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A Disturbing Trend
- 08/05/06
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It was announced on Thursday that Multnomah Publishers has been purchased by Random House, Inc. In a press release, Random House says:
The Oregon-based Multnomah publishes more than 100 new titles annually by such popular authors as Randy Alcorn, Shaunti Feldhahn, Robin Jones Gunn, and Andy Stanley. Its active backlist of more than 600 works of fiction and nonfiction includes classic books of faith by Dr. James Dobson, Francine Rivers, and Joshua Harris, and THE PRAYER OF JABEZ by Bruce Wilkinson, the eight-million-copy #1 New York Times bestseller and the bestselling book published in the U.S. in 2001.Multnomah will become Random House, Inc.s second evangelical Christian imprint, following the creation of WaterBrook Press in 1996. WaterBrook is an editorially autonomous division of Random Houses Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group. Multnomah will be integrated operationally with WaterBrook, relocating to WaterBrooks offices in Colorado Springs. Together they will form the new WaterBrook Multnomah division within Doubleday Broadway, with each imprint maintaining its distinct editorial identity.
This is further evidence of a disturbing trend in Christian publishing in which we see secular companies purchasing and assimilating Christian imprints. As the press release indicates, Random House now has two Christian imprints, Multnomah and WaterBrook Press. Similarly, Zondervan was recently purchased by Harper Collins. The Christian music industry has seen similar patterns. This proves that Christian products, whether books, music or trinkets, are becoming an increasingly lucrative market and one that is ripe for exploitation by big companies.
The acquisition of Multnomah makes for some strange dynamics. For instance, books like The Cross Centered Life by C.J. Mahaney and Stop Dating the Church by Josh Harris, both gospel-centered books written by godly, gospel-focused men, are published by a gospel-free secular company. It is fair to ask how this will impact the company’s long-term dedication to these books and to the authors. And I wonder how these authors and others will regard the company now that it is in new hands. The time may soon be coming when many of the most popular versions of the Bible are owned and printed by non-Christian companies. We an only guess what the ramifications of such a situation might be.
In recent months I have heard any number of stories about publishers and their sometimes shocking attitudes toward their authors and books. Too often it seems publishers, and big publishers in particular, are driven by the bottom line more than anything else. There are exceptions, of course, and many publishers (especially smaller ones) have maintained their integrity. P&R Publishing, Crossway, Evangelical Press and others seem to truly desire to honor God through the business of publishing books. But too many others have become captives to the bottom line, publishing books primarily on the basis of what will sell the most copies. And in an age when almost anything can pass for “Christian,” these popular books often bear little resemblance to the Christianity of the Bible. It is little wonder that ministries like Ligonier have created their own small publishing branches. With increasing ease of distribution in today’s world and Sproul’s name to provide credibility, this publishing venture may just succeed. I’m sure many other ministries will follow suit.
Can Sovereign Grace Books or Grace To You Publishing be far behind?
I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I worship and serve as a pastor at 
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Comments (68)
just wanted to say “thanks” to Marty and Bibliomaniac for taking the time to answer my questions!
Bibliomaniac - Go ahead (unless you’re talking about a small book…) :)
To all who have given comments to some of my thoughts herr, thank you. I always learn, am challenged, and edified by differing views on issues such as this.
I also want to personally make known my love and appreciate for R.C. Sproul and the step of faith that he, Tim and all at Ligonier are taking by creating The Reformation Trust. R.C. has never been shy in standing for the orthodox message—it is good to see this brave-heart for the Lord stand for orthodox methods as well. He is to be admired, followed, prayed for and honored. (In fact, I just finished my morning hour walk and R.C. was ministering to me on my iPod—thank you brother for your faithful voice in a postmodern age.)
If those of a differing opinion could share with me, even if offline, a biblical view as to why they think that being unequally-yoked with nonbelievers in a spiritual ministry or enterprise is justified? I have only heard pragmatic justification (which theologically could be compared to Romanism :-)) rather than citing Scripture which some think gives the church, its pastors or itinerant ministers, evangelists, etc. permission to submit the ministry under the authority of those who are enemies of the cross?
