Christian Book Store: Unfortunate Represenation of Mainstream Christian Culture

So I was thinking the other day about the culture of Christianity. We have a very unique culture - and sometimes that is not a very good thing. Actually most times that is not a very good thing. Christianity is often far behind the rest of society concerning trends, style, fashion, and popularity. This is not to say that religion should be a popularity contest or on the up-and-up with Vogue or US Weekly or anything like that. But much of Christianity is out of touch with society and not relevant with the daily lives of people. What am I talking about? Let me entertain you with an example.


Christian culture is the exact same as a normal Christian book store. There are dozens of reasons why this is almost a perfect mold of Christian culture. Anyone who has ever been inside of a Christian book store can attest to the accuracy of the following claims. Here are a couple examples of how current Christian culture is like a Christian book store.

1) The Music: Right when you walk into a Christian bookstore, you are quietly bombarded by the magical mistings of praise, worship, and contemporary Christian music. It is a light and airy effervescence that permeates everything around you. This is exactly like our Christian culture. It is not church or a Christian gathering unless there is "Christian music" playing somewhere in the foreground or background. Also, just as you will never hear Jack Johnson or Dear and the Headlights in a Christian book store - most "non-Christian music" is not a part of mainstream Christian culture. It is just not something that we encourage or allow. We only allow the soft tones of worship music in our book stores and our lives.

2) The Books: Not like it is a bad thing or anything, but Christian book stores only have Christian books. I mean, I totally understand it. It is a niche market; therefore, Christian bookstores sell Christian books. But it just feels like the only things that we should read or watch should be Christian. Christian culture shows a strong disregard for most things that are not 'Christian'. We should only read Christian books and things. Just like the Christian book stores - Christian culture presents that the only valuable things to us are explicitly Christian.

3) The People: Christian books stores generally attract one type of person: Christians. They have Christian books, music, videos, gifts - and all of these things are made for Christians. The only people that come through the doors are Christian. It is like a world unto its own. This is the exact same with our current Christian culture. In our own little Christian culture we have made a world entirely for ourselves. We are the only ones that are in it, and everything that we are about is for us and by us. Just like a Christian book store - Christian culture only attracts one type of person: Christians.


These are just three of the examples that show how the Christian book store represents mainstream Christian culture. There are many other parallels, as well. Both Christian book stores and Christian culture rely on old and un-imaginative marketing. Both Christian book stores and Christian culture use products and strategies that are not relevant at all toward people's everyday lives. There are lots of other ways that these two are extremely similar, as well.


I guess I point all this out just to say this: we have to make our Christian culture relevant again. Just as a normal person off the street wouldn't walk into a Christian book store for basically any reason - a normal person off the street would not fit into mainstream Christian culture, either. We have to update our Christian culture to make it more relevant and in tune with today's society and the daily life of Average Joe.


Actually, we should update Christian book stores, too.