February 25, 2005
by Toya Richards Hill

LOUISVILLE – The editor of a new book just on the market says its existence will help "validate" the role of religion news writers as journalists.

"We are not just propaganda writers," says Debra A. Wagner, editor of Changing Boundaries, The Best Religion News Writing.

"We are holding to standards of truth and accuracy in our reporting," she says. "We're presenting it (the news) with journalism standards."

Changing Boundaries, published by Seabury Books, an imprint of Church Publishing Inc., was released to the public in early February. A compilation of the top religion newswriting in 2003 as chosen by the Associated Church Press, the book includes the work of reporters from the Presbyterian News Service, the United Methodist Reporter, U.S. Catholic, the Episcopal News Service and Baptist Peacemaker, among others.

Presbyterian News Service coordinator Jerry Van Marter and reporter Alexa Smith both have stories included in the book, as does Leslie Scanlon of the Presbyterian Outlook.

"This is the very first time this type of work has been presented to the American public," says Wagner, director of communications for Seamen's Church Institute of New York and New Jersey and a board member of the Associated Church Press.

Church Publishing "thought there would be a market" for this kind of book and approached the Associated Church Press about a collaborative effort. Wagner says the publishing company felt both the churched and unchurched would read "the best of what Christian news services had to offer."

News stories in the book are broken down into three distinct categories – Boundaries of War, Sexual Boundaries, and The Ultimate Boundary, which is death. The book also includes a foreword by Gustav Niebuhr, the former national religion reporter for the New York Times.

When Niebuhr accepted the task of writing the foreword, Wagner says, "it meant that he looked at us as journalists."

Parul Parmar, marketing and publicity manger for Church Publishing, says her company has "gotten several large (book) orders from our distributors," but it is too soon to tell overall how the book is selling.

"We thought that it was just a really good time to do a compilation of newswriting," Parmar says. And ultimately "it's going to be a (yearly) series."

Presbyterian News Service