Caveat Emptor

Caveat emptor – Let the buyer beware.

I took a jump and bought a book. After having been deceived by so many lying teachers and spending a small fortune on their “stuff” I’ve held off from reading much of anything in print. Who wants to be deceived again and pay money for it?  But, I purchased a book on line from a company I have used quite a bit in the past. Would you believe the very next day I read a short post on the same author and learned that he is actually emergent!!!  You may believe it, I could not. I listened to this guy for about half an hour on youtube and I never heard anything wrong.  This is how easy it is to get pulled in to their mess.

I went ahead and waited two weeks for the book to arrive.  After it did, it sat on my table for a whole day before I bothered with unpacking it. I usually rip right into new books, but not this one. The bubble had burst.  Each time I saw the book I kicked myself for not checking him out better than what I had.  I still don’t know how I missed that!  Is this not what I have been screaming about?  AAAAHHHH!

Finally, I unpacked the dreaded book. I looked at the back cover which was full of gleaming praise from other well known emergent leaders. Ugh. This was more than bad. I tried to read the book just to see if I could pick out the heresy. I couldn’t concentrate. Even after several attempts.

One more book for that s’more fest coming soon.

I contacted the Christian bookseller to let them know this was not a Christian book. They did not care.

Here is their response:

It might be useful for you to understand our philosophy of product selection.  Because we attract and service a wide range of customers (from pastors to homemakers, and seminary students to parents) whose interests and theological tastes vary enormously, we sometimes carry products that contradict each other or that are written by people that not all of our customers agree with theologically.  It is this kind of diversity in selection that has become a trademark of our company.  We don’t want to become a theological or social ‘censor’ of the books we carry, but we also try to remain selective.  So we tend to carry most popular Christian titles unless there is a compelling reason not to.

So, I would be safe in the assumption that deception and false teaching is not a compelling enough reason for a Christian bookseller to refuse to carry such titles. They are right. This information IS useful for me to know. Wide and “diverse”  is the road for book selling, not the same as the narrow one leading to salvation.

Money talks, again and again and its mouth is too big to fit through that narrow gate.