Source: The Washington Post
On October 15, 2000, The Washington
Post reported that "secular retailers such as Barnes & Noble, Kmart,
Hecht's and Amazon.com...are selling more items tied to religion and
spirituality than ever. What's more, they're carrying them year-round, not
just around religious holidays. That doesn't mean traditional religious
retailers are being left behind. They're experiencing increased demand as
well. One sign of confidence in the trend: Earlier this year, Potomac
Adventist Book and Health Food Store opened the world's largest Christian
bookstore in Silver Spring. The store will have plenty to sell. Bibles and
prayer books, inspirational volumes, New Age treatises, books on
philosophy and Eastern religion--all are selling in unprecedented numbers,
with sales having grown by a third over the past five years, from $ 1.69
billion to a projected $ 2.24 billion this year, according to the Book
Industry Study Group. Then there's religious music, which accounts for
more than 5 percent of all music sales and, according to the Recording
Industry Association, outsells such categories as classical, jazz and
soundtracks. Shoppers are also buying gold crosses on chains, Buddhist
power-bead bracelets, watches with prayer compasses for Muslims and
baseball caps with major-league team names rendered in Hebrew
characters.
"Why the spiritual surge? The dawn of a new
millennium? Aging baby boomers seeking spirituality? The void perceived by
some at the center of the nation's unprecedented affluence? There's 'a
genuine revulsion at a purely mercantile view of reality,' said Luke
Timothy Johnson, Woodruff Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins
at Emory University's Candler School of Theology. 'But what's odd, of
course, is that we express that through another form of consumerism.'"