What If What You Wrote Was Wrong?

By Dale Short

Everybody I've known who writes a book is in a big hurry to get their
work into print and on the shelves.
It's not like the public is crying out for new books. The most recent
survey I saw said that roughly 172,000 books are published each year, in the
U.S. alone. Even the most avid reader, these days, is likely to respond to
your best bookstore pitch with the polite turn-down, “It sounds interesting,
but I've got a big stack of books on my bedside table that I need to finish
first.”
To which we reply inwardly, “But mine is different! It'll (a) make you
laugh, (b) make you cry, (c) scare the devil out of you, or (d) put your mind
at ease.” At least, in our dreams.
But occasionally a book “breaks out” from among its endless sea of
competitors and sells millions of copies. At that point, a writer's troubles
really begin. Because the more people who read your book, the more chance
they'll find it contains serious factual errors, or else its information has
become badly out of date during the time it took your thoughts to get from
keyboard to printing press to bookshelf.
When that happens, all you can do is pray that your book will have a
short shelf life, instead of the centuries-long one you'd hoped for, so that you
can start from scratch and fix all its shortcomings.
Even if you somehow slip through this narrow factual-accuracy
gauntlet unscathed, your book must then past the test of time. Some do
better than others.
Back in 1970, a man named Hal Lindsey wrote a volume with the
grabber title, “The Late Great Planet Earth,” whose premise was that the
world was about to end. This news apparently scared the devil out of a
sufficient number of people that the book quickly went through 50 printings
in dozens of languages and sold more than six million copies. None too
shabby an achievement, for a first-time writer and former Mississippi tug-
boat captain.
He was far from the only, or most prominent, prophecy preacher
around at the time, but apparently his reasonable, low-key tone convinced a
lot of traditional skeptics.
Lindsey spent about 200 meticulously footnoted pages of “The Late
Great Planet Earth” proving--with sources ranging from the Prophet Daniel
to Douglas MacArthur--that the world was, at any moment, about to
experience the arrival of the Anti-Christ, natural disasters, deadly famines,
an unprecedented epidemic of drug addiction, the takeover of traditional
religions by witchcraft and the occult, and nuclear war. And then, things
would REALLY start to get bad.
From the perspective of 40 years later, his accuracy was clearly
uneven. We've had natural disasters and deadly famines galore, and drug
addiction is still a tragic problem. On the other hand, though a year never
goes by without some prophecy preacher somewhere proclaiming a new
Anti-Christ among us, the chances of a nuclear war seem less now than in
decades past, and old-fashioned church people still outnumber the scattered
Wiccans and Satan worshipers among us by roughly a zillion to one.
What does an author say, in such a circumstance? “Oops”? “I'll be
glad to refund your money”?
Turn at random to a page from a history of apocalyptic religious
movements, and you find the story of evangelist Charles T. Russell, who
predicted from scripture that Christ would return to Earth in 1874. When this
didn't occur, his followers were understandably peeved. Russell prayed for
guidance, and discovered that Christ actually HAD returned, except that He
was invisible.
This information, Russell said, dovetailed perfectly with his newest
revelation from God that the Rapture of the Church would take place in the
spring of 1878. “Oh,” his followers said. “Okay.”
When that didn't happen either, Russell explained why in a best-
selling six-volume reference series about the end of time. He also raised
funds to produce an eight-hour religious film on the same topic, which was
released in four parts. In October, 1916, Russell died a wealthy man—unlike
some of the most generous contributors to his ministry.
But, back to Mr. Lindsey. He seems unfazed both by his past errors
and the current economic downturn. Next month he turns 81, and still writes
and preaches from his mansion in Palm Springs, California. His most-read
recent Internet column theorizes that the Anti-Christ is alive and well, and is
president of the United States.
Praise the Lord.

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(Dale Short is a native of Walker County. You can find more of his writing
on his Facebook page, or you can e-mail him at cdshort@live.com. His new
short-story collection, “Turbo's Very Life,” and all his other books are
available online at carrolldaleshort.com. For more information about his
new informal spiritual fellowship, go to churchof11or1.com, or send an e-
mail to churchof11or1@hotmail.com)