Published, sort of

One of my blog posts was picked up by a magazine (which will remain unidentified) recently and is scheduled to be published. The editor and I went through the customary back-and-forth of reducing the word count to fit the prescribed space alotted for it in the magazine. Since I didn't write the article for a magazine, I fully expected it to be adjusted to fit the magazine's purposes and target audience. If you've never thought about this process, rest assured that virtually nothing you read in a magazine is printed as it was originally written. However, in the end the article was also edited to remove any direct references to God. Generic "inspiration" was the order of the day, and the editor explained to me that since so many of the magazine's readers have so many different ideas about God (or god), they remove explicit references to the Deity as a matter of course. Hmmm.

Some of my readers who are Christ-followers may read this and be indignant that I didn't pull my article in protest. I never seriously considered that. I felt some obligation to consider that for a brief time, but it faded quickly. I was surprised that even the word "God" seemed to be taboo, but if so, I'm particularly glad they're printing my article. I'd rather throw my hat into that circle and enter the conversation--even if edited--than write just to an audience of Christians. I'd like people who are into "inspiration" only, who consider themselves open-minded except to Christianity, to see that someone who calls himself a Christ-follower has artistic sensibilities, that the stereotypes of Christians as lemmings or Christianity as repression just don't fit.

I don't expect the magazine to be willing to be a platform for someone's dogma. They're in it to sell magazines and ads, and my article is only valuable to them if it helps them do that. So if I, an avowed Christian, can write something that's interesting to people who don't agree with my worldview, so much the better. We'll see how it plays out.