Good books: Christian booksellers say sales continue to boom

Stacy J. Willis

Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2001 | 9:27 a.m.

Jesus sells.

The economy is slumping and church attendance is returning to pre-Sept. 11 levels, but sales of Bibles and other Christian products show no sign of slowing down, Christian booksellers say.

"Business has been continually increasing since Sept. 11 and into the Christmas season," said Arlene Drost, manager of Family Christian Store on Decatur Boulevard.

"The main seller is the Bible, and then prophecy books, and end times books (about the Christian interpretation of the end of the world)...

"There seems to be a lot more searching, a lot more serious reading than just gift stuff," Drost said. "But we do sell a tremendous amount of T-shirts that say, 'One Nation Under God,' and patriotic key chains and bumper stickers. It's all still selling really strong."

Nationwide, retail sales of Bibles are up 40 percent since Sept. 11, said Cris Doornbas, vice president of sales at Zondervan, a Michigan-based Bible publisher. Zondervan is the largest Bible publisher in the world -- it printed 7.1 million Bibles in 10 different versions in 2000.

Doornbas said there has been a 9.8 percent improvement this year in sales of Christian books generally -- in a year that has been "flat as a pancake for the publishing industry as a whole."

This latest peak in Christian book sales is in keeping with the general upward trend of religious product sales in the past decade.

Sales of all spiritual books increased 150 percent from 1991 to 1997, while the rest of the publishing industry experienced only a 35 percent growth, according to a national survey by the Book Industry Study Group.

The Christian Booksellers' Association, which includes 75 percent of the nation's 3,500 Christian retailers, estimates that more than $3 billion in Christian books sell each year in the United States.

And contemporary Christian music turns over more cash than either jazz or classical CD sales.

"Religion products have been one of the fastest growing categories for several years running," Doornbas said. "And now we're seeing that turn to a distinctly Christian market."

The average Christian shopper, according to the Christian Booksellers Association, is a well-educated Caucasian, 30 to 49 years old, with a net income of more than $40,000.

Products are increasingly geared toward a market that is not steeped in religious history -- the so-called religious "seekers."

The days of pouring over the King James are past. Bibles are available today in dozens of easier-to-digest versions: The Adventure Bible, The Men's Devotional Bible, the Teen Study Bible, the Collegiate Devotional Bible, the Ultra Thin Giant Print Bible, the Daily Walk Bible. Prices range from about $20 to more than $100.

At the Family Christian Store on Stephanie Street, there is a section devoted to patriotic products.

For $7.95, you can pick up a silver bracelet inscribed with "God Bless America," or for $9.99, a CD called "America's Favorite Patriotic Songs."

Or you can buy Zondervan's latest publication -- a red, white and blue book called "God's Grace From Ground Zero," written by the Rev. Jim Cymbala, a Bronx pastor whose congregation was directly affected by the attacks on the World Trade Center.

"One thing we haven't done is become opportunistic since Sept. 11," Doornbas said. "That would be in especially bad taste for a Christian publisher. Jim Cymbala contacted us because he had something to share."

Two of Zondervan's three best-selling post-Sept. 11 titles are "Where is God When it Hurts?" and "God Bless America," two books that were already in publication before the attacks.

Sales go hand-in-hand with the belief that religion is more important since Sept. 11.

A report released last week by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life showed that 78 percent of Americans believe that the influence of religion is increasing in American society -- up 37 percent over last year.

The telephone survey of 1,500 U.S. adults was conducted by the Princeton Survey Research Associates from Nov. 13 to 19.

The survey also showed that 44 percent of respondents say they pray more since Sept. 11, and 16 percent were attending church more in mid-November -- down from the mid-September attendance peak of more than 40 percent.