Could you imagine Paul saying in Galatians 7, “I have cut a deal with Nero; he agrees to stop persecuting the church and throwing me jail if he can publish my next epistle under Neroian Publishing House. He won’t tell us what to say as long as he can control the money and make the lion-share (no pun intended) of the profits. Everybody wins! Think of how many more people we will be able to reach if his money, name and public persona are behind what we do. After all, this is the break we’ve been praying for. We will be culturally relevant, contextualized and still be able to share the gospel. And if in some of those publishing meetings Nero asks why I am so happy all the day long, I’ll be able to tell him privately.”
Point made.
Thank you for this privilege of posting here and for being sharpened by all contributors. My personal email is stevecamp@a1m.org if you would like to contact me off forum.
Tim, we are praying for you and the worship conference. Please give my warmest greeting to Bob Kauflin—I so appreciate what he is doing for the kingdom.
Grace and peace,Steve2 Cor. 4:5-7
Will someone please tell me the purpose of this board, chat room, blog, or whatever the kids are calling it today? I thought it was a Christian investment chat room. But from some of the comments (many of the comments) I’ve seen, it appears as if many of you want to do anything BUT see your portfolio increase?! That is nuts!
If I’m reading you correctly, it would appear as if some of you are mixing business with church and really getting confused over it. It would appear that some hear can’t see the difference between a church and a business. Why do you have a problem with non-Christians owning Christian businesses? I know several people in the restaurant business and believe it or not, not every Greek restaurant is run by a Greek or every Mexican restaurant by a Mexican. I know a guy who owns a McDonald franchise who will hardly ever eat there because he’s into a healthy lifestyle and eating more nutritionally. Ever been to a health club? In the health club business you often have a lot of fat people who haven’t visited a health club as a customer in years.
Why do some of you insist that Christian businesses be run by Christians? The Christian market is pretty large and is a good investment. That’s why corporations like News Corp have divisions like Zondervan that produce Christian materials and they also have divisions that produce vile filth. Both are growth segments. It’s simply diversification.
If I go to a church, I want the pastor to be a Christian and authentic. But when I go to the local Christian bookstore I couldn’t care less if the owner agrees with the books they are selling or not.
Tim,
I apologize for the not being the kindest person on this thread. My intent was not to be unkind, but to make a very strong point.
Philippians 1:15-17 - “Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of rivalry, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then?…”
“They need to be stopped, because even though they are proclaiming the gospel, they do so with wrong intentions. Their ends are correct, but their means are not…”
No.
“Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.”
Paul certainly didn’t have a problem with pragmatism. Look at Galatians, and you’ll see that he would rather have the true gospel peached by evil men than a slightly altered gospel preached by Peter or the Judaizers.
We must be careful here though, because people like Rick Warren could argue from this as well. The problem is that they don’t have the correct gospel, and in this their methods are folly.
If people are proclaiming the correct gospel, then their methods can’t be too far off, no matter how skewed their intentions.
Truly, if those Evangelical leaders have clear consciences about their books being published with those publishing houses (which I’m sure means that the content is not being touched), and they are reaching a more broad audience, praise God! God is exalted in that. And they are being faithful to the Bible.
I would much rather support sites like monergism.com, or Crossway, or Banner of Truth, or Reformation Trust, or Christian Focus, but if a gospel-centered book will reach a larger audience through Random House, I do not believe that it is wrong. If Random House was editing the content, it wouldn’t be a gospel-centered book for very long.
Truly, I hope this is edifying. God bless. And I apologize for being unkind earlier.
- Captain Planet
First, I want to say thanks to Tim Challies for providing this forum for discussion about the whole matter of secular companies owning Christian publishing houses. He appropriately titled his blogpost “An Alarming Trend,” and in bringing up Random House’s recent acquisition of Multnomah, has allowed for interaction on a matter of significant concern to people like me, Steve Camp, and others.
Because of time constraints, I’m going to have to break my answer down into parts. First I’m going to respond to Steve Camp’s invitation to share my thoughts on 2 Corinthians 6:14, which says, “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.”
The proper application of this passage requires that we understand what Paul is saying and not saying. What kind of separation is he talking about here? Paul isn’t advocating that Christians completely withdraw from the world. It’s not a command to refuse associating with unbelievers. Note the distinction Paul makes in 1 Corinthians 5:9-10 and particularly what he says at the end of verse 10—for us to refuse to associate with unbelievers would require us to “go out of the world,” which is not what Paul asks believers to do. We cannot neglect our responsibility to fulfill the great commission and make Christ known to unbelievers.
