Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Publishing Your Own Scriptures
According to scholars and industry observers, the reading public has greater access than ever before to books claiming or seeming to be divine revelation, that is, God's own words.
Despite small odds for success, growing opportunities for self-publishing have enabled the genre of new revelation to balloon with contenders to be the next big seller--or the text that births a new religion.
"Ongoing revelation is something that people have always claimed," said Rebecca Moore, associate professor of religion at San Diego State University and co-editor of Nova Religio, a journal of new religions. She notes, for instance, Anne Hutchinson whose claims to hear God's voice directly in her ear but not through Scripture led to her persecution in Puritan New England.
"Publication of the revelations," Moore said, "is what seems to be new."
Publishers have traditionally brought a skeptical eye to manuscripts claiming to be divine revelation, according to Lynn Garrett, religion editor at Publisher's Weekly. That's because, she says, most are poorly written and have little new content of value to offer.
Nevertheless, the number of published authors who claim to be speaking for God continues to grow.
"I seem to get more self-published submissions than ever before," Garrett said. Though numbers in this "new revelation" genre are not officially tracked, she said, "there are always a few" that would fall into the category.
America is uniquely disposed at this point in time to welcome new revelations and possibly use them as foundational texts for successful new religions, according to religion scholars. One major reason: Americans no longer depend on established religious authorities for spiritual guidance.
"Religion has become deregulated," said John Berthrong, dean of the School of Theology at Boston University and author of "The Divine Deli: Religious Identity in the North American Cultural Mosaic" (Orbis, 2000). "There's just much more freedom to express yourself without fear."
In this deregulated religious climate, readers have shown a fascination with ancient writings that might have become scripture had authorities not rejected them from a religious canon. The Gospel of Thomas, for instance, has remained in print for more than a decade.
To base a new religion on a newly written, sacred text is more the exception than the rule in the eye of history. The Old Testament or Hebrew Bible, for instance, gives accounts of religious experience that preceded the establishment of any sacred writings. Yet there are examples of prophets recording revelation first and then going on to found a great movement upon the text's code for life. Muhammed founded Islam in this manner in the 7th century. Joseph Smith began Mormonism by the same method in the 19th.
Scholars declined to speculate on which writings or types of writings could be candidates to give birth to a new religion with staying power. But they also declined to discount any contenders as hopeless.
"Some of them really do become large mass movements," Berthrong said. Especially if the future brings disaster or a great deal of uncertainty, he said, "I would not be at all surprised to see that."
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