I learn from the always excellent Dave Walker that the SPCK bookshops are being taken over by The St Stephen the Great Charitable Foundation, a charity dedicated to the promotion of the One True Church “uncorrupted by popular trends and outside influences” - the Eastern Orthodox Church.
I see some conflict between the new owners and the existing ethos of SPCK, which has always been to offer a very broad range of material in a quite unique way. These have never been shops stocking only approved stuff — you can get missals, prayer books and rosary beads, academic tomes and popular introductions, evangelical tracts and Catholic catechisms. There really aren’t any other bookshops like it Britain.
I hope this change of ownership doesn’t threaten that breadth.
(I have also commented on this over at BDBO)
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Kim 10.24.06 at 6:46 pm
Sounds ominous. I can’t stand these Christian bookshops that unilaterally decide on what constitutes “sound” theology, issuing their own sectarian nihil obstat. Most of the stuff on their shelves confirms the title of Mark Noll’s classic The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (1994). Interestingly, the one we had in Swansea has just closed down. According to a major strand of the thinking it represent, that surely constitutes divine judgment!
Joe Finarki 10.28.06 at 10:37 pm
I think it’s great news that SPCK found another Christian charity willing to take on the daunting task of putting them on a sound footing. Let’s give them (St Stephen) a chance and not pass judgments about things sounding “ominous.” I note that our own SPCK has long stocked a great deal of Orthodox material, including icons - right along with books on Islam (even the Koran, for goodness’ sake).