Book review: Children of God Storybook Bible, retold by Archbishop Desmond Tutu

I respect the work Archbishop Desmond Tutu has done in South Africa and beyond, and I consider him to be a truly worthy recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (which he received in 1984). I also respect his recent decision to step out of the public eye to spend more time with his family. It seems that one of his last acts before retirement was the Children of God Storybook Bible, which is being published by Zondervan this month. I was given a sneak peak before it became available to the public. Because I have a lot of thoughts to include in this review, it’s a lengthy one. Instead of cutting out detail, though, I’ll give you a nutshell version first and then the long one below.

In short: This book itself, at face value, is beautiful, far more artistic than most kids’ Bibles. The stories are mostly on-target and each includes a reference (where you could find the story in the Bible) and a short prayer at end. We have used some stories in our family devotion time and will probably continue to do so from time to time. However, a couple of lines raised some theological concerns for me, and one or two of the pictures took artistic liberties instead of aiming to be accurate to the story and culture of the time. Finally, the author’s own views of the Bible (as quoted from another book of his that I own) – that parts of it have no worth and that it is not God-inspired – make it impossible for me to recommend it. I would instead point you toward The Big Picture Story Bible (for preschool and lower elementary aged children) and The Jesus Storybook Bible (which is fantastic, especially for elementary ages; we haven't used it much yet with our three-and-a-half year old because the stories are a little longer and more text-heavy).

And now to my detailed thoughts (organized into the good, the bad, and the ugly)…
THE GOOD:

• The artwork. I know it’s odd for a theology nerd like me to complement a Bible’s art before anything else. Usually, that would be like my husband – major meat lover! – highlighting a restaurant’s salad bar. For him, that would probably mean that the meat was sub-par, but that wasn’t a backhanded compliment. What I’m saying is that you can’t help but notice the art before you read a single word. For this project (what Tutu calls, in the acknowledgments, a Bible that reflects all the children of the world), one of the goals was that the art be culturally representative. Artists from South Africa, the USA, the UK, Russia, France, the Netherlands, Argentina, Italy, China, and Vietnam contributed, and I loved flipping through it. The styles represented made this a beautiful book. If you go to this page, you'll find some sample images (and well as more information and a place to register for a giveaway), or you can see a promo video with images in it in my last post.
• The varied artwork representing Christ in different ways. We don’t know exactly what Christ looked like. As we read some stories from this Bible, I was able to have a good conversation with Jocelyn about that when she asked why Jesus looked different in different pictures.
• Most of the retelling (see "the bad' for what I didn’t like). I always worry when I look at a children’s Bible and see the words “retold by.” Is it going to be accurate? Are they going to take unnecessary liberties with God’s Word? Are they going to omit the wrong things? (When I was choosing a new Bible for Jocelyn for Easter, I found one for Robbie too that looked great … until I realized that, in its pages, Christ never died or rose again. Um, pass on that.) I’ve read through this twice, and nothing jumped out at me as being erroneous or out of line in most stories (once again, see below for my concerns).
• The one-sentence prayers at the end of each story. For example, at the end of the story of Genesis 3, the prayer is “Dear God, help me to do what is right and to remember you love me even when I do wrong.” Short. Sweet. To the point.
• The Bible references included on each page. Some children’s retellings of the Bible make you figure out where the passage is from. This one doesn’t.
• The fact that almost every story is limited to a two-page spread. It makes it easy to use for devotions with younger kids.

THE BAD:

