ichael Jackson brought back from the dead!” screams the tabloid headline.
Foolish “pulp” magazines, I think. Why do they sell?
Because, I reply to myself, people read them.
For more than 500 years publishers have cranked out literature of all kinds. Earth’s inhabitants have used the weapons of printed propaganda to fight psychological and ideological wars: all of the -isms, child-rearing philosophy, health values, economic debates. Evidently, people read things and get influenced. In other words, “the press is a power.”1
At the turn of the millennium, cable channel A&E asked 360 journalists and scholars to vote for the 100 most influential people of the second millennium. Their top pick? A man about whom we know relatively little—Johannes Gutenberg, born in Germany around 1400.2 What made him rank above Isaac Newton, William Shakespeare, or Charles Darwin? Printing.
The first books rolled off Gutenberg’s press sometime around 1450, perfect timing to set up Luther’s assault on spiritual ignorance in the early 1500s. Rome could not successfully contend with the mass distribution of myth-exposing literature that made its way into the hands of the common people—especially the Bible. Sometime ago I personally visited Germany and had the privilege of standing in the room inside the Wartburg Castle where Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German. Unlike a trip past the tabloids, my eyes became misty. I imagined what it would be like to live without a Bible!
As soon as there were books, there were those ready to sell them. Johann Fust, Gutenberg’s financier, is said to have personally undertaken the task of finding 180 purchasers for the first 180 Bibles ever printed.3 They seemed to have sold out immediately.4
Early Seventh-day Adventist Church pioneers knew that “the press is a power,” and that “if there is one work more important than another, it is that of getting our publications before the public, thus leading them to search the Scriptures.”5 They realized what the press had done for the Reformation, and they knew that “many minds can be reached in no other way.”6
CanvassingAdventist leaders calculated that in order to spread the three angels’ messages quickly, the fledgling church simply could not wait until it could afford to commission full-funded missionaries, either here or overseas. What could be done?
Theoretically, any new high-demand product or service grows by one means: the people who receive the benefit pay for it. This theory played out in Adventist history. Self-supporting literature evangelist missionaries entered country after country and region after region, without sponsorship. Those whom they contacted paid to be contacted (by purchasing books), giving the workers a means of survival in pioneering work.
“By 1886,” observes church historian Brian Strayer, “when the church’s ministerial workforce was still counted in dozens, 400 Adventist colporteurs around the world sold books and penny tracts door to door.”7 World sales reached nearly $4 million during the decade from 1885 to 1894.8
Free Distribution
Realizing that God had not called every member to sell books door to door, many Seventh-day Adventists began to form small bands for outreach, using free literature. “Let every believer,” wrote Ellen White, “scatter broadcast tracts and leaflets and books containing the message for this time.”9 Tract and Missionary Societies sprouted all over the United States, stimulated by the influence of Stephen Haskell. Members—at first, mostly deeply dedicated women—mailed or handed out millions of pieces of literature. “Adventist leader John Loughborough credited the Tract and Missionary Societies with ‘creating and increasing a missionary spirit . . . of direct labor for the salvation of souls’ in church members’ hearts. The results were inspirational as well: from 1871 on, as many souls were won through tracts and literature ministries as by public evangelists, according to Loughborough.”10 Even Ellen White shared literature as an outreach!11
In other countries literature distribution aided the establishment of the message in places where no human workers had yet gone. Seventh-day Adventism found a beachhead in British Guiana (now Guyana) when a church member persuaded a ship captain to take a parcel of tracts; evidently in a hurry upon arrival, the captain flung the package onto the dock. Someone picked up some of the leaflets, carried them home, and shared them with friends, and the three angels’ messages launched with vigor!12
Young People, Canvassing, and Personal Evangelism
Just after the turn of the century Stephen Haskell and his wife began working in New York City. They attracted a good-sized group of young people whom they began to train and disciple. Their plan combined “the work of selling books with personal labor for the people,”13 just as Ellen White had counseled. Because “the canvassing work . . . is the best preparation for other lines of missionary labor,”14 their program thrived.
Several years later the Haskells executed the same plan in Nashville, Tennessee. Ellen White commented: “Brother and Sister Haskell have rented a house in one of the best parts of the city, and have gathered round them a family of helpers, who day by day go out giving Bible readings, selling our papers, and doing medical missionary work. . . . The young men and young women connected with the mission receive a practical, thorough training in holding Bible readings and in selling our publications. The Lord has blessed their labors, a number have embraced the truth, and many others are deeply interested.”15
A year later found them in Oakland, California, with the same plan: classes, followed by practical implementation. “These missionary visits, and the sale of many books and periodicals, opened the way for the holding of Bible readings. About forty men and women were attending the morning classes, and a goodly number of these students engaged in the afternoon work.”16
In early Seventh-day Adventist history, canvassing, free distribution, personal evangelism, and willing young people all worked together to create a powerful force.
Do People Still Buy Books, or Even Read Much?
