Chain Letters – why I disapprove

Have you ever had one of those letters which promised you eight thousand pounds if you just sent off one pound to the top address in the accompanying list? The principle is that you duplicate the letter and send it to 20 people (within 2 days), adding your address as the third in the list. These each send it to another 20 (400 altogether) with your name moved up to number two, and these in turn each send it to 20 people (8000 in all) with your name now in first place. Hence in 6 days, eight thousand people will each send you a pound.

You can’t fault the mathematics, but it only works if everyone keeps to the rules. I once (against my better judgement) took part in a similar scheme whereby you sent off a bar of chocolate and received back 36 bars. The principle was the same as above, but this time there were only two names on the list and you each sent the letter to only six other people. I didn’t expect to receive as many as 36, but half a dozen would have been nice. I received zero.

It is actually a good thing that people break the chain. In my initial example, if one person starts the letter and everyone responds in 2 days, then 18 days later there will be 25 billion people trying to send a letter (that’s several letters per person on the planet). At the end of one month every single person on the planet will be attempting to post billions of separate pound coins each day in response to the billions of letters they are each receiving.

With the advent of email the chain letter has come into its own and not all are obvious. There are warnings about viruses that simply must be passed on to everyone in your address book. Sometimes these claim to be from official sources like the police – as if the police would utilise chain emails to spread such warnings! There are worthy petitions to be signed. There are good Christian messages, often accompanied by high quality graphics. The latest I have come across (and didn’t even recognise at first) is my blog being ‘tagged’ (see previous post) by a fellow blogger. What all these have in common is that you are asked to pass on the message to others.

Whilst I sometimes enjoy the message / joke / whatever, and whilst I appreciate being thought of as worthy of receiving such friendly messages, if I find that the bottom line is “send this on to six / ten / all of your friends”, then I have a simple rule. I don’t. Why should I put my friends under an obligation, however slight, to pass on what I send to them? If I send something enjoyable or interesting with no strings attached and they choose to forward it, then well and good. But it seems to me an unwarranted imposition to build in to any message an expectation that my friends pass it on to their friends.

It occurs to me that if I am to remain true to this principle I ought to be careful how I preach on evangelism. I shouldn’t expect people to share their faith with others because I tell them they ought to. Rather I should encourage them to get so excited about their faith that they simply have to share it with others because it’s too good to keep to themselves.