W H Smith have recently produced a brochure listing over a thousand titles available through their branches. These cover everything from taxation to tobacco, tropical fish to family trees, accountancy to zoom lenses!
WHAT ARE PEOPLE READING?
An analysis of the available printed matter is fascinating. Did you know, for instance, there are over 60 magazines dealing with computing? (Which one does your pastor read?) Looking at what is available, we begin to grasp the sorts of things that are holding the hearts and minds of the population. Many magazines are devoted to women's fashion, including 14 on hairstyles alone! Another dozen or more cover slimming and similar subjects.
Not surprisingly, a large number of periodicals are concerned with hobbies, sports and pastimes. Ten, most of them monthly, deal with hi-fi equipment. With other titles concentrating on cars, photography, antiques and video and TV, we easily deduce that the nation's reading habits are in harmony with the rampant materialism that has gripped men and women everywhere.
It is no surprise to find Marks and Spencer, and others, actually selling their catalogues as enjoyable reading, or to find the British edition of GQ selling itself as the most sophisticated, up-market magazine for affluent men whose ethos is success with style.
A depressing 71 periodicals contain nothing but crosswords and other puzzles. There is even a Christian Puzzler! If you can't beat them? Most disturbing are some of the 40 or more publications dealing with guns, martial arts and related themes. Many of the titles may be innocent enough but, with titles like Combat and Survival, Guns and Ammo and Survival Weaponry and Techniques freely available, one is inclined to be concerned.
Despite their conservative stance on the issue, even Smiths stock seven adult titles including Playboy and Gay News. There are also eight adult humour titles which include vulgar comics such as Viz.
THE YOUNG
The young are thoroughly supplied with nearly 50 children's comics, a host of titles aimed at older children and over 30 magazines devoted to pop music. No parent would ever have time to sift through this deluge and, therefore, it is vital that children from Christian homes be taught to think critically about what they read. We need to learn what James Sire has dubbed, how to read slowly. Another dozen titles are aimed at parents; others are for the elderly.
Other titles (e.g. Spare Rib and Marxism Today) remind us that virtually all the material available in the newsagents will be presenting life from a viewpoint that is contrary to Scripture.
RELIGIOUS PUBLICATIONS
The brochure does not list a number of religious titles, these are hidden away under general interest and are mainly the organs of the historic denominations. For some reason, Evangelical Times is not mentioned. Alongside these, it is sobering to find Horoscope, Psychic News and Zodiac. A new periodical, Green Magazine, is featured not just as a publication for our environment but also as a single point of reference for the growing number of individuals to whom Green is becoming a way of life.
LASTING SIGNIFICANCE
We ought not to think of magazines as entirely ephemeral. Currently, some 40 part-works are available, covering various subjects from aeroplanes to the zodiac. These build up into large reference tomes. Many of the world's greatest novels began life as magazine serials (Uncle Tom's Cabin, Middlemarch, Heart of Darkness, etc). Nearer to our own hearts, we remember that most of the very helpful messages of A W Pink appeared originally in magazine format (Studies in Scripture), and some of our best-loved hymns first saw the light of day in Christian periodicals (All hail the power, Revive Thy work, Beneath the cross of Jesus, etc). What were Spurgeon's printed sermons but a weekly bulletin of precious seed from the hand of Cod's servant? A wealth of fascinating material charting the history of revivals in this country lies buried in the denominational periodicals of the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
TAKE CARE!
There are many magazines of various sorts, Christian and secular. We have to be selective as to which we take. Let us try to read widely, making good use of libraries and friends. The magazine format is usually less demanding than books and we must be careful to avoid the ready reckoner mentality which receives information in pre-packed journalistic morsels. For news, book reviews, fresh insights and general stimulus the appropriate magazines are invaluable.
Finally, few can have failed to have seen two magazines - The Watchtower and Awake! - assiduously peddled by those who style themselves as Jehovah's Witnesses. Is there not some way that evangelicals could find of producing a high quality magazine for evangelistic use? Such a resource would be a major asset to the churches and an excellent tool for the advancement of Christ's Kingdom.
This article originally appeared in Grace Magazine in 1990
