2010 Reprint of 1899 Edition. First published in 1896, the fictional book has sold more than 30,000,000 copies, and ranks as the 39th best-selling book of all time. In 1896 Sheldon developed a sermon story that he read as a weekly series from the pulpit of his church in Topeka, Kansas. The unifying theme of these sermons was based on posing the question, "what would Jesus do?" when facing moral decisions. The theme of the sermons was later fictionalized into the novel In His Steps. The central ethos of the novel was not about personal redemption but about moral choices related to encountering circumstances of poverty and deprivation. Sheldon's own parish work became identified with the Social Gospel, an expression of early Liberal Christianity.