About Read the Spirit Publishing House & Online Magazine

Summary & Background

Read The Spirit is a publishing company, an online magazine and a network of writers connecting readers with the most important voices in religion, spirituality, interfaith and cross-cultural issues. Read the Spirit strives for accuracy, balance and fairness. In an era when traditional newspapers, magazines and publishing houses are collapsing, Read the Spirit is growing in its rich array of media to help readers build healthy, diverse communities.

What We Offer

Bookstore

Read the Spirit continues to publish books with the purpose of broadening understanding between groups of people and making the world a better place. In our online bookstore, you will find theologian David Gushee’s groundbreaking book Changing Our Mind, and pastor Ken Wilson’s book A Letter To My Congregation. Both of these books urge Christian churches to end the cycle of pain and oppression and to embrace LGBT members into their congregations. You will discover Michigan State University’s Bias Busters series, a collection of guides meant to quickly educate groups of people on the basics of a different culture; and many more titles serving the same essential purpose: bringing people together across the boundaries that separate us.

Online Magazine

To browse our columns, check out the departments page.

Who We Are

Read the Spirit was founded in 2007 by one of America’s top journalists and one of America’s top developers of communication software: David Crumm and John Hile. Working together, they gathered a wide array of media professionals to establish an online magazine and a publishing house for books and e-books. Later, they added multi-media editions of e-books.

David Crumm

Co-Founder & Editor

David is known nationwide to journalists and authors who cover the impact of religion and cross-cultural issues on our world today. In nearly 40 years as a journalist, Crumm has won top awards and is a senior fellow with several universities and nonprofits, including the University of Michigan Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellowship and the Washington DC-based East West Center. He has reported from Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He also is an innovator in professional connections among journalists and authors, establishing a Michigan model for networking professional communicators. On a daily basis, he is building new collegial relationships. In 2010, Crumm circled North America by van and produced a series of syndicated newspaper columns called The American Journey.

John Hile

Co-Founder & Publisher

John is a pioneer in developing tools for digital communication. As a co-founder of Hilgraeve decades ago, Hile worked on early computer-to-computer software—and wrote the U.S. Patent for virus protection. Later, he developed secure communication software for medical facilities. At Read the Spirit, Hile developed a sophisticated publishing system to easily produce ink-on-paper books as well as all forms of e-editions, including multimedia e-books. Hile’s system allows such rapid turn-around on editions that Read the Spirit can change books within hours. In 2012, Hile’s system was used by Michigan State University’s School of Journalism to produce an entire book—from an idea to final books—in 101 days. Hile’s system changes the way readers think of books, allowing groups to customize their own editions with additional chapters adapted for local readers.

What We Stand For

To learn more about our mission and the values that guide us on a daily basis, read our Ten 21st-Century Principles for Religious Publishing.

How to Reach Us

Technical Information

Our corporate name is David Crumm Media LLC (DCM). We are a limited liability corporation based in Canton, Michigan, with an office location in Ann Arbor, Michigan. DCM publishes the Read The Spirit collection of websites (readthespirit.com) and publishes books under the Read The Spirit and Front Edge imprints.

For information about reprinting information from our family of websites, see the Creative Commons License link at the bottom of each page.