A Prayer with Wings
How did an ancient entreaty
become a best seller?
By
DAVID VAN Biema
Pity poor
jabez. for some 2,500 years, he languished in one of those
endless biblical genealogies, as the 35th "son of Judah" enumerated
in the Book of Chronicles, just after the listings for his
relatives Anub and Zobebah. Upon reaching him, the biblical
author breaks stride, but only for a moment, to acknowledge
that he was regarded as "more honorable than his brothers"
and that he had a favorite prayer, which the Bible reprints.
Then it was on to Chelub and Shuhah.
But as Jesus
noted, the last shall be first. After only a year on the market,
a slim inspirational text called The Prayer of Jabez, written
by an evangelist based in Atlanta, Bruce Wilkinson, and published
by a tiny firm in Sisters, Oregon, has sold a Grisham-like
3.5 million copies and advanced last month to No. 1 on the
New York Times Advice, How-to & Miscellaneous best-sellers
list-even though the Times does not count books sold in religious
bookstores. Says Lynn Garrett, religion editor at Publishers
Weekly: "It's a raging success, and I think it's going to
continue to build. It could easily become this year's hardcover
best seller."
The question
Jabez himself might well have posed is, "Why me?" After decades
of willful ignorance, American publishing has learned-via
the triumph of the apocalyptic Left Behind series-that titles
by and for evangelical Christians can sell angelically. But
unlike Left Behind, which trades on the spectacular cast and
characters of the Book of Revelation, Jabez is essentially
a bulked-up sermon, pouring much of the evangelical mission
into the prayer's five short clauses.
Wilkinson,
53, says he first heard about the prayer from a seminary chaplain
30 years ago and has been "praying Jabez" as a kind of evangelical
mantra ever since. What he appears to have found most attractive
is the prayer's expansiveness. Evangelical life abounds in
thou shalt nots and stresses humility before God. By contrast,
Jabez's demand that the deity "bless me indeed" seems buoyant
and liberating. Reading the volume's back-cover blurb ("Do
you want to be extravagantly blessed by God?"), one might
even imagine that Wilkinson is selling Prosperity Theology,
a widespread if superficial gospel that amounts to praying
for dollars. This turns out not to be the case. The riches
he has in mind are the wealth of God's spirit, and the more
one has, the more one wants to spread it. He interprets Jabez's
next request, "enlarge my territory," as a plea for the biggest
possible evangelizing field. "Clearly," he writes, "it is
His complete will for us to reach the world-right now!"
Wilkinson,
who sweetens his thesis with anecdotes from his personal and
preaching life, concludes by claiming that daily recitation
of the prayer can turn you into ... someone like him. Wilkinson,
who has preached at Promise Keepers' rallies, asserts that
his success in reaching millions via his Walk Thru the Bible
Ministries is almost shocking evidence of what God's grace
and Jabez praying can do.
Actually,
even he didn't guess the book's potential. He says the reason
for its surprise success is "the $20 million question" and
testifies that the only one who thought it would hit more
than 30,000 copies a year was his wife, who felt that "God
would perhaps enjoy getting the message out." He suggests
that although most Americans believe in prayer, they save
it for emergencies, and Jabez's relatively low-key, daily
program may be a welcome novelty. PW's Garrett agrees: "It's
very evangelical and very American, this whole notion that
if you know the right technique, the right form, that prayer
will be efficient and effective. Kind of like golf."
There are
other factors. The book is a bit of a genre-bender, packing
a change-your-life message that evangelicals are used to seeing
in 350-page tomes into an easy-to-read 93 pages. At $9.99,
it can be bought in multiple copies for friends, like a literary
W.W.J.D. (What Would Jesus Do) bracelet. Wilkinson's editor
David Kopp reports two influential boosters: James Dobson
and his wife Shirley, who heard Wilkinson preach Jabez on
a tape during a long drive. Dobson then featured the book
on his immensely influential Focus on the Family radio show.
Mark Tauber, a religion-book veteran now at the Beliefnet.com
website, notes that Wilkinson's 30 years of preaching Jabez
at rallies assures "a built-in audience of a million people
who have been saying the prayer"-and wonders whether its sequel,
based on a verse from the Gospel of John, will sell as well.
Wilkinson
and Kopp claim that Jabez is attracting nonevangelical audiences,
but that is hard to believe, given the book's use of loaded
catchwords and concepts. And with some 20 million evangelicals
in the country, it is also moot. Says Carolyn Henninger, a
bookstore owner in Gainesville, Georgia: "Jabez has changed
my life. I had never prayed for the Lord to bless me, to enlarge
my territory. It's phenomenal that people I show the book
to come back in and buy extra books they're sharing." Henninger
has sold 2,300 copies, and says, "I hope I never run out."
-With reporting
by Andrea Sachs/New York
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May 14, 2001 | No. 19
COVER
STORIES
The
Nuns' Stories
Hundreds of Roman Catholic sisters have opened up their lives, their memories
and (when they die) even their brains to researcher David Snowdon so that
all of us can better understand what causes Alzheimer's disease and what
can be done to prevent it
TRAVELER'S
ADVISORY
SOCIETY
BEHAVIOR: The Talking Cure...
Australian schools try shaming troublemakers onto the right path
THE
ARTS
CINEMA: Goodbye, Mrs. Tom Cruise. Hello, Nicole
Kidman, star of a bold new movie... Moulin Rouge awakens the dormant
musical
Samantha Lang, a cinematic connoisseur
of sex
MUSIC: Nick Cave, the gloom rocker, blooms
BOOKS: A slim prayer with sales that are
divine
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