The Editor Who Cancelled His Subscription

Meet Christianity Today‘s new managing editor. You’ve already seen Mark Galli’s work as our part-time book-review editor, but this is the first issue he has guided from start to finish. Mark has been at Christianity Today‘s parent company since August 1989, when he left his six-year Presbyterian pastorate in Sacramento, California, to work on Leadership, our sister publication for pastors. Since then he has grown in editorial experience and skill as he has taken the lead on two other CTi magazines, Christian History and Computing Today, as well as Leadership’s Preaching Today tape series.Back in 1977, Mark canceled his subscription to CT as he joined others in protesting the magazine’s decision to move from the high-rent cultural hub of Washington, D.C., to the decidedly less expensive backwaters of Carol Stream, Illinois. Many interpreted that economy measure as CT’s abandoning evangelical engagement with American culture. Now Mark knows those fears were unfounded, and he sees the irony of his wanting to work at CT: because it helps Christians engage the culture.Mark wants to help our readers think more clearly about their faith and act more faithfully. “I’m deeply sympathetic to people in the local church, especially to the challenges they face as they seek to live out the gospel,” Mark says. Mark, who grew up in the Santa Cruz area, is a graduate of both the University of California at Santa Cruz and Fuller Theological Seminary. He remembers his Fuller days as “the Battle for the Bible,” the era in which CT’s editor criticized Fuller for its revised statement on biblical authority. Eventually a new CT editor, Kenneth S. Kantzer, wrote a bridge-building letter to the Fuller administration, which Mark recalls as posted for all the students to see.After seminary, Mark spent four years in Mexico City as an associate pastor of an English-speaking church for expatriate workers before his pastorate in Sacramento.Mark and his wife Barbara have three children: Luke attends The Colorado College, Katie is a high-school junior, and Theresa is beginning junior high school.Mark has been married to Barbara for 25 years. How did they celebrate the big occasion? “We still owe each other a celebration,” he says, smiling sheepishly. I guess we won’t let him edit Marriage Partnership, another CTi magazine, any time soon.• • •With this issue, we say goodbye to Richard Kauffman, who leaves CT to become the pastor of Toledo Mennonite Church. During his nearly five years as an associate editor, Richard brought us many thoughtful and provocative articles, including “Trained to Kill,” one of the most popular cover stories in this magazine’s history (Aug. 10, 1998; www.christianitytoday.com/ct/8t9/8t9030.html). To date, readers have ordered more than 70,000 reprints of this powerful article to share with their friends.Richard will continue to serve CT’s readers by editing our Reflections page from his new home in Ohio.