Stupid Evil Bastard: Christian materialism rakes in the cash.

Christian materialism rakes in the cash.

Posted by Les on Monday, December 24, 2007 at 02:35 PM. Read 803 times. Tags: business, consumerism, jesus, religion

I thought this Denver Post article on the rise in popularity of Christian themed stuff was just the ticket on the Eve of one of the most materialistic days of the year. Not that there’s anything wrong with that:

Among the items that one could put under the Christmas tree:

• An action figure of Jesus surfing.

• A doll named “Faith” holding a tiny Bible.

• A piece from the Psalm 23 jewelry collection.

Welcome to the world of Christian retail.

Since the 1980s, when the main product was the Bible, the evangelical retail market has soared.

This Christmas there are evangelical Christian toys, DVDs, candies, wines, alarm clocks and books.

The creator of G.I. Joe action figures, Don Levine, is offering a line called Almighty Heroes, featuring Moses, Samson and other Bible characters.

Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, is carrying Christian action figures from One2believe in 425 of its stores.

A “Pick Jesus” T-shirt is available from Amazon.com.

“After 40 years in the business,” said Bill Anderson, president of the Christian retail association CBA, “I know that both retailers and consumers always desire creative and fresh ways to express their faith.”

I suppose one could argue in their defense that it’s not like they can take their money with them once they’re raptured so they may as well spend it on this stuff. The retailers certainly aren’t complaining:

To be sure, other religions also have their product lines. Jewishsource.com. offers a hand-painted, wooden 10 Plagues bowling set. And one also can purchase Buddha pencil toppers.

The Christian market, however, with almost 70 million American adults and $2.1 trillion, or 28 percent of the national annual income in 2006, is the main event.

$2.1 trillion in Christian kitsch being sold every year? Holy crap! That’s some serious scratch for the money changers to be bringing home. I may be in the wrong line of work. I need to be slapping Jesus’ image on as many things as I can and getting them in the local WalMart!

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Comments:

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Canis

Posted on 12/24/2007 at 04:12 PM

I think they meant that the 70 million Christian adults are earning $2.1 trillion a year

God I hope that’s what they meant

I just couldn’t take anything serious anymore if it turned out people were spending more on Jesus toys than.... well.... I really can’t think of anything as a good comparison, what’s cancer research costing nowadays?

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Frac

Posted on 12/25/2007 at 02:24 AM

I read it the same way as Canis. However, if a good chunk of them are paying 10% tithe (or simply dropping a fiver in a plate once a week), the amount of cash being wasted on pointless gesticulations is obscene.

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Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione.

Les

Posted on 12/25/2007 at 10:44 AM

You guys are probably right. I had little dollar signs clogging up my vision once I saw the words $2.1 trillion and couldn’t read the rest of the article.

And little “cha-ching” sounds in my ears. It was a wondrous and beautiful experience that has change my life forever!

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When one reads Bibles, one is less surprised at what the Deity knows than at what He doesn’t know.
-- Mark Twain

Bog Brother

Posted on 12/25/2007 at 11:27 AM

It was a wondrous and beautiful experience that has change my life forever!

HAIL-LEH-LEW-YA! PA-RAISE THE LAWD! THERE IS GOLD IN DEM DERE HILLS!

Anyway, it’s actually pretty simple to make Christian merchandise. Here’s all ya gotta do. Find something non-christian, like for example, Pokemon cards, that has sold well in the past (Pokemon are still popular with the kids right?). Anyway, try to get something that is currently selling like hotcakes. Don’t try to come up with any original ideas, there is just no need for that level of effort.

OK, so once you have your non-Christian product line, just go ahead and change it to be Christian. In our above example, I guess you would make a collectible card game where the kid playing has to go around and “catch” bible characters, and his best friend that helps him in subduing the other characters can be Jesus. The Kid have a magical Bible that he can capture the characters in...OOH! Satan zapped his Bible, making all the characters come to life and flee across the world. The kid has now got to travel across the world, making his Jesus battle the others and put them back in the Book one by one. Gotta catch ‘em all! We could even call it something lame like, Biblemon.

Anyway, “Got Jesus” bumper stickers are still selling like hotcakes, so this should work quite well.

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I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous - if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men.

-Robert G. Ingersoll

Bahamat

Posted on 12/25/2007 at 04:33 PM

BB: Find something non-christian, like for example, Pokemon cards

I would like to try, for fun, convincing a xian that pokemon cards were a christian relic - or that you can see the image of JC in Pikachu

Oh yeah, bibleopoly has been done

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You don’t need to end all existence to end all suffering

Canis

Posted on 12/25/2007 at 10:44 PM

you may struggle finding anyone gullible enough to believe that Jesus actually owned a deck of Pokemon cards

especially since they are the work of Stan, Satan’s only marginally evil cousin

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Bog Brother

Posted on 12/26/2007 at 01:07 AM

I would like to try, for fun, convincing a xian that pokemon cards were a christian relic - or that you can see the image of JC in Pikachu

The name of the game is marketing, not archeology.

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-Robert G. Ingersoll

Bahamat

Posted on 12/26/2007 at 02:05 PM

I have evidence, the best kind; anecdotal

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Bog Brother

Posted on 12/26/2007 at 08:05 PM

Ugh, Bahamat, your link to Biblopoly is dead there boss. You probably meant BIBLEOPOLY

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-Robert G. Ingersoll

Bog Brother

Posted on 12/26/2007 at 08:07 PM

However, I think the Ghettopoly and Redneckopoly are probably more fun to play Ghettopoly

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-Robert G. Ingersoll

Bahamat

Posted on 12/26/2007 at 09:02 PM

hmm… I don’t know why it’s dead, but it is now for me too. At the time it worked (was a copy and paste from address bar), I would have first thought it was the server, but the main site works so maybe not.

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Bog Brother

Posted on 12/27/2007 at 09:30 AM

The difference was a set of parenthesis that somebody seems to have added to the address. Other than that, the one you posted and the one I posted appear the same:

Bahamat posted:
http://www.boardgamecompany.co.uk/BibleopolyLS8.htm

I posted:
http://www.boardgamecompany.co.uk/BibleopolyLS8.htm

HEY! What the fuck!?!?! That is not the hyperlink I entered! Les, is there something in the blog code that removes parenthesis from hyperlinks?

Anyway, the correct one should be:
http://www.boardgamecompany.co.uk/Bibleopoly(LS8).htm

Guess we now see what the true culprit is...the evil internets trying to make certain of us look crazy.

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-Robert G. Ingersoll

Les

Posted on 12/27/2007 at 03:12 PM

I believe EE does do some sanitizing of links to try and insure they match the proper standards. Unless I’m mistaken valid URLs shouldn’t have parenthesis in them.

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When one reads Bibles, one is less surprised at what the Deity knows than at what He doesn’t know.
-- Mark Twain

Bahamat

Posted on 12/27/2007 at 04:50 PM

Interestingly quirky rule - maybe it’s that parenthesis are an easy marker for something (of which I have no idea which makes me wonder why it came to mind)- i don’t really know what i’m saying, beena long day… zzzzz

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