Tract Publishers Apply Gospel to New Concerns : Evangelism: ‘Safe sex’ and racial descriptions are among the topics addressed by Texas firm that produces 124 million religious pamphlets a year.

Traditionally, people confronted with Christian evangelistic tracts expected to get a hard-hitting message about salvation up front. “Are you going to heaven or hell?” is the sort of question that writers used as hooks.

But today’s tracts reflect new concerns. In response to requests from churches, the American Tract Society is producing leaflets on such topics as having “safe sex” and knowing what label to use in describing African-Americans.

“We try to apply the gospel to specific situations,” said Perry Brown, who edits tracts for the society.

Based in the Dallas suburb of Garland, Tex., the society is one of the oldest publishers of the evangelistic leaflets. Founded in 1825 in New York City, the society produces more than 24 million tracts bearing about 120 different titles each year.

One of the society’s latest ventures, an eight-page tract titled “Safe Sex,” was produced in December in response to requests prompted by Magic Johnson’s announcement that he had contracted the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS.

Drawing on information from government reports and articles in such publications as the New York Times and Newsweek, the tract on sex raises subjects that might have been considered unmentionable in Christian circles years ago.

It advises using condoms and screening sexual partners as components of safe sex, but ends up with a conservative message. At the end, it includes a prayer in which the reader promises God “to follow your rules on sex.”

Since the safe sex tract was first published a month ago, the society has shipped out more than 60,000 copies in response to orders. According to Brown, who edited the tract, it is being used by individuals, churches and crisis pregnancy centers.

Several years ago the agency started a program enabling it to speed up production of pamphlets about current events. It used that program to produce a leaflet tied to controversy over the motion picture “Last Temptation of Christ” in 1988. Other recent topics have included abortion and pornography.

Another of the new tracts examines how Americans of African descent have struggled to capture their identity, chronicling the evolution in terms from “colored” to Negro to Afro-American to black and, most recently, to African-American.

That leaflet, titled “What’s in a Name?”, highlights an effort by the society to address needs of minorities. During the past year the society has revived what had been called its Negro Division from 1967 to 1973 and is now known as its African-American Division.

But while the topics are new, the goal of making new Christians remains the same. The society reports receiving an average of more than 1,000 letters each year from people who say they have made personal commitments to Jesus Christ after reading one of the tracts.

Explicit evangelistic messages remain the society’s bread and butter. Three of its most popular titles continue to be “Four Things God Wants You to Know,” “How to Become a Christian,” and “Where Will You Spend Eternity?”, Brown said. Promotional literature promises that tracts “can travel farther, last longer, say it better and cost less than just about any other means of evangelism.”

But today the evangelistic aims often are more subtle. The tract on safe sex doesn’t mention God or the Bible until the sixth page, and waits until the seventh to ask the reader to make a commitment to Jesus Christ.

The reader who promises to follow God’s rules is advised that they include “abstinence, virginity and mutually faithful sex in heterosexual marriage.”

The leaflet not only backs up those points by citing biblical verses, but refers to a government report stating that “abstinence and sexual intercourse with one mutually faithful uninfected partner are the only totally effective prevention strategies” against AIDS.

The leaflet on African-Americans concludes by advising the reader, “As you choose a name to express your cultural identity, also consider what the name of Jesus means to you. Getting acquainted with him personally, by name, will revolutionize your life.”