One Mention of a Church = Too Religious?

When I wrote Code for Teens, I set out to teach programming concepts in a way that was accessible to anyone, regardless of religion.

Those of you who have read it know there aren't any religious messages in the book.  Still, I was recently turned down by a group of educators known as Secular, Eclectic, Academic Homeschoolers (SEAH) solely for having two paragraphs that reference a church.

SEAH was excited to promote my book on their website until they found two short paragraphs that mention a church (no reference to the faith of this church in the book at all--just a mention of it).  SEAH asked me to rewrite this portion.

I told them that I did not control the published book anymore (the publishers do), but I could make an insert that replaces the "church" with "summer camp".  So I rewrote those two paragraphs and submitted them as an addendum that they could distribute with the book or use any other way they wanted.

Apparently, this wasn't enough.  I received a notice from Kathryn Grogg (Executive Director of SEAH) saying "Unfortunately, without a change to the actual digital product to eliminate the project that involves the church, we cannot accept your book for sale in our store."

It was disappointing to be sure, but it also felt a bit petty.  This was not a religious statement being made.  It was merely a mention of a fictional church.  I genuinely wonder if they would've been more accepting if i had replaced the word "church" with "mosque"...

Comments

  1. SharniceDecember 18, 2018 at 12:53 PM

    Why would someone make such an big deal of such a small thing?

    ReplyDelete
  2. RyanNDecember 19, 2018 at 7:34 AM

    Oh come on! Secular is in their name! What is there to make a big deal? People should be allowed to publish what they want.

    ReplyDelete

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