WARNING: I WOULD LIKE A STICKER

The Lifeway Group, the Southern Baptist folks, have started placing warning stickers on books in their stores that don’t meet their standards and suit their tastes. They say, strangely enough, “Read with Discernment.” This is probably a nice way of saying, “This book is full of crap, but we’ve decided to sell it anyway because times are tough, and this book is selling quite well.”

I was wondering if I got the sticker on the book I hope to be selling very soon, "Life As Prayer: A Paradigm for Contemporary Spirituality Inspired by Ancient Piety” if I would get the sticker. I probably would, because I would be using Brother Lawrence as a case in point, and he was not Evangelical. He was Catholic, and it was well after the Protestant Reformation, so the choice was his to follow the true teachings of the Bible, now wasn’t it? So, I might get the sticker slapped on my book.

However, would this hurt or help book sales? It might help. It might make the book seem daring or edgy. People might feel a little rebellious, sort of, when buying it. They might feel like they aren’t part of the establishment, they are post-something, on the cutting edge. Yes, whole sections of Baptist will fear buying it, or leaving out on the coffee table, out in the open, but the sticker could give the book “street cred.”

I hope all books are read with discernment. When is a book written that is 100% perfectly by a perfect author who has direct, unencumbered communication with God? I think as mature people we can read what Christians of many traditions have to say, discuss what is helpful, and sift away the rest. The panic mentality - sticker shock- if you will, is not surprising at all. It gains strength from creating an insider mentality, and propagating fear and mistrust. It also smacks of a mild form of book burning-a smolder. Oh, what to do with hysterical Christians! How quickly we forget all the fire and brimstone types of messages Jesus gave were really for the religious folks. Is it any wonder?