The last decade has witnessed a vigorous resurgence of evangelical publishing. This has been observed on a broad front, not only in this country but also in England and the Continent, and it has been evidenced not only in a flood of books, both reprints and originals, but also in the field of periodicals.

In our own country there has been a rather general impression of late years that the current evangelical revival, in so far as the printed page is concerned, was expressing itself chiefly in the form of reprints of theological works of an earlier era. True, this is part of the picture, fragmentary even if obvious and noteworthy at times. But viewed in proper perspective, the postwar theological reprint publishing bonanza must be regarded as only a necessary preliminary action in the developing evangelical movement to face the world once again with a respectable, scholarly literature.

Nor is it the case, as many have supposed, that the renewed emphasis on evangelical publishing has been solely a hinterland phenomenon, confined to a few relatively new midwest and far west organizations. Actually, some of the most significant events in recent publishing history, from an evangelical point of view, have been taking place in the traditional strongholds of American publishing—New York and the other metropolitan centers of the eastern United States.

It must be admitted at once that religious publishing has not yet regained its former position and vigor. Solid evangelical and theological books once were reviewed prominently in the large metropolitan papers and discussed in the daily columns of the nation’s leading commentators. Today we do not find the Menckens and the Lippmanns of the moment commenting seriously on volumes of apologetics, as in fact they did thirty and forty years ago. However, books on and about religion and theology are getting more attention in the public press than they did some years ago.

The greater public interest in Christian books is noted also in the rapid growth of the Christian Booksellers Association, now in its ninth year, and numbering several hundred dealers in the United States and Canada. Spurred initially by the dearth of religious books offered in secular bookstores and department stores, the movement has grown up and prospered. Indeed, faced by this sizable competition, the larger secular outlets now provide a partial counterthrust by an increased display of religious titles on their tables.

New York publishers’ row in recent years has had its eye fixed on the potential religious best seller, and books in this category indeed have been a real phenomenon of the present decade. In one recent year, four of the top ten books in sales (outside the Bible, perennial best seller) were on religious themes. It is unfortunate that one cannot claim many of these as evangelically sound in their witness, but they supply part of a more favorable national atmosphere furnishing the framework for greater acceptance of the evangelical Christian message and its literature. So we might observe such excellent works as the Peter Marshall books coming from McGraw-Hill, the Billy Graham books from Doubleday and Through Gates of Splendor from Harper and Brothers. Other publishing giants have works of the same quality and emphasis on their programs, and the republication of Jonathan Edwards’ works greets us from none other than the presses of Yale University.

Article continues below

No doubt all this reflects somewhat the new look at religion in our day, as does the increased importance attached to religious news in the secular papers. The weekly religion pages are featuring more articles of an interpretive background nature, but limiting themselves to purely local news items and features. Some papers are mixing religious news in their columns on a daily basis, even front-paging significant stories, and many leading dailies have full-time religion editors.

Books and authors are important factors in shaping public opinion and theological climate. But what is published in a generation is also to a large extent a mirror of the culture of the times. This is not to imply that publishers are followers rather than leaders of public attitudes. But market acceptance, and the estimate of such potential, plays a large role in the consideration of manuscripts by all publishers. It is, of course, not amiss that manuscripts on religious topics should be judged in some measure by the demand of the market. Neither should they be exempt from requirements of literary standards.

The encouraging fact in all this is that works of an evangelical stripe are again being entertained—and published—by some of the larger secular publishing houses whose lists have not included much if any of this type of material for a generation or more. Editors insist that there has never been any deaf ear to expressions of evangelical thought; that the fault has been with the quality of the material offered; that conservative theological works submitted have always been judged by the same standards, both literary and content-wise, as the expressions of liberal thought. Perhaps they are right; it has been pointed out repeatedly in recent years that there has been a dearth of scholarly evangelical endeavor for a generation or two. Let us hope that this unfruitful era is now past, and that the renewed publishing interest attests this hopeful prospect.

