After you enjoy the cartoon, I have to tell you a quick story.
A number of decades ago, before I was Reformed, I wanted to get a copy of Calvin’s Institutes, which I did not yet have. I was on the road and stopped in a Christian bookshop somewhere and asked if they had it. When I asked the question, this very thing happened to me. Years later, I was flipping through CT — back when I still did that — and came across this cartoon. “Nancy!” I said, “this exact thing happened to me.” Beyond coincidence, but I had no explanation. I was befuddled. But eventually I thought to look at who drew the cartoon. Ron Huggins drew it, a friend of mine, and all of a sudden the mystery didn’t seem so grand.
This happened to me as well!
What cartoon? All I saw was a black rectangle.
That brings to my remembrance that a number of years ago I was listening to a moderately popular Christian radio personality (whose name I don’t recall) who was discussing sales records for Christian books. Someone called in to remind her that for many, many years John Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress was second in all time sales only to the Bible. The radio personality immediately corrected the caller that she only meant Christian themed books.
It took a while before I could ever take anything she said seriously after that.
This past Thanksgiving I was listening to a Christian radio program where a historian was being interviewed about the first Thanksgiving. At one point during the interview, the host commented how interesting it was for him to read the firsthand accounts, such as Plymouth Plantation and Pilgrim’s Progress—thus demonstrating the actual extent of his reading. The interviewee graciously passed over the faux pas.
So it’s not just your critics who like to caricature you…