Anglican Church bringing out no-sex, no-gossip magazine for teenage girls

3 July, 2007:

A teen magazine with a difference – glossy all right and with colour cover, but very different in content – is to be launched in August 2007 in the United Kingdom.

The magazine Grace, a venture of the Church of England, is aimed at “girls with spirit.”

Grace has been described as an attempt by the Anglican Church to appeal to a fresh audience as church attendance figures fall.

The launch of Grace coincides with the end of publication of the teen magazine CosmoGirl! and a teen spin-off from Elle.

Grace, a quarterly magazine, is the brainchild of Paul Handley, editor of the Church Times. According to Handley, Grace is meant for girls who have got a spirit as well as a body and who think there is more to life than shopping.”

One big difference, says Handley, is that the new magazine will not contain articles about sex. “It is for girls aged 11-16, so the assumption is that they are not having sex. We say that the best place for sex is in a marriage, not in a magazine. The message of the magazine is that life at that age is about other things.”

Grace is funded by a grant from the Archbishop of Canterbury and various trusts of the Church of England.

A total of 50,000 copies of the launch issue of Grace, which has a cover price of £2.50, are to be distributed free via youth groups across the United Kingdom.

The magazine’s content would include real-life stories, problem pages, campaigns, tips for eco-friendly and ethical lifestyle, music, film and book reviews – of course with references to Christianity strewn throughout.

An independent focus group of 13-year-old girls from London took a look at Grace a few days ago and they were generally in favour of the magazine. The publishers of Grace claim that the girls welcomed the magazine an ‘antidote’ to existing fare aimed at their age group, which they felt is too sexually explicit and promotes super-thin bodies.

Paul Handley denied allegations that Grace is aimed at getting girls into church, but said “it is a way of saying that you can be Christian and not weird.”