Ruth Gledhill on the fate of the Christian Encyclopaedia pulped - for being too Christian!

Ruth writes, " Was Paul Eddy perhaps being more prophetic than we knew? Read the following in the context of the anti-Islamist politician Geert Wilders being banned from entering Britain today. He wants to attend a screening of his film Fitna at the House of Lords. According to Emily Gosden in The Times today, 'The film features verses from the Koran with images of terrorist attacks in New York, London and Madrid and calls on Muslims to remove “hate-preaching” verses from the text.'

So what about the pulping of the Christian enclycopaedia for being too Christian?

From clavi non defixi:

'...a substantial encyclopedia slated for 2009 (and released at AAR/SBL) has faced objections from prominent members of its editorial board for being “too Christian, too orthodox, too anti-secular and too anti-Muslim and not politically correct enough for being used in universities.” The encyclopedia has been pulled by the publisher, and existing copies are being sought out and destroyed.'

And National Review Online:

Wiley-Blackwell, a major academic press, was set to release its four-volume Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization this month. According to the encyclopedia’s editor, George Thomas Kurian, the set had been copy-edited, fact-checked, proofread, publisher-approved, printed, bound, and formally launched (to high praise) at the recent American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature conference. But protests from a small group of scholars associated with the project have led the press to postpone publication, recall all copies already distributed, and destroy the existing print run. The scholars’ complaint? The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization, they have reportedly argued, is “too Christian.” “They also object to historical references to the persecution and massacres of Christians by Muslims,” Kurian says, “but at the same time want references favorable to Islam.”

source: Times Online