Capitalism's Bibles
The Word of the Lord?Never pass up a story idea if you have one. I had been wanting to write about the incredible and perplexing Bible publishing industry. Alas the WSJ beat me to it. At the end of the Wall Street Journal article (which I can't find online), "Heavens, Bibles are really Booming" a Mr. O'Brien says ( a rep from Tyndale), "The question is always how to we create Bibles that people will pick up and use but that will not be too gimmicky."
Admitting that I cannot sort one publisher's wares from another's, the article does talk about the recent innovations in packaging the Holy Scriptures. Tyndale, has plans to release a Bible that looks like a flattened Nalgene bottle. But perhaps you just want your Bible to match your outfit or outlook.
The pink and brown model has been particularly popular. Bibles are also available. in the colors of your college, with a fur cover, a flower patterned cover, and to appeal to young adherents, with a camouflage cover, a metal cover and a duct-tape cover. ...
But Bibles are becoming as much personal statements as fashion statements. "What people are saying is 'I want to find a Bible that is really me," noted Rodney Hatfield, a vice president of marketing at Thomas Nelson. "It's no different than with anything else in our culture." - Joanne Kauffman
Exactly. Now I'm willing to go a long way in allowing good salt of the earth folks to do what they can to make themselves interested in their religion. There have always been complaints from certain upstanding religious folks about "kitsch" in religion. I imagine this complaint is based less on concern for souls than concern for appearances. "I don't want to be associated with one of those bog-Catholics."
But duct-tape? This assertion that this is "no different than anything else in our culture" sounds more like an indictment, no?
Michael Brendan Dougherty
in Religion
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