Bible Salesman

The Gospel as Transaction

I can’t tell you how many of my friends started their evangelical life selling Bibles door-to-door.

My series on Biblical Authority is complete - really. But I’ve got to add one more thing. I meant to bring it up when I posted Part IV of the series on my Substack. As you’ll see from what follows, I’m dating myself, for sure. This all goes way back.

If there is one way to explain the ubiquity of evangelicalism in America from the earliest of days, it would be door-to-door selling. Encyclopedias. Soap. Food supplements. Essential oils. Miracle cures. Plastic storage containers (Tupperware). And, of course, Bibles. The evangelist who launched the global mission agency I served as a fund-raiser for seven years began his working career as a door-to-door seller of all things, fire extinguishers. For him, it fit. Preaching the gospel meant extinguishing the fires of hell.

It’s no surprise that Bill Bright, the founder of CRU (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ) spent over a year up there at the Arrowhead Springs Headquarters working with his team to develop a surefire way to summarize The Gospel message into four simple main points. The whole thing could be shared in an elevator on the way up to or down from the tenth floor or higher. The little pocket-sized booklet, The Four Spiritual Laws, printed by the millions, was shared on beaches across America on Easter break, at tailgate parties at football games (especially the Super Bowl), in men’s and women’s prisons, door-to-door in suburban neighborhoods, in airport lobbies (before TSA security check-points), at the shopping mall, in the town square, and wherever else Americans gather. 

Many of us went through The Training. Maybe you, too,

The booklet boils “the gospel” down to a transaction between seller and buyer - sign here. So entrepreneurial. So American. First - is your subject already a believer? If not, good! Start with the opener (“God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life…”) and move through the four points, and then go for the close. At the end of the day, submit your report: number of contacts, number of “no”s, number of undecideds, and most important of all, that coveted number of “yes”s.

In/Out. Yes/No. Saved/Unsaved. Believer/Unbeliever. Classic binary. Classic USA. Gather the stats. Then count on that reward in the afterlife - “Well done… good and faithful servant.”

So this sort of evangelism has always been more about results, “saved souls,” the distribution of literature and building the head-count than, well, say, theology. Or contributing to the common good. Or caring for the needy. Or living a meaningful life. Or stewarding the planet.

It should be no surprise that our most recent high-profile Bible salesman would be our former President. It appears as though his need for quick cash has become acute. Those monstrous legal bills. Those annoying multi-million dollar judgments. Fueling up the TRUMP jet (11,276 gallons for a Boeing 757). The Mar-a-Lago staff salaries. Those pricey NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements).

So there he is, the former President of the United States hawking gold-plated tennis shoes. And then “The God Bless the USA Bible” (King James Version) - bound together with Lee Greenwood’s theme song, the U.S. Constitution, and the Pledge of Allegiance. Click here and have your credit card ready. (Several commentators have noted that both the KJV and the Constitution are public domain - no permissions required and no royalties to pay.) 

Many of us consider this a crude sacrilege - a cheap grab to extract cash from vulnerable people who somehow believe it to be a sign from above that this is “God’s Man.”

But a sign of what? Is it the affirmation of a Christian Nationalism that claims “biblical authority”? Is it the signal that if you are a true American Patriot, then you are a “Christian” - that is, a culture warrior with God on your side ready to do battle with “the enemy” (everybody else)?

No - this is not the America I love. 

I have a hard time picturing a Jesus who would high-five the 45th President for his feigned “love of the Bible.”

How about you?