Patheos Press: A Press Release

December 12, 2011 By scotmcknight 6 Comments

Patheos Press Submission Guidelines
December 12, 2011

Patheos Press is seeking original, thoughtful, and engaging writing about religion. Our books, which at present are published electronically, cover a wide range of religion and spirituality subjects and feature a wide range of approaches, from academic and journalistic to devotional and personal. Broadly, we are looking for:
•       Irresistibly interesting reported pieces
•       Engaging essays, whether focused on the timely or the timeless
•       Theological and philosophical studies
•       Spiritual guides and devotionals
•       And much more. If you are a good religion writer with clear idea, we’d like to hear from you.

Book Length and Format
Patheos Press publishes both short-form and long-form writing. Our shorter books are 10,000 − 20,000 words, and with manuscripts of that length, we aim to be quick to market. Our longer books can be any length. The beauty of digital publishing is that book length will be determined by the idea. If your idea or story needs to be 10,000 words, let’s chat. If you have a 75,000-word idea, we’d like to hear about that, too.

Selection and Production Process
Patheos Press handles editing, production and marketing of all manuscripts. Because digital publishing involves high “soft costs” in the form of our time, we are highly selective. Your concept must be crisp, your writing must be clear, and you must have identified a potential audience for your book in order for your manuscript to be considered.

Rights and Royalties
Patheos Press and its authors share copyright and royalties for the terms of the contract. We negotiate separately with each author to determine royalty structure and/or other payments.

Submission
To submit a query to Patheos Press, send us a 1-page (single-spaced) overview of your idea. Be sure to include:
•       A sharp, clear working title and subtitle.
•       A brief overview of your concept. Explain your idea, then tell us why it needs to be written now and why an audience will care.
•       A description of the intended audience, with any specific marketing platforms you are connected to (e.g., existing email lists, media contacts, social media channels, etc.)
•       An explanation of how you plan to deliver your concept. How would you describe your approach? Journalistic? Personal? Scholarly? Devotional?
•       A description of yourself. Why are you the best person to write on this topic?

Ready to submit a query? Please contact us at patheospress@patheos.com<mailto:patheospress@patheos.com>

Filed Under: Uncategorized 6 Comments

Tebow and Faith in Denver

December 12, 2011 By scotmcknight 12 Comments

Brad Greenberg, at the Jewish Journal, on Tebow:

Just because Tebow has strong religious beliefs that he has not been shy about sharing publicly does not mean that he poses a threat to members of other religious communities. Tebow certainly sees his performance on the gridiron as an opportunity to glorify God but, like Kurt Warner before him, he’s never been about making this an us (evangelical Christians) versus them (everyone else).

Very interesting sketch of how people of faith(s) in Denver are responding to Tebow.

In Denver, where the Broncos are the closest thing to a universal religion, the faith for football is so fervent that it sometimes supersedes other beliefs—especially since the arrival of Tim Tebow. In catapulting Denver to first place in the AFC West, Tebow has defied his skeptics in ways that might make even the most secular of pigskin purists consider the possibility of divine intervention.

And with the Broncos prospering under Tebow, different religious communities in Denver’s metropolitan area have embraced the starting quarterback, even if their beliefs don’t line up with his. The devout evangelical Christian, who isn’t shy about praying on the football field, has catalyzed such a pervasive conversation about the role of faith in public that some religious figures in Colorado’s Front Range even consider Tebow fodder for the pulpit.

Around 10 p.m. on a recent evening, the rabbi at Denver’s Temple Emanuel was asked if he would ever sermonize about Tebow. Joe Black responded as if he had just chugged an espresso. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Sports 12 Comments

The Christmas Gospel 1

December 12, 2011 By scotmcknight 14 Comments

I want to do a series of brief posts reflecting on the gospel that Christmas declares. I begin today where the New Testament begins with the gospel: the genealogy of Matthew (1:1-17). Here we find a list of names, but the names are ordered into a message.

