Who knew 'A Great Controversy’ would arrive in the mail?

Remnant Publications, a Christian publishing house based in Coldwater, Mich., sent 350,000 copies of a religious tract to residents all over the city.

The book, “The Great Controversy,” has the cramped text of a Dover Thrift edition and the lurid glowing cover of an old copy of “Dianetics.”

In case you immediately chucked your copy into the recycling bin, here’s what was inside: hundreds of pages of religious history.

White was one of those prototypical American figures who had visions, advocated vegetarianism and co-founded a Protestant denomination (in her case, the Seventh-day Adventist Church).

Who decides to bring the Gospel to San Francisco using the U.S. Postal Service and a 159-year-old book?

“That’s a very wise question that I’m glad you asked,” said Dwight Hall, the founder of Remnant Books, when I called him for some explanations this week.

Hall is 58 years old, a self-described “techie,” and a former engineer who designed suspension systems for trucks.

[...] when he rededicated his life to the Lord, he began to listen to people whose minds have not been lost among the technological jungles of the Bay Area.

Apparently there are plenty of residents in all of those areas who believed that their city needed to be reminded of what Hall calls “the danger of lowering our standards and the continuing threat to America’s greatness in the world.”

People in the Bay Area, they do pay attention.

Caille Millner is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.