More accurately, Waterbroook Multnomah and Convergent are both imprints of the Crown Publishing Group (which in turn is a subsidiary of Random House).
In other words, it's not Multnomah that is publishing Vines' book; it's a different division of the conglomerate. The relationship is not the one this barbwire.com site claims it is. Hence this is an accusation based on guilt by association.
I can't speak to this assertion that Multnomah employees are told to keep mum about publishing this book. All it took for me to find out the relationship between Multnomah and Convergent was five minutes on the Random House Web site.
I’m sorry to take so long to get back to you, but I’ve been very busy. Actually, “barbwire” is a site run by the well-known and respected Matthew Barber, and I looked further and saw the Christian Post picked up his story. And it seems like there is something to it. According to Barber/CP:
“In an email sent to BarbWire.com, a source with unspecified ties to Multnomah wrote the following:
“’With a little help… I recently followed a few breadcrumbs – connected some dots – and the picture turned out to be pretty disturbing. I know for a fact that there are certain individuals (whistleblowers, if you will) who believe this information should become public, but there is immense pressure from within Multnomah Publishers to keep this under wraps, and not allow entities in the NRB Association/Evangelical orbit to learn about it.’
“WaterBrook Multnomah and the pro-”gay” Convergent are supposedly sister imprints with the same parent company, Random House.
“But are they really sister imprints?
“In truth, it appears that WaterBrook Multnomah and Convergent are effectively one and the same – same head, same staff, same offices, same printers and even the same ink.
“Only the name has been changed to protect the guilty...”
“The email to BarbWire provides more context:
“’An ‘imprint’ in the publishing world is like a mask – the name and logo of the entity may be unique, but the same staff, editors, executives, promoters, are behind the book as are behind those put out by other ‘imprints’ (i.e., directly from Multnomah, and wearing that brand/mask)...”