecting your reputation as contributors if we were to publish this work before confirming that it meets standards of appropriate scholarship.

The eventual outcome should be telling (and I hope someone holds onto their original set for the sake of comparison).

[fpb.livejournal.com]

In other words, they are accusing him of sloppy scholarship - and bringing no evidence.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

So far as I know (feel free to correct me), at this point it is still Kurian's memo to contributors versus the publisher's memo to contributors (the latter partly reproduced above) -- neither side has presented evidence beyond that. As you say, Kurian's account is in these days sadly not incredible, but, in a case so strange, I am personally inclined to wait for additional evidence before drawing a definite conclusion.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

What speaks for itself is that they demanded that BC and AD dates should be changed to the unscholarly, insulting and anti-Christian BCE and CE. This is not even the bad habit of fawning on Muslims, with which we are all too used, since if I were a Muslim I would be offended to be told that the "common" time reckoning is that of Dionysius Exiguus. It is merely part of the enduring and increasingly imbecilic attempt to paint Christianity out of common discourse. As for allegations of bad scholarship - have you not noticed how the PC crowd charges everyone who disagrees with them with ignorance?

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

What I suspect happened in this case, assuming that neither side is lying through their teeth, is that Kurian largely stopped submitting articles to some or all of the editorial panel after they turned out to be Common Era revisionists. (Perhaps he had been misled about them when he gave his approval to the makeup of the panel.) There might have been a better solution, except that the publisher was not adequately involved and proved difficult to contact (which I have read from contributors more sympathetic to the publisher than Feser is).

Unfortunately, aside from any resulting basic editorial problems (which I have seen several people who claim to have read the encyclopedia comment on at this point), his doing so may have been a violation of his agreement with the publisher, a question which is going to have to be answered in the breach-of-contract suit. (The breach-of-contract suit is distinct from the class action suit, which concerns contributor compensation for the withdrawal of the encyclopedia, up to and including its re-issuance.)

Anyway, in short, the publisher negligently allowed a bad situation between Kurian and PC partisans on the editorial panel to fester, Kurian eventually got fed up and took shortcuts with the editorial process, and then shortly after publication the whole mess began to come to light with the result that the publisher decided to cover up their own lack of professionalism by withdrawing the encyclopedia and putting all the blame on Kurian, who, even if not totally guiltless, had been put in a very difficult situation.

At least that is my best guess based on what I have been able to discover so far.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

That is an interesting and plausible case. It still suggests that the publisher had neither taken the notion of an Encyclopedia on Christian subjects with the seriousness it deserved, nor understood the kind of commitment any Encyclopedia project demands.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

The third comment says many of the contributors also think publication should be delayed. Hearsay -- but then, it's all hearsay.

Which is the more exciting or outrageous story, and which is the more plausible story?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Both are the same: namely, that the crowd that demands the use of BCE and CE dating for the sensible and scholarly BC and AD has intervened to censor a piece of scholarship which damaged their pretensions. It happens every day of the week.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it's quite that simple: there is enough agreement between the two memos on key points that both sets of accusations may even be simultaneously true.