Contact:  Bill Falvey, Communications, 502-569-5085, bfalvey@presbypub.com

New Study Guide Accompanies Simpsons Best-Seller

Aimed at college and church groups studying pop culture and religion

(Louisville KY) – Westminster John Knox Press (WJK) has just published a companion study guide to the Publishers Weekly bestseller The Gospel According to The Simpsons™, by Mark Pinsky.

            The Gospel According to The Simpsons™: The Spiritual Life of the World’s Most Animated Family has been a smash hit for the press that published The Gospel According to Peanuts more than 35 years ago, and has found fans in everyone from Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to Attorney General John Ashcroft. The latter book, by Presbyterian pastor Robert Short, has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. The Gospel According to The Simpsons™ has similarly gotten off to a fast start since its Sept. 1, 2001, publication, landing on Publishers Weekly’s Top 10 Religion Books bestseller list for five straight months, beginning in October 2001. It also reached the Number One spot among religious best selling books in the United Kingdom.

Earlier this year, WJK also signed Pinsky’s next book, The Gospel According to Disney: Cartoon Faith & Values, tentatively slated for Spring 2004.

            “We are delighted to continue our partnership with Mark Pinsky,” said Jack Keller, WJK vice-president of publishing. “As we’ve seen with his first book, he has a wonderful gift for exploring and explaining the religious relevance of pop culture icons.”

            In The Gospel According to Disney, Pinsky, religion reporter for the Orlando Sentinel and a former staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, will explore the religious imagery and themes of the full-length animated Disney features from 1937 to the present.

            “It would be difficult to overestimate the impact these films have had on millions of children, over the decades and around the world,” Pinsky said. “They are among the most influential and profound instruments of moral instruction that America has ever produced. This, despite the relative absence of explicit Judeo-Christian imagery.”  

The study guide for The Gospel According to The Simpsons™, which Pinsky is writing with popular youth writer Samuel “Skip” Parvin, will focus on key religious themes as seen in the show. The ten-session study should find a welcome home in church youth groups, at retreats, and with college campus ministry groups. Many groups are already using The Simpsons™ as a way to explore faith issues with young people. One university recently announced a new course offering focusing on the cultural relevance of the show, with Pinsky’s book as required reading.

The Simpsons™, watched by over 18 million viewers weekly in the U.S. alone, is so much a part of the culture that Homer Simpson’s trademark “Doh!” has been added to the Oxford English Dictionary. And TV Guide recently named Homer Simpson the second most popular cartoon character in history, behind only Bugs Bunny. The show is “about as trenchant, as life-affirming, as socially critical a prime-time sitcom as we can expect on major commercial TV,” says Pinsky.

            Theologians from across the spectrum agree that The Simpsons™ is “the most consistent and intelligent treatment of religion on TV,” Pinsky said. Complex theological issues, such as the nature of the soul, and moral dilemmas such as adultery, are regularly addressed on the series. God himself appears in several episodes and Jesus, heaven and hell, the Bible, and prayer also

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WJK signs Pinsky

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August 1, 2002

figure into the lives of the Simpsons and their neighbors. Pinsky examines how the show treats evangelical Christianity, Catholicism, Judaism, Hinduism, Pentecostalism, cults and new age beliefs.

In chapters such as “Prayer: ‘Dear, God, Give the Bald Guy a Break!’”; “The Church and the Preacher: ‘We Don’t Have a Prayer!”;  and “The Bible: I Think It May be Somewhere in the Back”; Pinsky looks at how the Simpsons and their neighbors are both defined and circumscribed by religion. According to Pinksy, The Simpsons™ only seems to question conventional wisdom and values. The show’s consistent message is that family and faith are the only reliable defenses against the vagaries of modern life. For the characters on the show, as for many of its viewers, “faith is a bulwark, a highly meaningful and relevant refuge.”

            “WJK intends to develop a publication franchise with its Gospel According to. . . collection,” added Keller, noting that The Gospel According to Harry Potter by Connie Neal will be published by WJK in Fall 2002, followed by the Gospel According to J.R.R. Tolkien by Ralph Wood in Fall 2003.

            Westminster John Knox Press is a trade imprint of the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation, denominational publisher of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A).  Collectively, the corporation publishes more than 100 new works each year, while maintaining a backlist of more than 1000 active titles sold around the world.   PPC distinguishes its publishing program with the theme, “Challenging the Mind, Nourishing the Soul.” 

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The Gospel According to The Simpsons™:

Leaders Guide for Group Study

By Mark I. Pinsky and Samuel F. “Skip” Parvin

Westminster John Knox Press

ISBN:  0-664-22590-X   $5.95 paper                             

PUB DATE: Available now

The Gospel According to The Simpsons™:

The Spiritual Life of the World’s Most Animated Family

by Mark I. Pinsky    Foreword by Tony Campolo

Westminster John Knox Press

ISBN: 0-664-22419-9  $12.95 paper                          

PUB DATE: Available now

The Gospel According to Disney:

Cartoon Faith & Values

By Mark I. Pinsky

Westminster John Knox Press

ISBN: 0-664-22591-8                                              

PUB DATE: Spring 2004

To order, call 1-800-227-2872