How is this a good thing for the Christian market?

The traditional Christian publishing houses are falling like the CCM labels did a decade ago...and we've seen how that industry crumbled.

There is simply no way for a publisher to remain biblically objective about their publications when your bottom line is being determined by the same people who willfully engage in illegal phone hacking and other unChristian tabloid tactics.

The bleed over is happening in other sectors related to the Church. Just a couple of months ago FellowshipOne membership services sold out to a secular company.

We live in dangerous times. We live in times of obscured spiritual discernment.

Very interesting. As most people are starting to notice the publishing industry has radically changed in recent years. But that's not necessarily bad. Small publishers like Dunrobin Publishing are providing a valuable service and ensuring that new authors with high quality books have equal access to the global publishing market both in print and e-book. Large publishing houses may be fighting a losing battle to stay relevant and, eventually, may find themselves closing their doors down the road as the dynamics of a changed market impact their bottom line. They would never agree with that assessment of course, but neither would of Borders just a short while ago.

All the more reason to support bloggers, self-publishing authors and independent Christian publishing hourse like Energion Publications and P&R Publications. These big firms churn out what religious consumers demand. Instead of looking for boogyemen, write your own book. Set up a blog. Make your voice heard!

It is really sad how far this publisher is from both publishers, Thomas Nelson (Edinburgh 1798) and William Collins (Glasgow 1819), and their original foundation in the Scripture and focus on sound Biblical teaching. But the same criticism applies to other publishers like Zondervan and how much their books differ from 40 years ago.

It is shameful, market realities aside, that Thomas Nelson, Inc. would want to sell to a man with such un-Christian morals. I cringe when to make a necessary purchase, I know that Rupert Murdoch's enterprises are the beneficaries of my purcahase. (As it is, I have a policy of not buying any religious goods made in China, or other countries who persecute Christians.) Will we have tabloid styled Bibles now?

Without market forces like this, most of the Christian publishing houses would have quit publishing years ago. This is part of reality.

But it may be time for denominations and others to create non-profit (ie, most likely money loosing) independent publishing houses. The cost of entry is at an all time low and a small house with real purpose and support can make a big impact.

Bibles are now printed in an atheist country, China. Satan must be laughing all the way to the soul bank. One of his agents now controls half the Bible industry and atheists print them to take money from us. And the people enabling this pass themselves off as Christians! Soon, the Bible will be bastardized worse than any translation or government takeover (a la Constantine and King James). Imagine the excising of the Beatitudes, the Book of James, maybe even all the Gospels. We are edging closer to a "Christianity" that worships Ayn Rand rather than Christ.

It's hard to know why so many of Nelson's big authors began to leave 2 years ago. Stanley. Swindoll. Maxwell. Dave Ramsey. John Eldridge. Hard to know if business or ministry issues lead to the mass exodus. But clearly when burdened with a lot of debt and sold to one investment house almost 2 years ago and sold it to another investment house a year later, Nelson execs were rescued by bankers looking for a return on the investment, period. And any author / agent who has worked with Zondervan will tell you the previous president had a very different culture there resulting in things like a "new" NIV Bible (2010) to replace your old outdated 1984 version. It's disgusting to see how the two biggest company's have become.

Are you (all) judging Murdoch and the Chinese too harshly? They are booksellers, not demons. If you don't want the books they offer, don't buy them. If another publisher publishes material more to your liking, patronize them. But this paranoia and anger about "atheists" and those with "unChristian morals" making money from the Christian market is, itself, ungodly.

The truth: we, the customers, control the market.

Murdoch does not control media for the sake simply of profit. He does so to control and manage content. As long as these publishers stay within 'broad road' churchianity, particularly anything supporting violently racist Zionism or so-called 'Judeo-Christianity' (an oxymoron if ever there was one), Murdoch will be happy. Any venture in the direction of hard-nosed anti-Pharisaic Christianity will not be welcomed or indeed permitted - the whole purpose of control.

It's indeed a shame that the corporation that gives us Christ-mocking entertainment like "The Family Guy" now owns 80% of Christian publishing.

Let's make that 50% of Christian publishing...

Uh-oh. As a 30+ year Wall Street Journal subscriber I've witnessed first hand how Murdoch ownership affects the integrity of journalism. The Journal radically changed when Murdoch bought it and not for the good. So did the subscription price, and not for the good there either.

