Christianity Today and to launch an exciting new publication, BOOKS & CULTURE: A CHRISTIAN REVIEW (www.booksandculture.net; AOL keyword: B&C). He has excelled at both.
As book-review editor, he inaugurated and edited our Annual Books Issue (this year’s version you hold in your hands), which includes our widely quoted Annual Book Awards. A prolific reviewer, he offers in this issue his survey on trends in science-and-religion writing (see “Lord of the Absurd,” p. 33)—only one of his many special-interest areas, which also include immigration issues, Old Testament studies, anything having to do with China, baseball, the history of the book, and the novels of science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick (did I mention Russian poets?).
While John has done an outstanding job at CT, he was born to edit BOOKS & CULTURE. Now in its fourth year, B&C has become a showcase for the renaissance in evangelical intellectual life. Widely recognized (and quoted) by major secular thought journals, B&C gives pioneering coverage of Christians engaging the world in new and vital ways.
All of this is to explain why we are releasing John from his book-review duties for CT. B&C‘s success has meant more opportunities for John to travel, speak, write, and edit. In good conscience, we could no longer ask him to carry so much. While he will continue to advise CT as “editor at large,” John’s primary energy will now be more sharply focused on BOOKS & CULTURE—an exciting prospect. To keep up with the multitasking mind of John Wilson, you will now have to subscribe to B&C (800-523-7964).
For those who look to CT to provide vital coverage of books (because, as people of the Book, we recognize print as a medium through which God speaks), be assured that we are balancing our lost asset with the acquisition of another. Beginning this summer, CHRISTIAN HISTORY editor Mark Galli will add the title of CT book-review editor to his business card. A former pastor and a veteran of the editorial staff of LEADERSHIP journal, Mark is relishing the task of stepping into John’s shoes and taking on the “ministry of connecting people to those too-rare books that are well written, well thought, and well worth our time.”
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