I went to college in the legendary 60’s, when supposedly new, radical ideas were floating around like thousands of bubbles crying out for attention and claiming to have answers, guidance, and truth. With the rise of the Internet, that situation has exploded. We are awash in a sea of ideas, some true, some false, some good, some evil, and most somewhere in the middle. Also now one of those great big ideas is that there is really no TRUTH out there at all. In the 60’s God came into my life (in the form of my girlfriend Mimi, whom I later married) right before I went to college and became my Anchor and Compass.

In high school, I toyed with things like yoga, existentialist philosophy, socialism, intellectual elitism, religious ritualism, hedonism, and Unitarianism. On the secular university campus where I went, there was a non-sectarian chapel where we had monthly non-sectarian “services” with prayers(?), music, and lectures. We had such people as Harvard theologian Harvey Cox discussing the “secular city,” and one guy telling about LSD as a path to religious experience.

But in that chapel was also a small religious library. The librarian was an elderly lady who was quite liberal but sweet and fun to talk to. The library was full of all kinds of religious books, and I was fascinated by them. I didn’t know anything about the authors, and the librarian could not provide me with reliable guidance in what to read. But somehow I latched onto the idea that I could trust certain publishers. Through those publishers and some Christian friends God brought my way (including Mimi and her mother), I discovered some reliable Christian writers like Carl Henry, C. S. Lewis, F. F. Bruce, Francis Schaeffer, and John Stott.

The vision of B&H Academic is to be the kind of publisher that college and seminary students can trust to stand for biblical truth without apology. Our mission is to provide resources for undergraduate and graduate theological education. Christians disagree about many things, and we want to align ourselves with what John Stott called “basic Christianity,” which affirms certain basic convictions of traditional Christianity—the Trinity; the infallibility of Scripture; the reality of sin, hell, and heaven; the deity and humanity of Christ; His bodily resurrection and eventual return; the necessity of His substitutionary work at the cross, and of our personal faith in Him for our salvation; and the purpose of the church to be the body of Christ, to worship God through Jesus Christ, and to disciple and teach all men to follow Him.

It’s particularly that last conviction that gives us our reason for being. Christ entrusted His church with the task of declaring the Gospel and also teaching His Word in all the world. To be faithful to that task until Jesus returns, the church must have educational resources. As part of Lifeway Christian Resources, B&H Academic is a non-profit enterprise dedicated to providing those resources. We don’t exist on contributions but function as a business whose revenues support our ministry.

The fact that we operate on a somewhat narrow set of convictions does not mean that we don’t let our authors say things that contradict those convictions. Rather, it means we partner with likeminded authors. Our books are not infallible guides to truth. Only the Bible can do that. But God has given to the church gifted teachers, and one way they do their work is in writing. Some of them are dead, but their teaching continues in the books they’ve written. Wise Christian teachers know that all they say may not be exactly true as they express it. Sometimes they accidentally get it wrong. Sometimes they propose a theory that seems to explain the facts of Scripture and the world as we know it. They submit their argument to the courtroom of ideas, eager to hear the response and refine their understanding. But careful Christian teachers and writers distinguish between the foundation of infallible biblical truth that we know and the various possible or even probable edifices we build on that foundation.

For example, we are going to publish a work that presents, among other things, an argument for the authorship of the book of Hebrews. Biblical scholars disagree on this matter, many arguing that it’s pointless to speculate on it. Our author acknowledges that the issue is far from certain, but he makes a case for it that is not only within the parameters of historical and logical credibility, but he also builds his case on the foundation of the same theological truths that B&H is committed to. Furthermore, the book is not just an entertaining exercise in argumentation, but in the process of arguing that Luke wrote Hebrews, he teaches a great deal about Dr. Luke, about the books of Luke and Acts, and about the book of Hebrews. At the same time, he shows us that if we accept the strength of his argument, it adds a great deal to our understanding of the message and purpose of Hebrews. So the book will serve as an important tool in theological education and so fits the purpose of B&H Academic.

Some of our books are intended to be primary textbooks for core Christian college and seminary classes like Introduction to Theology or Old Testament or Homiletics. Some of them are intended to be secondary or supplemental texts, like our book on the Holy Spirit called God’s Indwelling Presence, or our forthcoming book on Believer’s Baptism. Some deal directly with the Bible, some with theology, some with history, some with church leadership, ministry, or evangelism. But they are all intended to better equip the church in fulfilling the Great Commission, in pointing people to the unchanging and unchangeable truths of God. Culture changes, but God does not change, human nature does not change, and the way of salvation and eternal life does not change. The church does not market the Truth, trying to make it palatable by taking off its sharp edges. The church just declares and explains the truth to a culture that is floating around in a sea of ideas. We point people to the only Savior, and B&H is privileged to be part of that essential task.

E. Ray Clendenen
Director of Academic Publishing
B&H Publishing Group