Davis Editing

Last year I had the unique experience of editing a book by an author who is no longer living on earth. I was tasked with copyediting a second edition of Clark Pinnock’s celebrated work Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit. In this case “copyediting” meant updating the book to the press’s current style. My edits were necessarily minimal. Even so, I found myself editing the text in a more careful and more reflective way than usual.

I had to determine what constituted style (spelling, capitalization, punctuation, citation format, and so on) and what was really an author’s published writing that shouldn’t be changed. I felt an uncommon communion with Pinnock, who wouldn’t be able to review my work in the normal way authors do, and whose words, therefore, I needed to honor and generally let stand as is. (And I was glad knowing that Daniel Castelo, who initiated and adds commentary to this second edition, would review my work. Book editing is a joint task.)

Authors and teachers live on in their communication. Anyone can commune with any author, past or present, including Clark Pinnock, by picking up their book and taking in what they say. People do not simply cease to exist.

Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of this, and it was actually Pinnock’s appreciative comment on Living Buddha, Living Christ that encouraged me to read it. “Beginning with dogma,” Pinnock writes, “does not get us very far in dialogue, but beginning with God’s presence in other modes can be fruitful. Let us be sensitive to the presence and goodness of God and only afterward move to conceptual issues. There is merit in the appeal of Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ.” Thich Nhat Hanh died this year, or rather exists now in a new form.

Another spiritual teacher who recently died is Gordon Fee. I love what Fee said, as recounted in a Regent College newsletter. Fee “once famously announced to his students, ‘Some day you will hear ‘Fee is dead.’ Do not believe it! He is singing with his Lord and his King!’”