Thin ‘McBooks’ Whet Spiritual Appetites, But Leave Hunger for More

If you’re a book, is it possible to be too thin? “The Catcher in the Rye,” “Bright Lights, Big City,” “Mere Christianity” and last year’s “Lying Awake” are model-skinny books that are among my favorites.

But there’s something bothersome about the latest trend in Christian publishing: TV Guide-sized books, big print on small pages, that have become the fast food of popular religion writing. “8 Million Served” is the sign that could be posted on the cover of Bruce Wilkinson’s 92-page “The Prayer of Jabez.”

Many times, slickly packaged books like “Jabez” are merely a revamping of popular sermons given at Sunday services or weekend retreats. Book publishers are also starting to reformat religious classics to sell them with the “McBook” packaging. The mini-books go for about $10.

It’s not as if the McBooks didn’t contain McNuggets of theologically sound or inspiring information. They do. But shouldn’t spiritual issues be explored with more depth than the “One-Minute Manager”?

Apparently not, since titles on the religion shelves today include the self-helpish “Lessons From the Cloth: 501 One-Minute Motivators for Leaders,” “One-Minute Pocket Bible for Business Professionals,” and “The One-Minute Christian: Growing Toward True Spirituality.”

You have to wonder what St. Thomas Aquinas would think about all this. Though he lived less than 50 years, the 13th century saint wrote 60 philosophical, theological, scriptural and apologetic books that are still revered. But near the end of his life, Aquinas abruptly laid down his pen after a mystical experience with God during Mass.

“I can do no more,” he said. “Such secrets have been revealed to me that all I have written now appears to be of little value.”

With the phenomenal sales of “The Prayer of Jabez,” a follow-up book by Wilkinson is of great value to the author and his publisher. So we get “Secrets of the Vine: Breaking Through to Abundance,” which has the feel of “Rocky II.” Wilkinson says he’ll show you “how God works in your life to answer . . . prayer--and what you can do to cooperate with him to make it happen.”

Wilkinson centers his message on some of Jesus’ final advice to his disciples: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit.”

Part of the charm of the “The Prayer of Jabez” was that Wilkinson concentrated on an obscure 32-word prayer by an unknown biblical character. In his latest book, Wilkinson tills ground familiar to most Christians, though he confides to readers that they’ll “encounter three life-changing secrets” in the book.

His “secrets” have been proclaimed from pulpits everywhere: If you’re not bearing fruit, God will intervene to discipline you (and this could hurt). If your life bears some fruit, God will intervene to prune you, so you’ll bear even more fruit (and this also could hurt). And finally, if your life bears more fruit, God wants to develop a deeper personal relationship with you (and this will cause you to reexamine priorities).

When you finish the book, you feel as if you had just sat through a mediocre, though mercifully short, sermon.

More satisfying is “The Life God Blesses: The Secret of Enjoying God’s Favor.” Its author, Pastor Jim Cymbala, took over the near-empty Brooklyn Tabernacle in 1972 and molded it into a nationally known church with a Grammy-winning choir.

Cymbala’s short book also reads like an expanded sermon, though he deftly mixes accessible biblical stories with touching stories from the streets of Brooklyn to add significant weight to his main point: God is “searching for a human heart that will allow him to show how marvelously he can strengthen, help and bless someone’s life.”

Cymbala also gives concrete ways to prepare your heart for God. Boiled down, the steps are: Listen to God, imitate God, remain humble, pray, be tender and be patient.

(FYI, “Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire,” Cymbala’s first book, traces the pastor’s trials and triumphs in rebuilding the Brooklyn Tabernacle congregation, and it’s a minor classic.)

In many ways, it’s not fair to include “Never Let It End: Poems of a Lifelong Love” in this trio of McBooks. The 29 poems, written by Ruth Bell Graham to God and her famous evangelical husband, Billy, are not shallow or hip. They are honest and heartfelt, painful and loving, funny and sad.

Her poems and accompanying family photos show her transition from a young, idealistic bride to an old, wise wife, spanning 58 years of marriage.

She writes about nights when the couple went to bed angry:

Nights can be

so very long

when hearts are far

that should be near.

And she writes about growing old:

A little more time,

Lord,

just a little more time.

There’s so much to do,

so much undone.

But she mostly writes about her love for Billy:

You held my hand

and I,

feeling a strange,

sweet thrill,

gave to my heart

a sharp rebuke,

and told it

to be still.

You held me close

and I

gasped, “Oh, no!”

until

I felt my heart within me rise

and tell me

to be still.

One benefit of the McBooks movement is that small gems such as Mrs. Graham’s will gain a larger audience as the religious fast-food crowd wolfs down another literary-lite meal.

Yet it’s unnerving that, compared to most of the McBooks on the shelf, this collection of simple poems seems to have the weight of Thomas Aquinas’ work. This makes for a sad trend.