A new children’s book of Bible stories claims that the Bible has “made-up” stories and events in its pages, drawing criticism from a leading Evangelical parachurch ministry.
The Just Love Story Bible, authored by Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis and Rev. Dr. Shannon Daley-Harris, reimagines 52 stories from the Old and New Testaments, weaving in gender ideology, LGBT and social justice themes.
Featuring illustrations by artist Cheryl “Ras” Thuesday, the “justice-oriented” story Bible depicts characters in “rich shades of brown” along with “cultural, religious, and historical context to help kids learn about the experiences of people in ancient times,” including a reimagined version of the book of Genesis, which the authors claims was written not only by Moses but by “lots of different storytellers.”
In the book’s introduction to Genesis, the authors, who are part of the Presbyterian Church (USA), write, “Some of the stories had made-up characters and events. Others were about real people and things that really happened.”
A foreword written by Lewis states that while “we don’t know for sure” what Jesus looked like, he was a “person of color.”
“The art in this story Bible shows that Jesus was a person of coor, and that those who came before him and those around him were too,” wrote Lewis, adding that Thuesday, the book’s illustrator, “used her imagination to create gorgeous pictures of people in the Bible stories, in various shades of brown, to help us imagine something new about God’s expansive love and something true about the people in the stories.”
Daley-Harris, an associate dean at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City, explained her motivation behind the project at a Q&A event for the book in September.
“It was really hard to find a children’s Bible that I didn’t feel like I had to change some of the words, like there might be stories that talk about God like God was a boy and only used kind of male language for God, or the pictures wouldn’t look like all of God’s people,” she said. “Or they might tell a story, but they wouldn’t tell enough about the story to understand whether it was about a made-up character or real person.”
During a sample reading of the book, Daley-Harris appeared to suggest that the locusts and other plagues described in the book of Exodus were “not God’s punishment” for Pharaoh’s refusal to free the people of Israel from bondage.
“Four natural disasters, one after the other. Well, the prophet and the people thought they were to blame. They thought the disasters were God’s way of punishing them,” she read. “They didn’t know that when bad things happen like swarms of bugs, floods, earthquakes or tornadoes, it’s not God’s punishment.”
Paul Batura, vice president of communications for the Evangelical parachurch organization Focus on the Family, which organizes the annual “Bring Your Bible to School Day,” is warning families about The Just Love Story Bible. He claims the authors want children to see the Bible “as a collection of stories that promote their theologically radical and heretical views.”
“[T]he motives of the authors appear broader and far more dangerous than merely trumpeting diversity. They also want to sow seeds of doubt in children’s minds that the events depicted in the Bible are literally true, including the Resurrection,” he wrote in an op-ed published by Focus on the Family’s news arm, Daily Citizen.
“Questioning the accuracy and authority of the Bible is hardly a new exercise, but so blatantly and openly selling such a heretical interpretation of God’s Word to children undermines God’s sacred Word in a particularly dangerous and destructive way.”
In addition to Just Love, Beaming Books has published several children’s titles, including A Costume for Charly, featuring a “non-binary” character who “must create the perfect Halloween costume … that represents both their feminine and masculine sides,” and Rainbow Boy and the Pride Parade, which features a young child holding up an LGBT flag at a pride event.
The Christian Post reached out to Beaming Books for comment on Tuesday.
In an August interview with Publishers Weekly, Beaming Books Senior Acquisition Editor Naomi Krueger said the Just Love Story Bible was commissioned for elementary school audiences as “an antidote to Christian white supremacy.”
In 2022, Lewis promoted the book as a new children’s story Bible with “no white Jesus, no antisemitic illustrations, no glorification of suffering.”
On her church’s website, Lewis describes her congregation as “a Christian universalist, multicultural, multiethnic rainbow coalition,” where she advocates for “global peace, racial equality, religious freedom, gun control, economic justice, equal rights for all genders/sexual orientations, and marriage equality.”
