Transitory Psychosis

Matthew Henry

Last night, as I faced a rather thorny biblical passage, I searched several books for an answer. I finally found it in Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments. When I was placing the book back on the shelf I thought once again, “Matthew, my brother, the English-speaking part of the body of Christ owes you a great debt.” Henry died in 1714, nearly three centuries ago. In the providence of God, He left a written work that is still in use today.
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I hit on an idea yesterday. Not a new one, I’m sure. (I doubt I’ve had an original idea in my entire life–sounds like a good ambition though.)

Here’s my idea: Every company needs a phantom employee with an important title. For instance: Jason Thurwilder, Director of Customer Relations, Quality Control, or whatever. The phantom employee should be listed among the company brass, along with a faux bio and even a stock photo. Whenever something goes wrong–someone gets offended, a product fails to meet expectations, or anything occurs that generates numerous complaints–you have a solution at hand: Fire Jason!
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Yesterday’s post addressed the silliness of measuring ourselves by the standard of the super-elites–the precious few for whom all the pieces (at least the outward ones) seem to have fallen into the right places.

Alas, I recently encountered the same sort of silliness in reading the judges conclusions for awards given at the 2007 Evangelical Press Association convention. In the judges’ comments explaining their decisions for Awards of Excellence (the highest awards in the competition), they cited their measuring rod for publications aimed at youth (teens).

Speaking of the winning publication for Devotional magazine, judges cited the publication’s reason for success as “. . . mimicking the design and feel of secular publications aimed at youth.” Concerning the winning Youth magazine, they said: “This magazine had the feel closest [to] a secular publication” and “This magazine, more than any other, felt like a secular equivalent, but with a focus on sharing and keeping faith.”
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Last spring I attended the annual conference of the Evangelical Press Association in Colorado Springs. In one workshop, the presenter said: “Writing is an art, but publishing is a business.” She went on to explain that no matter how well written a book or article might be, it will only be published if it makes “business sense” (translated, that means “makes money”).

To illustrate, she said asked us to imagine two manuscripts on the same subject. One is written by a skilled writer who is the leading expert in the field. He has, however, never been published, has no on-line presence, and does not do public speaking with any regularity.
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