Christian goods flow into mainstream
By GWEN FLORIO
Copyright 2003 Denver Post
CHRISTIAN books on the bestseller lists. Christian hip-hop in the Top 10. Christian computer games for the kids, Christian movies at the multiplex, Christian greeting cards in the Hallmark stores, Christian clothing -- from poke-bonnet modest to baggy-pants X-treme -- on the Web.
It's as though somebody looked around and asked, "What would Jesus buy?"
Christianity hasn't just entered the mainstream, it is swimming to the lead.
Bill Anderson, head of the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based Christian Booksellers Association, says that's because more people are "looking to root themselves in a world full of turbulence and instability."
Here's another possibility: More companies are looking to make money.
The Christian retail industry accounts for $4.2 billion in annual sales, up from $1 billion in 1980, according to the booksellers group.
"Mainstream culture has discovered them as a huge profit-making potential," says Michael Cromartie, director of the Evangelical Studies Project at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Just a few examples:
Radio, the Cuba Gooding movie heavily previewed to church groups, has been on the Top 10 box office list since its release. Gooding previously starred in the gospel-music comedy The Fighting Temptations, also advertised to Christian audiences. And the movie adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books -- which the devoutly Catholic author specifically revised to include Christian themes when he published them in the 1950s -- have all been blockbusters.
Southern Baptist pastor Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life is No. 1 on the Publishers Weekly hardcover nonfiction bestseller list, where it's been comfortably ensconced for 46 weeks.
Religious books accounted for 4 percent of the $13.2 billion book market in 2002, according to the American Booksellers Association. Zondervan, one of the leading Christian publishing houses, is now part of publishing giant Harper Collins.
The Procussions' As Iron Sharpens Iron spent several weeks on the CMJ's Top 20 Hip-Hop chart this fall. About 50 million Christian and gospel CDs were sold in 2001, comprising 7.7 percent of the market, according to Market Share Reporter.
And the syndicated radio programs of Dr. James Dobson, head of the giant Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family, reach 3,000 "radio facilities" around the country, compared to, say, 414 for National Public Radio's Fresh Air and just 46 for popular shock-jock Howard Stern. Arbitron lists 1,850 Christian stations among the nation's 13,700 radio stations.
All of this is good news for parents like Mike and Nancy Geegen. The Denver couple are conservative Christians, trying to raise four children to honor their religious values in the wildly secular society of mainstream America.
"I think it's a challenge for all of us," says Nancy Geegen, especially considering that "I truly believe that Scripture says we're called to be in the world, not of the world."
As her own children are exposed to what other families do for entertainment, Nancy Geegan says, "it's helpful to have things" -- computer games, videos and the like -- "that fit in with what we believe is right."
Christian-themed products have traditionally sold well. After all, they have a massive audience. In a Gallup poll conducted last month, 43 percent of those responding described themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians. The conservative Southern Baptist Convention is the country's second-largest denomination, after Catholics.
But until recently, it was as though evangelical Christians existed in a separate universe.
Conservative Christianity "used to be this parallel culture ignored by the mainstream media," Cromartie says.
"Now, people are saying that Rick Warren is having an influence. Well, he's been there all the while," he says of the author of The Purpose Driven Life.
The difference is that mainstream marketers and media outlets are finally taking notice.
"For years, there has been material that has come from a specifically Christian worldview and that is high quality, but it has stayed under wraps because it was only available in Christian stores," Gospel Music Association president John Styll says. "Now, because of retailers like Wal-Mart and others, it's finding a market."
Back in 1970, Hal Lindsey's The Late Great Planet Earth was a publishing sensation, eventually selling as many as 35 million copies.
But the title was largely absent from bestseller lists, which at the time tended to avoid niche titles "because it was religious," Cromartie says.
"Now the New York Times has suddenly realized that people are buying these books, so they put them on the list," he says.
New installments of the popular end-times Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins are regular residents on the Times' fiction bestseller list. Babylon Rising, a novel by LaHaye and Greg Dinallo, was No. 32 on the list last week.
With the added media recognition, the books are finding new audiences beyond their expected niche.
Also, younger Christians have much to do with the wider distribution, says Larry Eskridge of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College in Illinois.
"Fifty or 60 years ago, there tended to be an arm's-length relationship with popular culture," Eskridge says. Younger generations "have grown up with ... televisions in their homes and didn't necessarily see all of this stuff as the tool of the devil."
That newfound mainstream popularity -- LaHaye and Jenkins have held book-signings in Wal-Marts -- has had unforeseen consequences.
"The Christian stores are really seeing some difficult days," Anderson says, "partly because the availability of Christian books everywhere means that ... Christian stores are having to work hard to maintain their customer base."
Similar pressures have come to bear on shops that specialize in gay and ethnic literature as their products have gained shelf space in general bookstores. Barely more than half -- 54 percent -- of Christian books were sold in Christian bookstores in 2001, according to Market Share Reporter.
chron.com |
