Vulgar title on prepub

Joseph Turner said:

It's a book.  You can either buy it or not.  You seem to be implying that Logos shouldn't sell it, and this is where we are getting into dangerous territory. 

Even though I find Critical Race Theory arguments to be vapid and non-biblical, I completely agree with JT and support FL's decision to publish this and any other book.  If they have seriously erred in choosing a particular title or series, the marketplace will be the corrective.

Rather than going on a rant against, or in favor, of this product in this forum, I would suggest all opinions should be submitted to FL as a book review to be published at the bottom of the product page such as G. Kraft has done below ...

Matthew 12:36-37; 7:15-23. This applies equally to the author of the title discussed and to everyone myself included in this discussion.

Perhaps this can help?

Now of course, I do know that a word meaning and usage is not necessarily the same as that of its ethymology. However, in this case, there is a direct line of descent and direct relationship to the social evolution of this language. In the last decades, the process with the growing adoption of vulgarity in English is often as such:

(1) Vulgar language is developed in social groups that relish in using such (e.g., all the f-words used in every grammatical function often several times in the same sentence). In this case, expressions like kiss my a**, insults like a**h*le, and crude sexual remarks such as "she has a nice a**" (I apologise for the very use of these even if solely for illustrative purposes) and so on. This is also related to the growing use in about the same time of the now a bit more out of fashion word "booty" to refer to this part of the body of a woman with definite crude sexual connotations. Important to keep in mind then that this uses inscribed themselves in a subculture that looked upon women as sexual objects and which focused on an all-out sexuality. 

(2) The use of such language becomes more and more widespread and accepted. More people stop thinking much of it and when adopted in the media or by actors, singers, and other popular or famous persons, they start to find it cool and in time even funny. Crossing boundaries is an ever important pull for many people. Trendy people talk like that and those who don't are biggots or religious prudes. Once popularised, further variants are developped. From referring to a person in terms of their rear either with sexual connotation or as insult, it evolved into just plain using it to refer or self-refer to a person (as in "yup, I'm a smart a**, where it no longer has a sexual connotation). Bad a** is there as well and includes also the adoption of words such as wicked and bad to actually mean "good" reflecting a stance that I heard no later than this am "good is lame". Although it can mean violent (negative sense) the expression is also used to mean really cool (e.g., this new cop is "kicka**").  

(3) People start repeating what they hear without thinking about where it comes from or no longer thinking about the meaning of what they say or minimising the significance thereof. This can be easily demonstrated with religious expressions. Many people who abuse the name Christ don't even think at all about the person Christ and the origins of such profanity. Many cultures around the world have adopted "omg" (sorry again for using this language to illustrate) just to imitate what they perceive as "cool" and trendy English (e.g., India, South Korea, I have even heard in France in the middle of French sentences!). 

For many of these people there is no difference in terms of how they function between using one type of vulgarity (e.g., an a** or b*tch variant) vs another (e.g., holy followed by an expletive). It should not be rocket science for Christians to realise that this cannot be a good thing and that we should not contribute to this trend. This author contributes. People who minimise that contribute in their own way as well because they seek to influence others in thinking that this should be okay among Christians. 

This is not about who is right and accusing one another. It's about promoting among ourselves "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy" (Php 4:8) and in so doing promoting respect for God, respect for my neighbour and self, and godliness.

Although this discussion has derailed with regard to forums guidelines, hopefully it can help FL see that this is, at the very least, controversial. 

I am done here. 

Whyndell Grizzard said:

And it may very well be but FL made a decision to sell this volume- knowing it had dog whistle words in its title and the content of the book would be generally offensive to a group of people.

FaithLife sells a lot of books that one or more groups of people find offensive. Since most of the groups of people most likely to find materials FL sells offensive scarcely buy anything from FaithLife (or even know it exists), discussions like this one are relatively rare on the forums.