With the mission of being a lighthouse, shining the light of Christ, The Christian View magazine has ALWAYS published TRUTH and GOOD NEWS and the GOOD NEWS of the GOSPEL of JESUS CHRIST. More than 1,700 individuals and many churches and charitable organizations have been featured through one-on-one interviews and through coverage of many events, in hundreds of articles and more than 8,000 photographs.
After a few years as an 11″ x 15″ printed publication, with thousands of copies of each issue distributed throughout the Upstate, The Christian View magazine transformed into an online Christian news magazine, with in-depth articles read by readers across the Upstate, and across South Carolina, and in all 50 states in the U.S., and in 173 countries.
The Christian View magazine has returned to its roots as a quarterly printed magazine (now 8.5″ x 11″ in size and in full color), and each new printed issue is also available to read in digital format on The Christian View magazine’s new fully redesigned website, continuing a mission of internet evangelism.
Since its beginning, in 2004, The Christian View magazine has always been locally and independently owned and operated in Pickens County, South Carolina by Karen Brewer, an award-winning journalist and Pickens County native who is descended from the county’s first settlers (the Cornelius Keith family, who settled the area that is now Pickens County in 1743). She serves as Publisher, Editor, and General Manager.
She is a graduate of Clemson University, where she majored in English (American and British Literature) and minored in Writing (Journalism) and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in the Liberal Arts (a wide field of studies in English, history, science, mathematics, philosophy, psychology, government, constitutional law, and foreign languages). She also earned a Master of Arts degree in English (American and British Literature) from Clemson University.
For three years while an undergraduate student at Clemson, from age 18 to age 21, she was employed by Clemson University News Services and University Relations (Clemson University Media Relations), in the Trustee House on campus, where she wrote press releases for the university, and wrote articles for the university’s Clemson World magazine and other university publications, and wrote the script for a television spot, about Clemson University’s history, for the local NBC affiliate, WYFF Channel 4. While an undergraduate student at Clemson, she also was a staff writer for The Tiger student newspaper, and she wrote about Clemson University for The Clemson Messenger newspaper, and she and fellow journalism students created and wrote articles for a recurring printed newsletter for Helping Hands of Clemson (a shelter and foster home for abused and neglected children), and the newsletter was distributed free in the community to assist Helping Hands in its ministry of helping children.
From July 14, 1999 to May 13, 2004, she served all of the communities of Pickens County as the Editor of The Pickens Sentinel, a newspaper established in the county seat in 1871, and she wrote thousands of news stories and feature stories as well as a first-person column entitled “Reflections” during those five years. Throughout all five years, she simultaneously covered many beats, including education (Pickens County School Board meetings and events at the elementary, middle, and high schools and local universities), government (Pickens County Council meetings and several city councils’ meetings, as well as interviews with political candidates on the local, state, and national levels), law enforcement (Pickens County Sheriff’s Office and police departments throughout the county), court (trials at the Pickens County Courthouse), breaking news, local veterans’ events, and she wrote about local churches and many local non-profit charitable organizations, local festivals and many other local events, and she wrote in-depth feature stories about local citizens and local history. While Editor of The Sentinel, she was asked by the Associated Press to report on political elections for the AP, and she was asked by local historians to write articles (about Pickens County tourism and historic places) for Sandlapper: The Magazine of South Carolina, and her articles and photographs were also published in other publications, including The Baptist Courier. The South Carolina Press Association presented her awards for news reporting and for feature writing (for writing and for photography).
She began attending and joined a local Baptist church in 2001 and wanted to share Christian messages often through newspaper articles. After The Sentinel was sold and the newspaper’s former General Manager passed away, she asked the advice of her Pastor and left the newspaper, starting this publication to focus on a mission of Christian journalism. She chose Hiott Printing Company in Pickens as the printer, and she published the first issue in June of 2004.
The Christian View magazine is now printed by Lighthouse Printing and is part of Lighthouse Media, and The Christian View magazine’s website is powered by Lighthouse Web Design (all founded by Karen Brewer in Pickens County, South Carolina).
Although she has been a member of a Southern Baptist church since 2001, and the South Carolina Baptist Convention asked her to serve with six Baptist Pastors on the Convention’s Resolutions Committee in 2007, The Christian View magazine is not exclusive to one denomination but includes all denominations of the Christian faith. The Christian View magazine and the magazine’s sponsors partner together to share the GOSPEL message through Christian journalism.