What about today? Does the Seventh-day Adventist Church still have a working, vital literature outreach program, much as it did in its infancy? In today’s technologically advanced society do people still read? In 1902 Ellen White wrote that “in a large degree through our publishing houses is to be accomplished the work of that other angel who comes down from heaven with great power and who lightens the earth with his glory.”17 Is God still able to use literature to fulfill its role in the final movements of earth’s history?
“Surprise—the conventional wisdom is wrong,” writes a columnist for Forbes magazine. “People are reading more, not less. The Internet is fueling literacy. . . . People still burn books. But that only means that books are still dangerous enough to destroy. And if people want to destroy them, they are valuable enough that they will endure.”18Revenue from book sales has climbed every year for the past eight years—including a 4.1 percent increase for the first 10 months of economically challenged 200919—and is projected to reach nearly $43.5 billion by the end of 2012.20
But do people still read material with religious content? Hasn’t our increasingly secular culture done away with literature of a religious nature? According to the Book Industry Study Group, religious titles have been selling at a faster rate than the overall industry growth rate.21 During the past few years titles such as the Left Behind series, The Prayer of Jabez, and The Purpose Driven Life posted staggering sales numbers, turning heads in the publishing business. When Oprah Winfrey interviewed Eckhart Tolle, whose New Age book A New Earth made it to the top of her recommended spiritual book list, 500,000 people logged on simultaneously to view the Webcast, resulting in one of the largest Internet events in history and causing serious bandwidth issues.22 Evidently, people have unmet spiritual needs and turn to religious/spiritual literature to try to find the fulfillment of those needs.
Meeting the Challenges
What is our church doing to meet these overwhelming needs and challenges? First, canvassing. Traditional, full-time, career literature evangelists are becoming more rare in North America, especially relative to past history, even though it has blossomed in many other parts of the world. However, the number of student literature evangelists has exploded in the past two decades. Last year more than 1,700 students hit the streets.23 Attractive and affordable magazine-like books dubbed “magabooks” circulate by the hundreds of thousands during the summer. Titles include Steps to Christ, The Great Controversy, and Christ’s Object Lessons. Students move quickly from door to door, covering large portions of major North American metropolitan areas while they receive donations for their Christian education.
Second, free distribution. A new initiative called GLOW, Giving Light to Our World,24 teaches members how to participate in literature distribution as a lifestyle—door-to-door or not, face-to-face or not. GLOW has grown dramatically since its inception. In only two years, 12 North American Division conferences have adopted the plan, with more than 6 million pieces printed.
Third, young people, canvassing, and personal evangelism. The number of paid personal evangelists (known as Bible instructors or Bible workers) in North America has mushroomed in the past 15 years, and most are young adults. Many of these young people have experience in summer “magabook” canvassing programs. SOULS West, a two-year evangelistic training school operated by the Pacific Union Conference, exists specifically to train literature evangelist leaders and soul-winning Bible workers.25
Eschatology
What about the future? Ellen White saw that “more than one thousand will soon be converted in one day, most of whom will trace their first convictions to the reading of our publications.”26 The first convictions of these folk are traced back to literature. This must refer to a work that has happened sometime in the past—but with results delayed until right near the end of time. This argues strongly for literature distribution now, before the events happen.
“Miracles will be wrought, the sick will be healed, and signs and wonders will follow the believers. . . . The publications distributed by missionary workers have exerted their influence. . . . A large number take their stand upon the Lord’s side.”27
Indeed, people are still reading and are being influenced by what they read; and this trend will continue. Some may read tabloids. But while there is still time, why not purchase some tracts at your local Adventist Book Center and hand them out, or leave them in a conspicuous place? You will be following in a long line of great men and women who knew the power of the press.
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1Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press, 1948), vol. 4, p. 389.
3E. R. Palmer, The Printing Press and the Gospel, 2nd ed. (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Assn., 1947), pp. 14-24.
5Ellen G. White, Christian Service (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1947), p. 145.
6Ellen G. White, Evangelism (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1970), p. 160.
8M. Ellsworth Olsen, A History of the Origin and Progress of Seventh-day Adventists, 2nd ed. (Takoma Park, Md.: Review and Herald, 1926), p. 434. Note that these figures are in 1890s dollar values!
9White, Christian Service, p. 145. (Italics supplied.)
10Strayer.
11White, Evangelism, pp. 448, 449, 451, 452.
12R. W. Schwarz, Light Bearers to the Remnant (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press, 1979), p. 226.
13White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 6, p. 331.
14Ibid., p. 330.
15White, Evangelism, p. 108.
16Ibid., p. 470.
17White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 7, p. 140. Also see Rev. 18:1.
21Ibid.
26White, Evangelism, p. 693.
27Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press, 1950), p. 612.
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Bill Krick is the Literature Ministries and California Youth Rush director of the Central California Conference in Clovis. He is passionate about young people getting on fire for Jesus and enjoys spending time with is wife Heather, and their two daughters, Savannah and Heidi. This article was published February 18, 2010.
