BY SCOTT MARTELLE
Los Angeles Times
Pastor Rick Warren’s book of Christian guidance, “The Purpose-Driven Life,” has sold more than 21 million copies in more than 30 languages and, his publisher says, has helped countless Christians navigate questions of personal faith.
But a single chapter read aloud Saturday in a suburban Atlanta apartment might well become the book’s biggest success story.
Ashley Smith, who was held captive for 7½ hours Saturday by the man accused of killing an Atlanta judge and three others, told interviewers Monday that a passage from Warren’s book seemed to help persuade her captor to set her free.
“This is, I would say, one of the more dramatic, if not the most dramatic (testimonials) I’m aware of,” said Vicki Cessna, spokeswoman for Christian publisher Zondervan in Grand Rapids, Mich. “Obviously the book has had far-reaching, life-changing influences for millions of people. We’re just honored that this in any way helped facilitate a positive outcome for Ashley.”
It was the fifth-biggest seller last year at Barnes & Noble stores around the country, and though it had recently ranked about No. 50 on Amazon.com’s hourly list of best sellers, by early Monday evening, after Smith’s comments received widespread publicity, the book jumped back into Amazon’s top five.
Warren’s book is a meditation aimed at helping Christians embrace the faith’s most fundamental belief — that they exist to serve God. Written in a direct, conversational style, Warren says in the introduction that the book should be read one chapter a day — a 40-day journey to “the answer to life’s most important question: What on Earth am I here for?”
But if “Purpose” is one of the best-known books ever written among American Christians, the book is largely unread by many non-Christians.
Smith told interviewers Monday that suspected killer Brian Nichols took her captive in her apartment early Saturday and briefly bound her with tape. He told her that he did not want to hurt her but would if the police came. He initially refused her request to let her go see her daughter.
Then Smith began talking about her husband, how he had been stabbed to death four years ago, and that if Nichols killed Smith, her daughter would be upset. “He still told me no,” Smith said in a CNN interview. “But I could kind of feel that he started to know who I was, and he said, “Maybe, maybe I’ll let you go. Just maybe. We’ll see how things go.’ ”
Smith later retrieved Warren’s book from her bedroom and started reading aloud Chapter 33, which focuses on the Christian concept that life is meant to be spent in service to God and others. He stopped her and asked to hear the beginning again, and then they discussed its theme.
Smith said she asked him what he thought her life’s purpose was. “He said, ‘I think it’s to talk to people and tell them about you.’ ” A few hours later, Smith said, Nichols let her leave, and she alerted police where to find him.
Later, she added, “After we began to talk, he said he thought that I was an angel sent from God. And that I was his sister and he was my brother in Christ. And that he was lost and God led him right to me to tell him that he had hurt a lot people.”
Smith continued: “After I started to read to him, he saw — I guess he saw my faith and what I really believed in. And I told him I was a child of God and that I wanted to do God’s will. I guess he began to want to. That’s what I think.”
Warren, a pastor from Orange County, Calif., who is in Uganda for meetings with African pastors, said in a statement that he and his wife, Kay, were “thankful that Ms. Smith was able to draw from the Scripture and her reading from ‘The Purpose-Driven Life’ to bring some hope to her captor’s life that was unraveling so tragically and dramatically.”
Warren is the founding pastor of the 20,000-member Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., one of the first and most successful of the “mega-churches.”
Warren was listed first among “20 Most Influential Evangelicals” in Time magazine, which called him the successor to Billy Graham for the role of “America’s minister.”
According to Warren’s Web site, ww.purposedrivenlife.com, God has five purposes for each of us:
• We were planned for God’s pleasure, so your first purpose is to offer real worship.
• We were formed for God’s family, so your second purpose is to enjoy real fellowship.
• We were created to become like Christ, so your third purpose is to learn real discipleship.
• We were shaped for serving God, so your fourth purpose is to practice real ministry.
• We were made for a mission, so your fifth purpose is to live out real evangelism.