As the curriculum purchaser for a church that runs a healthy number, I can honestly say that both Thomas Nelson and Zondervan are less likely to be considered for future purchases. I don't trust unifying with a man like Murdoch in their "mission" to aid Christians.

Over the last 20+ years Christian publishing and music have both moved from being a ministry to an industry. It doesn't mean that either shouldn't be profitable but when the word "industry" became more prevalent than ministry, I believe that is when it started going downhill. The push for NY Times' bestsellers and forcing best selling authors to "manufacture" rather than write as the Lord leads, has created a lot of schlock out there.

I've spent a number of years of my life making my living in Christian publishing - I've loved it - but I've been saddened to watch some of what's been happening to it in recent years.

General publishing houses have no desire for the furtherance of the Gospel, they just know there's a HUGE market out there for Christian material and they want their cut of the pie.....it's money baby.....it's all about money....

Might there be some "Divine Purpose" in all of this? What if Christians had to rely on the Holy Spirit and Scriptures (even produced at home) for teaching about the Christian walk and being a follower of Jesus? What if we couldn't gather around some Christian celebrity writer/preacher and spend a fortune to take in what is in a "book"? What if brother or sister Christian could share in a little assembly of believers and say to fellow brothers and sisters, "You know, this is what I learned today in my time of communing with the Lord", or "These are the lessons I learned today or over the past days, weeks, months and years, about the Lord's mercy and grace"? Just imagine if we HAD to manage like the first century believers.
What if we really believed in the priesthood of believers and the gifts of the Holy Spirit active in the Body of Christ? What if we believed, "Freely you have received, freely give"?

When Christian oriented publishers becomes part of secular media whose sole interest lies in its self & worldly gains, quiet a bit of Christian Apostasy can be expected being caught in "the Prince of the power of air , the spirit that worketh in the children of Disobedience" towards falseness & exaggerations- the tools of false Christs.

God gave us His inspired Word because a group of people sitting around listening to people have no idea if the person is a false prophet like Joseph Smith. Remember the Bereans were commended for comparing Paul's word to Scripture. We don't go by "feelings", they can greatly mislead you.

The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails—given by one shepherd. Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them. Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body. Ecclesiastes 12:11,12

For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 2 Timothy 4:3

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. James 1:22

All worth considering the next time you're motivated to part with your well-earned dollars for the latest book or video series. We have what we need.

At the time of Zondervan's acquisition by Harper I was employed by another publishing company in Grand Rapids, Michigan where Zondervan's HQ is located. Through the contacts of others who I worked with and direct contact with one of the editors at Zondervan I learned that the purchase by Harper included free editorial reign by Zondervan--in other words, Harper was not dictating what content Zondervan would continue to publish but only whether they would be profitable.

While the profit motive might influence whether Zondervan published certain titles they might have done in the past but chose not to under Harper I did not see nor was aware of any significant departure in the type of titles they had been publishing.

Since I have been away from Grand Rapids and my contacts I have not kept up with Zondervan's more recent publishing other than casually but I have not been aware of any changes in their endeavors over past years.

While the situation at Nelson might be different I don't expect there to be a large change there either since one would think part of the reason Harper acquired them was to profit from their niche (and backlist). Why make the kind of changes that might result in a less profitable entity or make it indistinguishable from current holdings such as HarperOne?

As a Christian author who has gone the self-publishing route with a fair amount of success, this represents another nail in the coffin of faith-based publishing houses. While shopping my latest book, The Four Pillars of the Kingdom (had to get a plug in!)around, it became clear that the remaining publishers, and as a result, the agents, only want a certain type of Christian writer, the next Joel Osteen. If you aren't peddling a feel good theology, a Christ as business model theology, you are going to have a tough time being seriously considered. Thankfully, you can still get a book on places like Amazon without having to go through the usual routes.

This development is pretty astounding; the amount of influence of Murdoch's empire, scary! Hopefully this helps Evangelicals see how Murdoch has influenced the unholy alliance of religious beliefs and conservative (largely partisan, too) politics. I appreciate the sentiments of commenters here who have pointed out that individuals, churches or any organizations theses days have unprecedented channels and opportunity to publish a whole range of things... ebooks, print-on-demand, small runs, etc. That can become the counter-balance to having too much publishing power in a few hands.