Article continues below

It should be noted that the New York lists have always carried a number of outstanding conservative titles, scholarly volumes that have stood the test of time and remain in perennial demand, such as Machen’s Virgin Birth, Schaff’s Creeds of Christendom, Young’s Concordance and other standard works. Editors point to these as evidence that there has been no prejudice or lack of hospitality to the evangelical viewpoint. They would also insist that their current viewpoint reflects nothing new, that the same standards as always are being applied, and that the material being offered today just seems to be an improvement over that of past years.

One thing big city book editors want to make clear: that they do not wish in any way to “categorize” religious books as to source or viewpoint—conservative, evangelical or liberal—and above all, that there is no “quota” in their lists on this basis. Whether this is a tenable position in publishing, all things considered, is a debatable question. At least, the editorial doors today are open to manuscripts that meet reasonable standards of literary quality and scholarly work, we are assured. Some houses have added prominent evangelical leaders as editorial advisors; for instance, Harper’s religious department in the last year made connections with Dr. Frank E. Gaebelein, one of CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S contributing editors in such capacity, and other houses have made similar moves. Many works in the areas of theology and religion now refer more accurately and more sympathetically to evangelical Christianity and its positions than in recent decades.

One of the most important and timely boosts in evangelical publishing, both psychologically and economically, was the formation in 1954 of Evangelical Books, a monthly book club spurred by Dr. Gaebelein, Dr. Harold Ockenga, Dr. Paul Rees and others. In the three and one-half years of its operation it has used some 70 evangelical volumes as selections and dividends—a list of titles and authors that reads like a Who’s Who in the evangelical movement. The selections have included some very solid and substantial volumes on theology, Bible study, ethics and so forth. Thus it has not only supplied a large new outlet for worthy volumes that would otherwise have had limited sale (current distribution is said to run about 12,000 copies), but it has also given publishers something to aim at when planning their programs, and has made worthwhile the publishing of good works that otherwise might have gone begging as insufficiently popular to hold promise of a good sale.

Article continues below

Among the larger volumes that have thus received widespread distribution are such substantial works as The New Bible Commentary, Edwards’ Freedom of the Will, Christian Personal Ethics, Unger’s Bible Dictionary, Contemporary Evangelical Thought (that promises to be the forerunner of a series of important surveys), and many others that one would not classify as popular literature. Yet this type of studious product has found ready and wide acceptance, a happy situation that would hardly have prevailed some years ago.

In England, too, the postwar years have seen a great deal of publishing activity in the evangelical camp, paced chiefly by authors and enterprising young publishers associated more or less with the growing movement of Inter-Varsity Fellowship of Evangelical Unions. Most of the resulting works have found their way quickly onto American publishers’ lists, and they have been a welcome import. In The Netherlands the production of books of the Reformed stamp has gone on with accelerated vigor in postwar years, and many of these (especially books by Berkouwer and Dooyeweerd) have made their way through translation into the American and British markets, scoring considerable impact.

While we are indeed heartened by the renewed evidence of such a revival, none of this is meant to imply that the evangelical stamp was entirely missing for long periods in the great publishing centers. On the contrary, there has always been a flow, even if diminished, of evangelical works from houses in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Nashville and elsewhere. We are reminded of the continuity of such a house as Fleming H. Revell, now nearing 90 years of publishing evangelical books in the New York area, on whose list some titles still in demand go back to the earliest days of the firm.

In this connection it is interesting to note that the Revell firm grew out of the evangelistic crusades of the great Dwight L. Moody. Revell was Moody’s brother-in-law and the latter literally drafted him to put out a paper for his campaign and follow-up program, and thus launched the young man into a publishing career. Similarly today many new literature projects are growing out of the impact of the Billy Graham crusades in American life, adding the dimension of the printed page to “Revival in Our Time.”

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.

Our digital archives are a work in progress. Let us know if corrections need to be made.

Tags:
Issue: