Church & Society Journal to be published ‘Unbound’
By Carmen Fowler LaBerge, The Layman, September 22, 2011
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – For more than 90 years Presbyterians had access to a social witness journal called Church & Society. The journal is no longer published in a bound edition, but, through the efforts for the Advisory Committee for Social Witness Policy, it will re-emerge unbound as an internet journal.
The Justice Committee of the General Assembly Mission Council (GAMC) heard the news from Patrick David Heery, a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary who received the Church & Society Fellowship in Social Ministry Interpretation and serves as the managing editor for the Church & Society internet journal under consideration.
Hired at the end of May, Heery admitted that he “knew nothing about web design prior to that.” He went on to describe the transition from the print version to an interactive Web-based resource. “We had a much loved print journal. We lost it because of troubled economic times. The question became how can we carry on the legacy of the 96 year running journal, offering Presbyterians practical resources on justice issues, while expanding into territories that were not possible with an exclusively print journal?”
Through what Heery describes as a naming contest, the name “Unbound: an interactive journal of Christian social justice” was chosen. He said, “It refers to the unbinding of Lazarus, the unbinding of prisoners and it also refers to the reality that we’re no longer literally bound as a print journal.”
Heery assured the members of the Justice Committee that the new internet journal would “carry the legacy of Church & Society. It has evolved, taking on new form, but it is not dead. This will be a place to provide access to past issues of C&S and its predecessors as well as allow people to contribute and participate through their own submissions.” It was acknowledged that registration would be required to participate in the site at that level.
Church & Society may have a celebrated legacy among some, but for others the journal was seen as publishing the propaganda of a decidedly liberal social agenda. As the justiceunbound.org Website describes the scope of Heery’s ministry “in the areas of hospital and prison chaplaincy, the intersection of worship and mission, community organizing, environmental sustainability, immigrant detention, the peace movement, and LGBTQQI and women’s equality,” it would seem as if that can also be expect to be preserved in the on-line version expected to go live before year’s end.
The GAMC voted unaimounsly on Friday morning to approve Unbound as the on-line successor to Church & Society magazine and to authorize ACSWP to “steward, promote, and manage” the content and the process.