Moreover, if Paul were calling for complete disassociation, he would be contradicting his encouragement that a believer STAY in a marriage to an unbeliever as long as it’s possible to do so (1 Corinthians 7:12-16).
The phrase “yoked together” is key here and hearkens back to Deuteronomy 22:10, which prohibited the Israelites from yoking together an ox and a donkey. Such a mismatch of animals would make it impossible to plow effectively. To yoke together speaks literally of binding together two things that don’t belong together. In 2 Corinthians, Paul then goes on to say that righteousness, light, and Christ have nothing in common with wickedness, darkness, and Belial. Contextually, it’s clear Paul is talking about spiritual endeavors, or work that is done for God. Believers and unbelievers should not be bound together in partnerships that permit a shared responsibility in the work of ministry.
That’s what the passages says…next, when I have a chance, a word about application.
Before we can determine whether 2 Corinthians 6:14 applies to a given real-world situation, it’s crucial that we answer two questions jointly:
1.Who are the parties that are being “yoked together”?2.What is the purpose of the association?
Only when we answer both questions jointly will we know whether or not we have a situation that requires us to heed 2 Corinthians 6:14. Too often, when 2 Corinthians 6:14 is incorrectly applied, it’s because we didn’t take into consideration the entirety of what Paul is commanding in the text. Let me demonstrate:
First, there are some who say, “So what if a Christian publisher is owned by a secular company? If the secular company makes it possible for the Christian literature to reach a larger audience, all power to them!” Those who take such a stand are disregarding question #1 above and don’t care that a believer and unbeliever have been yoked together in a spiritual endeavor, which goes against Paul’s injunction that we NOT be unequally yoked in such situations. Such pragmatism (the end justifies the means) is clearly unbiblical.
Second, there are those who say, “If the Bible forbids us to be unequally yoked, then we should not have non-Christians repair our cars, perform surgery on us, give us legal advice, etc.” But that disregards the second crucial element in applying 2 Corinthians 6:14. Paul goes on in verses 14-16 and asks four rhetorical questions that make it clear his words about being “unequally yoked” apply strictly to spiritual endeavors—hence his contrasts between light and darkness, righteousness and lawlessness, etc. When it comes to ministry, believers and unbelievers have nothing in common, and therefore should not be unequally yoked. Such an alliance would defile the spiritual effort at hand. But this does not apply to nonspiritual activities. Steve Camp is correct when he states, in #86 of his theses, “It is not unbiblical to consult non-Christian experts in matters of business, craft or trade.”
So before 2 Corinthians 6:14 becomes applicable, you MUST have these two things in place: 1) the prospect of a believer being “bound together” with an unbeliever 2) in a ministry endeavor. Ignore just one of those two, and you’ve opened yourself to improper application. Ignore the first question asked above (who are the parties?), and you’ll end up resorting to pragmatic arguments to justify unequally binding relationships. Ignore the second element (what is the purpose of the association?), and you’ll end up in legalistic isolationism.
That’s my answer to Steve Camp on 2 Corinthians 6:14. Next is the application of all this to the Christian publishing world. I’ll try to wrap this up soon as I’m able.
Honestly though, you still disregard the fact that these publishing houses are not controlling the content of these solid evangelical authors. If the author is the copyright owner, and the content is not being editing, then these authors are not being bound to these unbelievers as Paul is talking about it. In that case, it is not pure pragmatism to hope that the books would reach a wider audience, it’s realizing that it is not the situation that Paul is talking about in 2 Corinthians 6, and it’s hoping that the church would be edified by these books. Please prove me wrong.
Honestly though, you still disregard the fact that these publishing houses are not controlling the content of these solid evangelical authors. If the author is the copyright owner, and the content is not being editing, then these authors are not being bound to these unbelievers as Paul is talking about it. In that case, it is not pure pragmatism to hope that the books would reach a wider audience, it’s realizing that it is not the situation that Paul is talking about in 2 Corinthians 6, and it’s hoping that the church would be edified by these books. Please prove me wrong.
As I get into the practical application of 2 Corinthians 6:14 to the Christian publishing world, I’ll start by saying I’m in agreement with Tim that the secular acquisition of Christian book houses is a disturbing trend. Yet it’s also disturbing when people make inaccurate statements about the way Christian publishing companies work. In our zeal to apply Scripture correctly, we must make sure we have our facts correct, too.
