Dear Thorpe Mennonite Evangelists,

Recently I received your two pamphlets "Tobacco and Your Heart" and "Can We Escape Reality?" as they were passed out at the UWEC campus. When your distributor handed them to me, he asked "Would you like to learn more about the Gospel?"

Now, take note, I never said I wanted to learn more about the Gospel, but as a church-attending confirmed Roman Catholic, I thought, "What more can I learn about the Gospel?" But learn I did! The plethora of information found in the first three pages alone of the "Tobacco and Your Heart" pamphlet is enough to make me the king of any trivial pursuit game. And the multiplication skills! The heart has beaten 2,575,440,000 times by age 70? Somebody must've busted out a massive multiplication table for that one.

Note: I have yet to learn anything about the Gospel.

The next two pages further confirm the complete inadequacy of this pamphlet. Thomas A. Edison, the newfound expert on the dangers of tobacco use, is cited saying "acrolein poison has a violent action on the nerve center, producing degeneracy of the cells of the brain..." Granted, you lose brain cells hitting your head against the wall. But I don"t get pamphlets about that. Thomas A. Edison is also cited with "I employ no one smoking cigarettes." It's too bad he isn't employing anymore. It's also odd your pamphlet fails to mention his preference in hiring whites over blacks.

I continue reading, and get told that furfural causes trembling and twisting, and in larger doses, convulsions and muscular paralysis in humans. Then suddenly I think: Wait, how do we know this? Are we just feeding people furfural pills? And how about the unsubstantiated "If you smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, you would inhale 400 milligrams of nicotine a week. That much nicotine in a single dose would kill you as quick as a bullet." Wow. It's a good thing nobody smokes SEVEN PACKS AT ONCE.

As for the mysterious "British Doctor" that says "offering a cigarette to a friend should be considered a social crime." Thank you, Orwell! Let's just throw out the Bill of Rights, too, because a "British Doctor" says it's a crime.

Page 6: "After laboring against tobacco poisons and abuses of alcohol and disease, the faithful little organ, the heart, finally stops." Now wait a second. When were we talking about alcohol or disease? And how exactly does one abuse a disease?

And note: What about the Gospel?

The next page, Hallelujah, finally starts citing the Gospel. Granted, it is in the form of poorly disguised demagoguery with really no relation to tobacco anyhow. In fact, every Gospel reference is taken out of context and coupled with a personal idea or "revelation," tobacco/alcohol never once the subject of a Gospel statement. In fact, I'm surprised there was no reference to the famous "water to wine" story. But Jesus never drank the filthy alcohol, right?

The cut and paste Gospel pieces do such a good job of confusing the reader in what the Gospel really says and what is truly sin that, by the time the last two paragraphs of "Repent or Hell" is reached, some may actually believe they are on the their way to hell from your misleading and incomplete pamphlet. But Praise the Lord! The Gospel is not done teaching its word! For "Can We Escape Reality?", the centerpiece story told by Ed Sillman, the pamphlet lists drug names in a drawing of an outdoor music festival.

What caught my eye was the listing of Peyote, the cactus held sacred by the Navajos of New Mexico. I thought religious persecution ended in this country with the first Amendment, but you good fellas are keeping it going strong!

The pamphlet tells the story of Ed Sillman, who, upon the miraculous discovery of the Lord Jesus Christ, found his way out of his terrible sins and misery and now wants to spread the word to join him in the "light of reality." He tells us, "My repeated futile attempts to find meaning, purpose, and just something to live for through drugs, sports, music, sex, and such-like, left me with nothing but frustration and shattered hopes." I never knew the Gospel condemned so many things! How many years my empty life has been spent sinning over prescription drugs, marital sex, sports and music!

Note: I'm still looking for Gospel teaching.

There are some references from John: "He that hat the Son hath life; and he that hat not the Son of God have not life." Really? Well, okay, that's coo—wait, wasn't this about drugs? "He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." Really? Well, okay, that's coo—wait, what about drugs?

Other Gospel references include John's description of Satan, John's description of Jesus, and Matthew's description of Jesus. Note: I'm still looking for original Gospel teaching.

Great. I've learned nothing new about the Gospel. Should you return to UWEC, please come with more informational, less misleading pamphlets. And then, if you do come, there's something called a "target audience". This means that when you see someone sitting 5 feet away from you who's smoking, don't pass the pamphlets out to me when I walk out of the building. Give it to those who are sinning.

Well, your definition of "sinning," anyhow.

Thank you!
Tyler Lewis

Footnote: Tyler Lewis's grandfather is an ordained Roman Catholic Priest following the death of his grandmother from smoking-induced lung cancer.