Years ago, I served a customer at Christian Bookstore who was looking for books by Chuck Missler. We do not stock his books. So, he asked if I would special order one his books. “If you would like,” I said.

Now, having special ordered a book by this author in the past, I knew that I could not recommend him to my customer. In this type of situation, the hope is that a customer can be steered toward a better author. In other stores, you might encourage your customer to buy a different product because you know about problems with a particular brand.

I asked the customer if he knew that Missler was writing books about aliens in our Bibles. The customer responded that I must have the wrong Chuck Missler because his other books are, “Right on.”

I pulled up Missler’s website and showed the customer. He remained where he was firmly in denial.

The customer placed his special order and later came back to buy his book. The logic behind his decision to go ahead and buy Missler’s book was that “he is a very popular Christian author.”

The customer for whom I had first special ordered a Missler book also dismissed his wackier ideas because he is a popular author whom she had heard recommended on the radio.

So, popularity and media recommendations are assurances of Christian orthodoxy.

Anyway, we sold them their books.

*This post was originally published on my other blog about seven years ago. I have re-posted it because Joel Anderson mentioned it in his blog resurrecting orthodoxy.