Page 41 - November-December Together

TOGETHER NOVEMBER – DECEMBER 2021

3. Religious liberty and free speech concerns a greater emphasis on a more diverse
for Christian business owners arising out author base and employee pool. ECPA has
of lower-level court cases in the American formed a diversity, equity and inclusion
judicial system are being monitored for committee to help foster and navigate OPINION
potential impact on editorial freedom in these changes even as we maintain our
the future. This may not translate to the focus on the transformational Christian BOOK FEATURE
European context in the same way, but as content we publish and promote.
one of our potentially major challenges it’s Into the Unknown
worth noting here. We are responding to In their book, Skytland and Llewellyn challenge
this challenge by enlisting legal counsel their readers with these concluding words:
to guide our evaluations and actions and ‘The journey through the unknown is the best
considering what is known in the judicial way to grow as human beings. It’s where we
system as an ‘amicus brief’ to give voice discover what we’re made of and what God
as a ‘friend of the court’ to concerns has prepared for us. It’s where we find the
related to religious freedom. stories that haven’t been told, the possibilities
4. Many US publishers continue to either that haven’t been discovered, and the views
require or allow their employees to work that we haven’t yet seen.’
from home entirely or partially, and travel Reading that charge reminded me of
restrictions continue to be common. Kennedy’s words nearly sixty years ago. And
Offices are changing. The deployment of their challenge to those of us in Christian
technology to enable work is changing. It publishing and bookselling is even more
does seem as though the pandemic has important for the sake of the world.
brought not short but rather long-term ISBN 9780802419668/Moody Publishers/
change to what it means to be ‘at work.’ In Nicholas Skytland & Alicia Llewellyn/PB/
response, many companies are fashioning 208 pp/£12.99/available from KingswayCLCTrust
flexible workplace arrangements to codify
the range of options and accountabilities Jeff Crosby is the president and CEO of ECPA, the trade association of
in place.
Christian publishing based in the United States. Previously, he served as
5. As market demographics continue to shift the publisher of IVP/USA. He’s currently at work on a book on the idea
in North America, publishing here is seeing of ‘holy longing’, to be published in 2022 by Broadleaf Books.

HOW THE BIBLE
EXALTS AND
DIGNIFIES
WOMEN There are parts of the Bible that I have struggled
with, and bits that seemed far removed from my
life as a twenty–first–century woman. I have
wrestled with them, but as I read, I came to know
that God oŽers more liberation, more freedom,
and more fulfilment than I could dare to imagine.

LIBERATED by Karen Soole ISBN: 9781527107298

KAREN SOOLE

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