Rare Jewel Magazine

Last week I received my introductory package of the Rare Jewel Magazine I will be reviewing for the next year. Rare Jewel is a relatively new, bimonthly periodical focusing their attention on restoring the idea of America's Christian foundation. The subtitle or motto of the magazine is "The Christian Patriots' Guide to Restoring our Culture." The means to that end are articles about subjects they believe every citizen should be concerned with in today's society: judicial tyranny, preserving marriage and the family, creation and evolution, abortion and so forth.

The package arrived with four magazines: the most recent issue (July/August 2005), and three prior issues (Mar/Apr '05, Jan/Feb '05, Jul/Aug '04). Each issue is thematic, selecting a topic and giving us a wide variety of articles on that topic. While the articles tend to have a decidedly Conservative American Christian bend to them, they vary in their scope and spotlight so you are not reading the same thing over and over. For instance, the most recent issue is focused on Creation. There are articles, interviews, book reviews, cartoons, editorials, news updates. One of the articles is by D. James Kennedy from Coral Ridge Ministries; another is by Kan Ham, President of Answers in Genesis. They even have an interview with B.C. cartoonist Johnny Hart (who also chimes in on the evolution debate).

The issues are very colorful; the pages are filled with images and graphics related to the article. At times the background images are too much of a distraction, even to the point of making the text hard to read. They are limited, but those distractions are there. For the most part, the magazine layout is simple and basic, which is something I appreciate. I cannot stand it when magazines break up articles, and put pieces of them on all different pages and sections. You do not start an article on page 6, and when you get to page 8 you are told to continue the article on page 25. When you flip over to page 25 you realize you passed over two articles you have yet to finish.

My position on many things associated to the relationship between Christians and America has been clearly set forth here on the blog. I definitely have a bias and my own experiences having engaged people and writings on many of the issues that will come up in future articles. I believe I can be fair in spite of my biases. I always enjoy a good, valid argument, regardless of the source and goal of that source. I am always looking to learn and grow in knowledge. I want to be well versed on the issues. The hope is that there will be some scholarly articles that will challenge me to think about some ideas, especially on the religious history of America. The Sept/Oct '05 issue will be on "The Next Great Awakening"; hopefully there will be historical writings about the original Great Awakenings.