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What do you get when you cross the NIV with Seventeen? You get something like Revolve.

Katie and I are traveling across the county. I started in California and am on my way to North Carolina for grad school. Last week I was home with the parents for a few days. I wanted to get my mom a book so I stopped by our town’s Christian bookstore. In the back of my head I already knew that they wouldn’t have the book I was looking for, but I thought I’d give it a shot. I have never had a successful shopping experience there. On my last visit I asked if they had the new NIV translation of the New Testament (TNIV). The woman gasped and let me know in no uncertain terms that they would never consider carrying a translation that openly distorts the Word of God in the name of the feminist agenda subtly at work in America to revise Christianity.

Of course I could not find the book I wanted. And of course I was amazed at many of the terrible books on the shelves and all the other funky “Christian” merchandise. But what especially grabbed my attention was this section featuring Transit Books . There on the shelf was this YM-esque magazine called Revolve . From the cover it appeared that the magazine would deal with all kinds of interesting high school girl topics like “beauty tips” and “questions for your boyfriend.” Curiosity got the best of me so I picked up a copy and perused (FYI: That High School kid in the dentist’s waiting room secretly looking through Seventeen and Sassy wasn’t me). To my surprise I saw the text of the New Testament (I think it was the NIV) interspersed with all sorts of high school girl stuff. This one box along the side of the text of one of the Gospels was titled “Beauty Tips: Foundation.” Here is the beauty tip:

You need a good, balanced foundation for the rest of your makeup, kinda like how Jesus is the strong foundation in our lives. Keep him as the base, and build everything on him. If it doesn’t fit in his plan for you, it will fall off the foundation. Everything else will fit where it needs to go.

I don’t know what to think about this presentation of the New Testament in the form of a pop culture magazine. The conservative streak in me wants to reject anything that doesn’t look like the Bible that I have and grew up with – small print, two columns per page, plain black cover. But am I too quick to judge? Is this a good way to get high school girls to read the New Testament? Is this a faithful way to communicate the gospel in a particular idiom, i.e. the high-school-girls-who-read-youth-fashion-magazines language?