December 1, 2009

In 1998, John Wood was a rising executive at Microsoft when a vacation in Nepal changed his life. By 2000 he had quit his job and started the nonprofit Room to Read organization, which has since grown with astonishing speed. In partnership with local communities, Room to Read has established more than 7,000 bilingual libraries and 700 schools in developing countries—and funded the education of nearly 7,000 girls.

As the first decade of the 21st century comes to a close, the U.S. finds itself in a mess of historic proportions. Our economic crisis was preceded by a near-universal collapse in judgment about the use of U.S. military force abroad. This mess is profoundly embarrassing because it is of our own making and therefore one that could have been avoided.

To: John
From: Harold Sniveling, Acquisitions Editor
Re: Your submission

Our editorial team has had the opportunity to work through your manuscript. Your “Gospel” does not fit our publishing needs at this time. While undeniably sincere, the work is marred by undeveloped characters, uneven plot, choppy style and numerous digressions. To be more specific, I include below our reader’s report.

According to a Time magazine article earlier this year, the “New Calvinism” is one of “ten ideas changing the world right now” (March 23). The New Cal vinists cited include megachurch pastor and author John Piper of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis; R. Albert Mohler Jr., head of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louis ville, who has remade the seminary according to a Calvinist agenda; and raw, hip pastor-author Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle.

In the make-believe world of The Invention of Lying, everyone strictly obeys God’s ninth commandment. Alas, in spinning this ambitious morality play, the filmmakers violate a screenwriting commandment: thou shalt not get cold feet in the third act.

The characters are truthful not because they want to be; they just don’t know any better. Their DNA doesn’t permit them to lie to their spouses, call in sick when they’re feeling fine or tell their children that Santa is real. Of course, this also means they can’t fudge the truth to spare others’ feelings.