There are three major points in the geneaology: Jesus is the King/Messiah, Jesus is a descendant of David, and Jesus is a descendant of Abraham. There you have it : from Abraham to David to Jesus, the Messiah/King. The gospel, which is what Matthew is, begins by telling us something vitally important about Jesus: he is the fulfillment of the Story that runs from Abraham’s election to David’s appointment as king (forever). The genealogy is a nutshell expression of the New Testament’s gospel: see my book, The King Jesus Gospel.

Abraham can represent both Israel and the Gentiles. How so? Clearly, God’s way of dealing with human problems in Genesis 4-11 is to form one covenant people, eventually Israel, and Abraham was that person. But the Jewish context also tells us that Abraham was a Gentile, that he was eventually classed as a proselyte, and that he represents in Matthew’s gospel the expansion of the gospel to Gentiles, beginning with the magi of Matthew 2:1-12 and finishing off with the mission to the world in Matthew 28:16-20. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Advent 14 Comments

Women and the Public Reading of Scripture

December 12, 2011 By scotmcknight 75 Comments

Anyone who says reading Scripture is a teaching ministry is just making stuff up. Reading is reading and teaching is teaching, and preaching is preaching, and prophesying is prophesying, but reading is not teaching, preaching or prophesying. Women were prophets, women were apostles, women were teachers – this is all in the New Testament. That more than qualifies them for the public reading of Scripture.

There is a serious set of scholars who think the first public reading of Romans was by none other than Phoebe, the letter courier. Beside the already-unbiblical notion of prohibiting women from proclamation and teaching and preaching, the biggest error here is the reservation of only male-given gifts for a Sunday morning service. Where do we get Sunday-morning-only gifts? If women can read the Bible at home to themselves (teaching themselves) and to their children (teaching them) and to their Sunday school classes (teaching children), they can read it in the church service.

From Michelle Van Loon:

Should women be permitted to read Scripture aloud in a church service?

Probably for many of you reading this, the answer would be a simple yes. Neo-Reformed church leader and uber blogger Tim Chailles delivers an empathetic “No!” in this post.  In his congregation as well many others in both fundamentalist and neo-Calvinist camps, including this one, only male leaders are permitted to read Scripture:

Because of the importance of the Word of God, at Grace Fellowship Church we ask certain members of the church to be involved in a Scripture Reading Ministry—a ministry of those who are specially trained and equipped to read the Word of God and to read it well. We consider this a teaching ministry, which means that it is a ministry reserved for men.

My husband and I currently attend a church where a male pastor reads the Scripture from which his sermon is based as a part of the message. In the past, we’ve attended churches that used the Lectionary, which allowed a variety of people from the congregation serve as readers. We’ve also attended churches where a vetted reader presents the Scripture(s) for the sermon, and then the preacher follows. (Yeah. We’ve been around.)… [Read more...]

Filed Under: Women and Ministry 75 Comments

Calvinism: My History 4

December 12, 2011 By scotmcknight 32 Comments

The Warning Passages of Hebrews, which have vexed both ordinary Christians and professional scholars for centuries, have four elements: the audience, the sin, the exhortation, and the consequences. Today we will look at the exhortation(s). In my own journey, this topic was more critical than I realized, and it is more important of a topic than many seem to think. Perseverance is the issue; you don’t really need to call a non-Christian to persevere.

What do you see in the expressions of exhortation below? Do you think “us” implies Christian?

Here are some terms the author uses for what he expects his audience to do instead of falling away, and most of the time the author — who presumably thinks he/she is a Christian — includes himself/herself in the exhortation:
2:1: pay attention
3:6, 14; 10:23: hold on
3:13: encourage one another
4:1: let us fear
4:11: let us strive hard
4:14: let us hold fast
6:1: let us carry on to perfection
10:35: do not cast away your confidence
10:36: you need perseverance
12:1: let us run with perseverance
12:7: endure hardship
12:12: strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees
12:15: see to it that no one misses the grace of God
12:25: see to it that you do not refuse

If we chose one term to put this all into one it would be either “perseverance” or “faithfulness.” This is both mental and personal: one both knows that God is faithful and one actively surrenders to God’s grace and empowerment. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Calvinism 32 Comments