Writing for the Methodists

 Thirteenth Monday after Pentecost

Here's another element in my faith journey. In 1981 I filled out an application form to be a writer for United Methodist Curriculum Resources, specifically for adult and young adult publication. Soon I heard from Eleanor Moore in Nashville, who would be my editor for many publications over the next five years. She asked me to write a short book for a new series, Scripture for the Church Seasons. I would be writer of the book for Lent-Easter, 1983. The book was to be entitled The Lord Is My Salvation. It was based on the Lectionary texts for Lent and for Easter Sunday of that year. The UM Publishing House had mostly academics for writers. Eleanor was grateful that I was an academic who had also had parish experience. The book was only 72 pages, but with a more than full-time job as Chaplain an professor at Tennessee Wesleyan, it took me almost a year to write it. Eleanor was not a heavy editor. She made hardly any changes to what I wrote. As was the case with all my publications in these years, there was no computer. I had a little Smith-Corona electric, which we thought was highly advanced at that time. Had I a computer then, I could have done everything in a lot less time. 

The book sold well, somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 copies. The series continues to this day, and has recently been used at University United Methodist Church. Unfortunately for me, books like this have a very short shelf life--out of print the day after Easter. I should note that the pay for all my UMC publications was very fair, not great, but a nice supplemental income. There were no royalties, just a single check for the contract amount of the project.

In October of 1983, independently of the work I was doing for the UM Publishing House, I had an article accepted and published in the UM clergy journal, Circuit Rider. The article was entitled "The Promise and Problem of Biblical Commentaries. When you sign a contract for this sort of writing, you sign away the rights to the publication to the publisher. You cannot resell the material to anyone else. But as I found out later, they can. A couple of years later, I heard from a Lutheran pastor friend of mine that she had read and enjoyed my article. I asked her, "What are you doing reading a United Methodist Clergy journal?" She replied, "No, this was in The Lutheran Pastor, a Lutheran clergy journal. As I found out, the UM Pub House had sold it to the Lutherans. It didn't bother me that I got no pay for the now Lutheran article, but it did bother me that the UM Pub House never told me this. This would happen numerous times in subsequent years. 

I kept getting more and more contracts from the UM Publishing House. The most extensive work I did was on the two volume work, Profiles: Men and Women of the Bible. I wrote seven of the twenty profiles. I also wrote two pieces for the Introductory book for the series. My pieces were "The Covenant in the Old Testament and the Covenant in the New Testament." They were published in 1986 and then republished at least once years later. In 2008, my youth director at First,  N. Wilkesboro, congratulated me on my new publication. It wasn't new. It was my two 1986 Covenant pieces. it was now republished in another UM series. The by-line said that J. Christian Wilson was at Greensboro College when he wrote these articles. I hadn't been there in twenty years. As always, you never know all that may happen with a publication once you sign it over to the publisher. 

I was feeling good about the reception my writings were getting. In 1985, the UM Pub House flew me out to Nashville for a three day writers conference, during which we planned a new Young Adult Series, for which I wrote several pieces. I also wrote the Teacher Book for one of the Adult Bible Studies quarterlies. Adult Bible Studies is still the most widely used series in UMC Sunday Schools. 

In 1986, I was contracted for a whole book in Adult Bible Studies.  I turned in several chapters. Then I turned in one chapter that had a brief story about a young woman who made a very difficult decision to have an abortion. Eleanor sent it back and told me to rewrite the whole chapter without the abortion story. I balked. I thought it was a really good story. I was also under a lot of time pressure with my job at Greensboro College. Semester was coming to a close. There were papers and exams to grade and a retreat to lead. The publishing deadline was right at the end of the semester. Eleanor and I were at an impasse. I wasn't going to rewrite. She said she would get someone else to write that chapter. I agreed. The book was published under my name and the name of the other author who wrote that one chapter.  Elenor and I were on good terms. I was ok with what happened. I was glad that I stood up for myself. I felt that the Publishing House should be willing to writers to talk about controversial issue. I also thought that I would in the future be completely clear with my editor as to what was and what was not acceptable in my future publications. 

I was never again asked to write anything for the United Methodist Publishing House. 

This was a big disappointment.  I told myself that it was time to move on, time to start writing scholarly publications. Maybe this was God's way of pushing me forward. I did over the next fifteen years write scholarly publications but never came to be considered more than an average publishing New Testament scholar. 

I occasionally hear or hear of people who say that they have no regrets in life. I think they have to be kidding themselves. I think that if you have no regrets, you must not have taken any risks. I do regret that I didn't rewrite that chapter. If I had known that my not rewriting it would have led to my never writing for the United Methodists again, I think I would have rewritten it. But things happened as they did. 

I have no ill feelings toward Eleanor or toward the Publishing House. I believe I had come to think of myself far too highly. I thought I knew more than she and they did. I was wrong. I would not make that mistake again. I would go on to write three books and many articles and book reviews. I would work really well with my editors. 

Regrets are ok. Bitterness is not. I'm glad to have the former, and glad not to have the latter.

Faithfully,

Christian