My Introduction to Christian Publishing

My introduction to “Christian publishing” was in 1973.  I was a practicing lawyer in Orange County, California where I was in partnership with another lawyer, whom I had had the privilege of leading to Christ about 3 years earlier.  My partner and I were feeling our way along as we tried to determine what it meant to be Christian attorneys.  We were young; he was 30 and I was 29.  We had both left the safety of employment with other law firms to find our own way in the practice of law.

I was practicing law because I had felt a clear call on my life throughout high school, college and law school.  God had made me for it.  I graduated from UCLA Law School in 1968 after having received my bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Baylor University.  While in law school I had the opportunity to take a course in copyright under the teaching of Professor Melville Nimmer, the author of a multi-volume treatise on copyright that was and is “the” treatise on the subject matter.  He was the undisputed “expert” on the subject of copyright in the United States.  I took the class because of interest in the idea of intellectual property, and because it fit into my schedule.  Even after I had completed the class, I had no idea if I would ever have an opportunity to actually use my acquired knowledge of copyright law.

By 1973 I had had enough experience in the practice of law to understand that Christians needed legal advice, counsel, and representation in their affairs and that there was a desire of many to have such provided to them from someone who not only understood the realities of the law, but who also understood the Christian worldview.  One day I received a phone call from a man who identified himself as the president of a Christian publishing company that had been established in Orange County about 18 months before.  He explained that he and his partner had invited Hal Lindsey, author of the multi-million copy selling book, The Late Great Planet Earth, to join them in the launch of a new publishing house by allowing them to publish his next book, There’s a New World Coming.  The three of them owned all the stock in the publishing house: the president had 50%, his publishing partner had 40% and Hal Lindsey had 10%.

The publishing house had been very successfully launched with the publication of Lindsey’s book, followed by the publication of a number of other titles.  They were off to a great start.  However, it soon became very clear that the president and his partner had very different views on how to operate a publishing house.  The president had come out of a sales background and his partner had come out of an editorial background.  By the time the president came to visit me, the two of them could not agree on anything in the business; not even the color of the toilet paper.

The management disagreements between the two men became so great that there was a complete deadlock in management because Hal Lindsey sided with the partner of the president, resulting in a 50/50 deadlock.  The president had come to consult with me that day as to what could be done legally to resolve the deadlock.  I had to advise him that, under California law, there was no way to force a resolution of the deadlock, they would have to find a mutually acceptable way out of the deadlock or they would have to close down the publishing house.

In short, my introduction to Christian publishing was a fight amongst Christians.  Fortunately, I was ultimately able to help the president of Vision House Publishing, Jack Hanslick, his partner, Bob Hawkins, and Hal Lindsey find a way to resolve their dispute and we created two publishing houses out of the one.  Vision House continued and closed years later, while a new publishing house was born named Harvest House Publishers.  Few people are aware that I did the legal work to create Harvest House Publishers.  Shortly after that I was asked to do the legal work to create the then-new trade association of Christian publishers, the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, for whom I served as outside general counsel for the next 16 years.  I had the blessing of finding myself immersed in Christian publishing in its very formative days, which I will write about more in future posts.