Where’s the dedication???

As many of you know, we have dedicated our work to the Lord Jesus since the very first edition of our book in 1993. In each edition we have included a passsage of Scripture on the Dedication page, almost all of which have been “praise” passages. We use a blend of Old Testament and New Testament, with more OT than NT verses being used over the years. To put it simply, we use our Authors’ Dedication page to acknowledge and praise our Lord.

This year, there is no page that dedicates the book to the Lord Jesus. We’ve received a flood of e-mails from readers concerned about the “missing” dedication.

No, we did not drop our book’s dedication to the Lord; it was removed by the publisher! During the last 11 years, W.B. Saunders Company, the publisher, was owned by Harcourt. Last year Harcourt sold the W.B. Saunders “imprint” to Elsevier, a huge, multinational company based in Europe. We heard rumblings of the new owner’s displeasure with our dedication at the very first meeting we had with the new people, but we made it clear that we had no intentions of dropping or changing our dedication.

This year, we chose Isaiah 40:28-31 for our Scripture verse. (... Those who wait for the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles...) After our final deadline, we received an e-mail from our editor saying that Elsevier (actually, it appears to be a collaboration of four people there) wanted us to remove the dedication. An excerpt of our editor’s e-mail follows:

“Back when Saunders was a smaller company, most of its customers were in the United States. Religious minorities were less vocal and politically correct communications were rare. Now, Saunders is part of a truly international company, Elsevier. We have customers in all countries and with all religions, and some of them are insulted by religious passages in books that are not about religion. The Saunders Pharmaceutical Word Book is intended for a US audience, but the US audience is more diverse than it used to be. And people in other countries, India for example, are also buying the book. We don’t want to alienate our customers. And it's not appropriate to bring religion into a pharmaceutical reference. I’m asking you to please delete the religious acknowledgement and the Bible passage...”

We answered her e-mail with a two-page letter, excerpted below:

“You allude to “religious minorities” that are now more vocal. We've published 15 editions (including the Xref book) in the past 11 years. We've put a different Scripture verse in each edition, beginning with the first edition in 1993. In all that time, we have received exactly two negative e-mails about the inclusion of Scripture in the book. That’s not a bad percentage for a title that’s sold over a quarter million copies! In contrast, we’ve received several dozen e-mails thanking us for including the Scripture, and telling us what a blessing it’s been. So where are the “vocal” minorities who object to it? It seems that we only hear from the “vocal” majority who like it!

“And where are the “customers in all countries with all religions” that are “insulted” by religious passages in books that are not about religion? Do they have names? Have you received a stack of letters and e-mails from these “insulted” people? Or are you just anticipating a problem where no problem really exists? ...

“Here's the bottom line: We will not drop the Authors’ Dedication page. We will add a line saying “Authors’ Dedication” if you’d like, just to make it crystal clear to everyone that it’s our dedication and that Elsevier doesn’t buy into the Jesus thing.”

We received no response to that letter, but a couple of weeks later they sent word that the book was being printed, but they’d removed our dedication page before going to press.

In the first week following publication, we received eight e-mails from people who are disappointed that the dedication is gone. (And so far, we have yet to receive a single e-mail thanking us for removing it!) Should you wish to express your pleasure or displeasure over the dedication’s removal, we invite you to send an e-mail to the four people involved in making that decision:

(Note: Three of the four have left the company. [They’re gone, and we’re still here! What does that tell you?] Since they no longer have a way to reverse their previous decision, we've removed their names and e-mail addresses from this page archive. At the end of time, all four will answer to the Almighty for their decision. If you’d like the name and e-mail address of the remaining person at Elsevier who is in control of the dedication’s removal, drop us a note at the e-mail address in the Preface of your book and we’ll be happy to pass it along.)

Please understand that we, the authors, have not stopped our dedication to the Lord Jesus. The publisher has simply stopped us from expressing that dedication within the pages of our books. Thank you for your understanding and continued support.

May God richly bless you and your family at Christmas and throughout the New Year!

 

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