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Christian books go global

6:21pm Sunday, 28th February 2010  

It wasn’t until, Pieter Kwant, the accidental guru of Christian publishing, was two thirds of the way through his talk that the penny dropped. Suddenly his plan to transform evangelical publishing worldwide made sense.
“The New Bible Commentary keeps IVP publishing afloat”, he said. “One key big book, that everybody wants to buy can keep a publishing company going.”
The New Bible Commentary, reflecting the skills of evangelical scholars worldwide in a single volume has been a big hit for decades..
The African Bible Commentary published in 2006 has sold 80,000 copies in English and 30,000 in French with new print runs in both languages.
The 1.5 million word commentary, written and edited only by black Africans, forms the basis for viable local publishing companies. In Kenya, for example, 500 copies a month are sold, “a cash cow for local publishing”, says Kwant.
 Kwant was sent to Africa by the publishing arm of the Langham Partnership, set up by the English evangelical leader John Stott to give the church tools to grow into maturity, especially in the “majority world”. He found the churches of Africa had the same dream. Hausa, Swahili, Portuguese, and Malagasy versions of the African Bible Commentary are in the works. A five year project to produce a South Asian Bible Commentaryhas begun with Hindi and Urdu versions. Arabic and Latin America version are underway.
Langham trains preachers and sends indigenous scholars to get their PhDs at leading institutions. The Bible commentaries reap the harvest of years of training leaders.
In Africa it was quickly decided that only Black Africans would write and edit the commentary. They quickly adopted an African style of working. “In Africa, no matter who you ask, the most prominent person in a meeting will answer”, says Kwant .
“But the Arabs are on a different planet to the Africans. In Arabic meetings for the new commentary, when I ask a question everyone in the room has to give their own answer”.