First, the application of 2 Corinthians 6:14. Paul is prohibiting the binding together of a believer and unbeliever in a ministry or spiritual endeavor. While many Christian publishers today operate more as a business than a ministry and are bottom-line driven, the nature of the products they produce places them clearly within the realm of a ministry. So it should disturb us when nonbelievers have ownership of an entity whose professed purpose is to glorify God and advance the teaching of His Word. For a Christian publisher to be owned by a secular corporation is to be unequally yoked.
But it’s at this juncture that interesting allegations sometimes enter the fray. For example, Camp stated earlier that “it is sin to submit one’s own ministry to the hands of nonbelievers who, because of the money involved, have the final say on everything. Do not think for a moment that a large publishing house buys a Christian one, pays millions for the company, and then says, ‘Just go and do whatever you want to do….’ It doesn’t work that way.”
While I cannot vouch for all secular-owned Christian publishing companies, I can say there are definitely a number in which secular owners do NOT have “final say on everything.” And when it comes to the direction of publishing programs, they say very little or nothing at all. While the secular corporations expect fiscal accountability (which is to be anticipated), the actual operation of the Christian publishing house and the decisions about which authors and books to publish are all handled in-house. When it comes to the publishing program and book choices, a number of secular-owned houses operate autonomously. Camp’s statements about “final say on everything” and “it doesn’t work that way” simply do not apply when it comes to companies such as Zondervan and WaterBrook. (By the way, Stan Gundry speaks for Zondervan on this matter in a Biola Connection interview summer of 2005.)
That such editorially autonomous setups exist doesn’t make a secular-owned Christian publishing house more “sanctified” in any way. Again, such an arrangement 1) violates 2 Corinthians 6:14, and 2) all too likely to push the Christian publishing house toward being bottom-line driven (if it wasn’t already).
An earlier comment was also made that gave the impression there’s a cause-effect relationship between HarperCollins’ ownership of Zondervan and Zondervan’s publication of the TNIV and ECM resources.
In actuality, International Bible Society (IBS) spearheaded the whole TNIV effort. They initiated and carried out the translation work. In addition, Zondervan already had an established relationship with the IBS because Zondervan had published the NIV (of which IBS is the copyright holder). So, if we’re going to blame an enemy for “infiltrating the camp,” let’s point to the correct one—which, in this case, is IBS, not HarperCollins or Murdoch. And as I said earlier, Zondervan’s decisions regarding ECM resources would NOT have been influenced by those from above, but by ECM authors who persuaded Zondervan (and of course, by Zondervan’s belief that there would be enough demand for such books to justify publishing them).
I could give more examples to support my arguments, but let me transition to an important point I believe is too often overlooked in this whole discussion about secular ownership of Christian houses. Keep in mind that Multnomah published The Prayer of Jabez without any help or influence from a secular owner. I don’t need to recount here the problems many of us had with the book. What’s sad is that many books containing questionable contents are being pumped out by Christian publishers of their own initiative, with no prompting from the world. The massive downward slide we see in the biblical and theological quality of the books produced by Christian publishing houses today had its start largely from within Christian circles, not without. Today’s spiritually weak church is producing weak fruit, and this is particularly evident in the Christian book marketplace.
What is needed is not only concern over the fact Christian publishing entities are being unequally yoked with secular owners, but also an urgent plea for Christian-owned publishing houses to exercise greater spiritual discernment and more diligent stewardship of the message God has entrusted to them.
So Christian publishing houses with secular owners are unequally yoked. But what about the authors who work with such publishers? Have they violated 2 Corinthians 6:14? That’s just a couple more brief comments, when I find the time.
Sorry, Tim, for the length of this.
