Suburban Books for Suburban Christians
What does it mean to read, write, and publish contextually?
When pastor Rick Warren was planning Saddleback Church in the late 80s, he came up with a typical Orange County resident, Saddleback Sam:
Saddleback Sam—cruising down Highway 1 with both a pager and a cell phone—represented Rick Warren’s target audience of South Orange County—educated, white, financially thriving—and from that archetype Saddleback Church was built.
Then, in 2002, when Warren published what would become the best-selling hardcover book of all time—The Purpose Driven Life—his training and pastoring and writing was birthed out of his relationship with Saddleback Sam. Sam became more than the archetype for his congregation but his ideal reader as well.
The problem, however, is that nowhere in the book’s marketing is Warren’s specific cultural context or audience mentioned (i.e. Saddleback Sam). In the back cover blurb, the book makes this claim: “The Purpose Driven Life is a blueprint for Christian living in the 21st century.” It does not offer any cultural or contextual specifications, nowhere does it say, “Written with suburban, educated, white Christians in mind.”
Suddenly a specific context was transformed to include everyone.
Over the past few years I’ve grown more and more attracted to two adjectives of theology: embodied and contextual.
Embodied theology is concerned with the whole being; it acts as a pushback to Enlightenment, which moved the center of focus from the entire being to the brain alone. It is also concerned with the realities of the bodies we inhabit: male or female, white or black, indigenous or Asian-American or Latino/a. These realities are diverse images of the divine—i.e. they matter to God—so they should matter to our theologies as well.
Contextual theology is concerned with the specific places in which we live; again, it acts as a pushback to Enlightenment, which ignored the physical world around us and instead focused on the internal ascent of belief and doctrine. Rather than an abstract Gospel which is preached from above, contextual theology interprets the Gospel through the physical world and culture its hearers inhabit. In short, Jesus preached to fishers and farmers and used the language of fishing and farming, so why shouldn’t we?
An embodied and contextual theology is the practice of living and preaching the Gospel as a physical human in a physical space.
The cultural context of the Christian publishing industry was birthed in suburbia and primarily serves suburban audiences; however, for much of its history it has claimed authority for all audiences and all contexts.
A lot of books produced in the suburbs are neither embodied nor contextual because suburban Christians have been taught that our cultural context is omniscient and omnipresent: our culture is everyone’s culture; therefore, our theology is everyone’s theology. We don’t notice that other bodies and contexts aren’t served, in part, because books are written with us in mind but marketed as if they are for everyone.
This neither serves the whole Church or God’s kingdom on earth; we—Saddleback Sams—are not the center of the Gospel story and are not the intended audience of the Bible. God definitely cares about our specific context, but God does not care about our context exclusively. Publishing shouldn’t either.
I hate presenting a problem without also providing a solution, as rudimentary as it might be. So what do we do? De-center our reading and our publishing.
I don’t suggest books shouldn’t be written for suburban audiences. Saddleback Sam needs books just like everyone else, but publishing needs to de-center the suburbs. This looks like suburban writers incorporating their own embodied-ness and context in their writing as well as marketing teams being more transparent in the marketing of suburban books.
What does it look like for publishing companies to physically move out of the suburbs? I know of acquisition editors who work remote from urban centers and some amazing writers writing from rural contexts. What does it look like to de-centralize the publishing process itself?
We can’t ignore that the book buying bloc in Christian publishing skews suburban and white. But which came first, the book-buying suburban Christians or the publishing houses producing books for them? Until there is representation within the industry itself, the cycle of suburban capitalism will only continue.
It has served me well to read authors from other contexts because it (here’s that word again) de-centers my context and reminds me that the kingdom of God is far bigger and wider and deeper and higher than my own context. When embodied and contextual books are released, buy them! Your money speaks volumes. I hope my work with Slow Faith Books highlights these books.
Finally, I wanted to suggest a few books that are beautiful examples of embodied and contextual writing. Check any of them out!
Finding Holy in the Suburbs: Living Faithfully in the Land of Too Much by Ashley Hales (IVP Books)
Shoutin’ in the Fire: An American Epistle by Danté Stewart (Convergent Books)
Dakota: A Spiritual Geography by Kathleen Norris (Mariner Books)
The Pastor by Eugene Peterson (HarperOne)
I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown (Convergent Books)
As always, I am extremely grateful that you choose to follow my writing journey. I hope you have an amazing week.
You are so insightful.
I enjoyed this. Thank you.