• The artwork in one or two spots. I get the desire – and mostly liked the outcome – of having a Bible with artwork that was more culturally diverse than most. However, there’s a fine line here that I think was crossed at the Lord’s supper. Was Jesus white? Nope. So are the typical Aryan portrayals accurate? Notsomuch. However, He wasn’t black either, so the Last Supper picture – which looks a bit like Da Vinci’s version with black men – was just as inaccurate as an all-white one. I’m in favor of multiculturalism; I’m just more strongly in favor of accuracy.
• The retelling of Luke 2 (the Jesus being in the temple as a child story). For a Bible geared for kids 4-8 years old, it’s hard to explain that Jesus was still perfect even though he went MIA on his earthly parents at the temple, so you may want to think about how to discuss that one with your kids before diving in. (I don't think that's bad, though, just worth being aware of!) However, the theology goes bad when it reads that in the temple “Jesus had realized that God was his true Father.” There's nothing in the Bible to support the idea that Jesus didn't know God was His true Father or that the temple brought about that realization.
• The title of the Beatitudes story. It’s titled “Jesus Teaches the Secret of Happiness.” Jesus talks about blessings (and, in many cases, not earthly ones) not happiness. There’s a lot of bad theology out there based on the premise that God just wants us to be happy. So this title doesn’t sit well with me (although the beatitudes as written in the story were almost identical in wording to the NIV).
• All the dream language. Tutu does clearly refer to Christ as “the Savior of the world” and gets a lot of that stuff right. However, I think he misses the Gospel in some respects (and this is a loooong explanation, so please bear with me). Mark 10:15 reads like this in the NIV: “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” In Tutu's retelling, it says: “Everyone who wants to see God’s dream come true must see with the eyes of a child.” Then after Christ’s resurrection, this Bible talks about His reminders to them “of the old stories, about how the prophets had promised that God would send his Son to help God’s dream come true.” And then in the retelling of Acts 2-4, he writes “They became one big, happy family sharing everything together, just like God had always dreamed it could be.” I was mostly okay with this when I first read it. But before my second reading, I re-read Tutu’s book (for adults, not kids) God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time, and his description of God’s dream and our role in it makes me uncomfortable with the quotes above:
• On pages 19-20 of God Has a Dream, he writes “Dear Child of God, before we can become God’s partners, we must know what God wants for us. ‘I have a dream,’ God says. ‘Please help Me realize it. It is a dream of a world whose ugliness and squalor and poverty, its war and hostility, its greed and harsh competitiveness, its alienation and disharmony are changed into their glorious counterparts, when there will be more laughter, joy, and peace, where there will be justice and goodness and compassion and love and caring and sharing. I have a dream that swords will be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, that My children will know that they are members of one family, the human family, God’s family, My family. In God’s family, there are no outsiders. All are insiders. Black and white, rich and poor, gay and straight, Jew and Arab, Palestinian and Israeli, Roman Catholic and Protestant, Serb and Albanian, Hutu and Tutsi, Muslim and Christian, Buddhist and Hindu, Pakistani and Indian – all belong.” 
• Then on pages 59-60, “Dear Child of God, do you realize that God needs you? Do you realize that you are God’s partner? When there is someone hungry, God wants to perform the miracle of feeding that person. But it won’t any longer be through manna falling from heaven. Normally, more usually, God can do nothing until we provide God with the means, the bread and the fish, to feed the hungry. When a person is naked, God wants to perform the miracle of clothing that person, but it won’t be with a Carducci suit or Calvin Klein outfit floating from heaven. No, it will be because you and I, all of us, have agreed to be God’s fellow workers, providing God with the raw material for performing miracles.” 
Based on the quotes above as well as other writings of Tutu that I have read and speeches I have heard, it seems that he is taking the Gospel and fitting it into his social justice vision to recast it as God’s dream for us all to live happily together. I do believe that God cares about social justice issues and cares about all people. However, no one can be part of God’s family and reject Him at the same time (as do the Muslims, Buddhist, and Hindus listed above), and Scripture is clear that God’s ultimate plan is not based on our Kumbaya-ness here on earth, but is much bigger and longer lasting – eternal, even! – than that. Furthermore, God doesn’t need me and I can’t provide Him with raw materials or anything else. Everything is His, and if I fail to proclaim Him, He’ll use others or even rocks. Me? I’m not needed by God. But I am loved by God, so much that He sent His one and only Son to live and die and rise again so that I – unworthy and unneeded and deserving of hell – can be His child and co-heir with Christ. Because of that, I will experience an eternity where “there will be more laughter, joy, and peace, where there will be justice and goodness and compassion and love and caring and sharing.” I just don’t agree with Tutu that God expects that utopia to ever be achieved in our fallen world, marred by sin.

THE UGLY:

Actually, this isn’t part of the book itself. It’s from the other book I mentioned above (God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time). Here’s what Tutu writes about the Bible on pages 105-106:

Reading the Bible can be a source of reflection and inspiration, as you listen for God’s voice in your life. But you must watch how you read the Bible and apply it to today’s world. The Bible is not something that came dropping from heaven, written by the hand of God. It was written by human beings, so it uses human idiom and is influenced by the context in which whatever story was written. People need to be very careful. Many tend to be literalists, people who believe in the verbal inerrancy of the Bible, who speak as if God dictated the Bible, when in fact God used human beings as they were, and they spoke only as they could speak at that time. There are parts of the Bible that have no permanent worth – that is nothing to be sorry about, it is just to say that it is the Word of God in the words of men and women.
…
We must seek truth wherever we find it. I am a traditionalist and yet I also sit in awe when I listen to all of the brilliant people that God has produced, whether I’m sitting at the feet of an outstanding theologian or listening to an outstanding scientist. When religious truth, scientific truth, and whatever truth come together and become part of a framework that makes sense of the universe, I am awestruck, and I find that truth then has a self-authenticating quality.

While these are quotes from a different book, it’s ugly for this one because this is a children’s Bible written by an archbishop who doesn’t believe that the entire Bible has worth. It’s the book conveying the truth of Christ written by a man who says that we can combine this truth and that truth and "whatever truth" to create our own self-authenticating truth. This is starkly contrasted by the Bible:

2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”

John 14:6 “Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

So, in summary, is there good stuff here? Sure. Does it outweigh the bad? Probably. Does it outweigh the ugly? No. I can’t recommend a Bible written by someone who doesn’t believe in the authority and inerrancy of it and who is willing to accept, in his own words, “whatever truth.”

(Once again, you’re wondering about any children’s Bibles that I would recommend, these are it: here for elementary-aged children and here for preschool and early elementary.)

In keeping with the FTC guidelines, I must disclose that I received this book from Zonderkidz to review it honestly. I was not asked to give a positive review, just a genuine one.