Good points everyone. Although, I do have a question. Whenever I watch Family Guy and other such similar cartoons on tv, I con’t know about you, but I consider it mere entertainment as opposed to being ministered to. Family Guy and similar cartoons are often hilariously funny, but sometimes they do get a bit racy and almost go overboard when it comes to being perhaps sacrilegious. Personally, I would not put much credence into the “ministry” of the company that puts out shows like Family Guy. Maybe I’m the odd one here, but I would not join the Family Guy Community Church. I give credit to Rupert Murdoch for his business sense. The guy knows how to make money. It’s simply good business sense to diversify and have both vile programming and also Christian publishing. Ok, I don’t know Rupert Murdoch and am not on a personal level with any of the high level executives at News Corp, so this is purely a guess. My guess is that they consider themselves business people first and don’t consider themselves a ministry. Some of the posters in here have been calling these businesses “ministries” when they are actually businesses. Sure, maybe 70 years ago when some of these publishing houses started out they may have been started by Christians who considered themselves a ministry, but times change. There seems to be a lot of confusion on this board over businesses vs. non-profit organizations. A business is a business and the goal is to make a profit. A non-profit organization is a different organization. People start or join a non-profit organization because they believe in the values and goals of that organization and have a common belief system. Other than making enough money to simply pay the bills and pursue their goals, people in non-profits couldn’t care less about making money. The goal of the organization is not to make a profit. The people who run Christian businesses may or may not care one bit about Christianity. My main concern as an investor is that these companies are managed well and making a profit. He’s probably a nice guy and all that, but I’d hate to join a church where Rupert Murdoch is the pastor as some of you who seem to think should happen because you consider News Corp. a “ministry”!
You know, it’s really frustrating when you spend a good amount of time writing a comment on someone’s blog and they don’t publish it. This is especially frustrating when you are the first voice to disagree in some way with the other voices. You try to address the issue as you see it (what blogging is all about), but try as you may it doesn’t get published. You wonder to yourself, Is it because I used the word “wh*re”?
Tim, did you really think my comment from 8/6 was “malicious”? I can assure you, it wasn’t meant to be. I suppose there is a slight chance that it didn’t even go through to you, in which case I apologize. Hopefully you publish this because I am going to leave a link to my site and the comment I wrote a few days ago.
http://seeandsavor.blogspot.com/2006/08/multnomah-criticism.html
I would appreciate it greatly if this gets published.thanks.
As a point of comparison, I hold ministries up to a higher standard of Christian living that I do any business. I don’t feel like naming any names right now, but we can all think of the stereotypical evangelist or Christian teacher who runs a ministry and has the surfeit of German cars, the multiple luxury houses, the corporate jet that is more up to date than 95% of the jets used in Fortune 500 corporations, etc. I have a leery attitude towards these ministries when it could possibly appear as if they have financial gain as their primary motive and their teachings are somewhat shaky. The reason I am susupicious of these ministries is because they purport to be ministries and therefore are accountable as such. But on the other hand, if a secular company wants to get into the Christian market I say more power to them! The secular company is not claiming to be a “ministry”; they simply have enough business sense to realize a profitable market to get into.
As far as the individual authors are concerned, I believe that’s an issue of Christian liberty. As long as they can write what they are led to write without any pressure to change, then it’s fine to use secular companies as the distributors. I’m not a huge fan of CCM, but as far as that’s concerned, I think “there’s a sucker born every minute”. It seems like a lot of artists can’t decide which direction to go and simply decide to be Christian artists or secular artists depending upon where they can make the most money and get the most chicks.
When an author works with a Christian publishing house owned by a secular company, has the author unequally yoked himself or herself with unbelievers? At first blush that may seem the case, but upon closer examination, I cannot help but keep running into a major obstacle that prevents me from reaching such a conclusion.
The obstacle is the fact we’re talking about a case of secondary separation here. As far as I’m aware, the New Testament does not give us clear instruction or a general model for how to handle this level of separation. Keep in mind that from the contractual and practical standpoints, an author’s binding relationship is strictly with the Christian publishing house and not the secular entity above. It is two Christian entities that have yoked together, not a believer and an unbeliever. Contrary to what some may claim, the reality in many cases is that the secular entity above exercises no voice whatsoever in any step of the publishing relationship between an author and the Christian house. Usually that voice from above stays limited to matters of fiscal responsibility and performance on the part of the Christian publisher itself, and the publishing program and editorial decisions are truly autonomous.
In summary, I am very reluctant to apply a primary separation passage to what is clearly a secondary separation issue.
Does this conclusively settle the issue for the Christian author? I don’t believe so. Though Scripture doesn’t specifically address secondary separation, it does exhort the believer to use discernment in all things. Different publishing houses work in different ways and the decision makers within houses have varying levels of convictions (or lack thereof) regarding various biblical truths. Authors should take seriously their responsibility to ask questions and examine the facts to determine whether association with a particular company has the potential to place the author in a position of spiritual compromise.
And such caution and discernment is necessary even when publishing with a Christian-owned company, as evidenced by some of what’s being published today.
The ideal will always be a Christian-owned and Christian-run company. Most definitely caution and discernment are needed in the cases where a secular entity owns the company and thus the publisher is unequally yoked. But to impose the unequally yoked standard upon a secondary relationship, as far as I can tell, goes beyond the clear instruction of Scripture.
I’d like to thank Tim for the topic and pretty much everyone for the responses. This has been done about as well as a discussion like this can be.
As for 2 Cor. 6:14 let me ask just one question: What is unequal yoking when it comes to ministry?
If it is allowing a secular publishing house to publish an authors work even without forcing changes in the text/theology, then how is it not wrong for the thousands of churches (my PCA church included) to rent out public school buildings. The buildings have just as much influence as the publishers in that instance. For that matter, how is it unequal yoking for Zondervan, Multnomah etc. to be owned by secular publishing houses unless there is direct involvement with the theological aspect of the material being produced? When the case is shown to be that a non-Christian had influence on the theology of the presentation then we have actual biblical inequity. We go way too far when we start forcing these texts well beyond the actual theological work.
Tim, nice post and I have enjoyed the conversations. Very helpful and encouraging to see so much Scripture being used - may we all strive to keep the Word near to us (Deut 30:14).
After 65 posts, I would like to reinforce your original point: this is a disturbing trend. To see the dangers of that trend, you really do not have to look further than Zondervan. Now, I don’t want to keep picking on them, but I am. Before I do, I would like to state I know there are good, well-meaning Christians working there, and I’m sure they have read or heard similar critiques that have been stated here, and I hope they stay encouraged and continue glorifying God in their work.
Go to their site, read their history, view those now in charge. They were a solid Christian publisher acquired by the opposite - (Google: 0380015390). Now, and to clarify, they are secular company that happens to publish Christian things because it is good for business. And therein lies the danger - business. When they now look at financial statements its all numbers. The impact they are making from a ministry standpoint (which is huge) is lost. And when you lose that perspective you lose your place, or purpose, if you will. Soon, the “little, less-marketable, authors” writing Church Planting books, or Biblical commentaries on Romans get pushed to the side.
Now, to those who say, “well, this would have been a disturbing trend a few years ago, but now we have blogs, and they will save us.” Don’t you think the multi-billion dollar book industry, namely Harper and Random House, have already anticipated that? - since it could be bad for business.
I simply want to point out that: 1)Desiring God does have a ‘whatever you can afford’ policy and makes a huge amount of Dr. Piper’s material available for free; 2) John Piper personally takes nothing, zero, from the sale of any of his books. All income goes to Desiring God, which is under the authority of the elders of Bethlehem Baptist Church; and 3) Although Dr. Piper early on worked with Multnomah in the publication of some of his excellent books, primarily because of editor Steve Halliday, I think, his more recent works are published by Crossway. I do NOT speak for John or Desiring God. I am a relative and friend. I simply wanted to point this out because I thought Steve did overstate the case a bit when he wrote earlier:
“there is not one evangelical leader currently that is willing to do this—regardless of their theological convictions and standing. Most of these men are great voices for the truth of the gospel, but when it comes to even them leaving these companies and giving up thousands and sometimes millions of dollars—they lack the courage.”
I thought this statement was unfortunate. John, for one, and I am sure there are more, is not in it for financial gain. He lives the war-time lifestyle he writes about. The money goes to third world pastors in the form of free books, children living among the poorest of the poor, and the very modest salaries paid to the Desiring God staff.
Thanks, Tim! I wish I was there with my close friend Greg and you at the Worship Conference!
In connection with Dana’s comment, I personally know of at least a couple other major evangelical Christian authors who make nothing from their books and put all the income toward ministries. But I cannot name them because they wouldn’t want that information known.
Interestingly, a few years ago at a major event, a major Christian author chastised a room full of Christian publishing executives for “doing nothing” to help third-world missionary endeavors…not realizing that a few of them were already involved in a HUGE way.