If you were around in the 60's, you probably remember head shops. These were small retail stores which specialized in the accouterments of the dominant youth culture of the time, that of the hippies. In a head shop one could buy black lights and posters, jewelry, clothing, lava lamps, beads, literature and marijuana smoking accessories.

A head shop could provide you with just about everything you needed to be a hippie except for the drugs themselves and the hair. Head shops were to hippies what Abercrombie and Fitch is to outdoorsperson. The highly developed youth culture of the 60's has a 1990's parallel in evangelical Christianity. This group, like the hippies, has its own language, literature, music, and philosophy. Catering to this market is a kind of head shop for Christians, the Christian book store. While drug paraphernalia was the main attraction at the old style head shops, the Christian head shop features books. But like their drug-oriented cousins, the Christian head shop offers a wide array of products for the person who derives a good deal of her or his identity from the ability to identify with a group. One of my favorite places to visit when I feel in need of a little inspiration is probably the same one chosen by many of my Christian cohorts: The friendly, local Christian bookstore. Back in St. Louis (Seattle really sucks in this category) my favorite was the "World Aflame" bookstore. This highlight of Hazelwood was only a couple of miles from my home. There had been an even closer bookstore, but it apparently went out of business. The small, mom-and-pop Christian bookstores are fairly common, but they never seem to last very long.

The "World Aflame" bookstore is operated by a Pentecostal denomination, and seems to represent the mainstream of conservative, evangelical Protestantism. The store is very well appointed, in a modern building with a light, cheery interior. Aside from its stock, it is in most respects like any modern bookstore, much different from the dark, cluttered, but more eclectic bookstores of yesteryear. The range of items available is actually more appropriate to a gift shop than a book store. In addition to the usual books, bookmarks, and other book-oriented items, there is also a wide assortment of Christian paraphernalia. Did you ever wonder where people get some of those religious bumper stickers, such as "Jesus Happens" or "I'm Not Religious - I Just Love the Lord?" You can also pick up a nice fish symbol (ichthus) for your car. I used to identify these symbols, a representation of Christ in the Greek tradition, with Catholics, but now it seems they have become quite popular among Protestants, too. I notice that the Protestants are also adopting the Ash Wednesday ritual of anointing the forehead with palm ashes. Maybe the Protestants should start worrying about "creeping Catholicism."

The next thing you know, they'll be making the sign of the cross, if somebody can just figure out a way to make a buck out of it.

The "World Aflame" bookstore was almost consumed by flames a few years ago, as a fire broke out in a nearby building and the name almost became prophetic.

Christian bookstores also resemble head shops in the care taken in choosing a name. The head shops of the sixties always had interesting names. In St. Louis there was the Antelope Freeway, The Hidden Grok and the Afro-American Art-arama. Christian head shops don't quite match up in this department, but a few of the names are grabbers. Strangely enough, some of the names would seem to be equally suited to quite different establishments, particularly massage parlors. Festus, Missouri has the Master's Touch, and in Normal, Illinois out-of-towners may be disappointed to discover that the Loveshop sells only Christian paraphernalia. The 7th Glory, in Charleston, Illinois, also conjures up non-religious images. Other bookstores, however, are almost depressingly direct, bearing such names as Christ Centered, Gospeland, Faith, and my favorite, K&G Christian Supply. This last store evokes images of the kind of place where one could go to pick up 100 pounds of feed for your pet Presbyterian.

Some of the more interesting items are biblical "action figures," not to be confused with dolls. These toys, long popular in incarnations such as G.I. Joe, Spiderman, and other cartoon or comic book characters, have in more recent years been fashioned after professional wrestlers such as Hulk Hogan. In making the logical transition to their biblical roles, these figurines don't stop to leave their bodybuilder physiques behind. If biblical heroes really did take steroids, it would go a long way toward explaining the overabundance of biblical violence. Besides saving production costs, providing a common superhero body morphology for characters such as Moses and He-Man prevents any unfavorable comparisons that might result if the biblical characters were given ordinary, "pencil-neck geek" bodies. To my disappointment I learned that the action figures were available only for Old Testament figures. This should have not surprised me. All of the best action was in the O.T. ("Sudden Death O.T.," as I sometimes call it). What red-blooded American boy would want to recreate the miracle of the fishes and the loaves or the Last Supper when he could be slaying Philistines? The Last Supper does have a certain poignancy, but it hardly compares with the excitement of David versus Goliath. Of course, the scene with the money changers at the temple has some potential, but ultimately falls well short of the carnage level established in the O.T.

But wait, there's more, much more: If you don't want to spend big bucks on the action figures, you can spring for a pair of shoelaces imprinted with the slogans "Jesus makes me happy" or "Jesus loves you." Somehow, after seeing these, I now know that Christians have found the perfect medium for their message. The Christian theme is carried forth on key fobs, pot holders and fancy, padded book covers. I'm going to buy one of those book covers and have it embroidered with the words "Holey Bible." If you are in the church business, there are needed supplies, such as signs (I'm thinking about getting the "Church Office" sign for my bathroom) and bumper stickers that say "clergy" or "pastor." These might be good for religious traffic cops, but you may get second looks from child sexual abuse investigators. A discount on many items is available to clergy, but I found that proper ID must be presented: yet one more reason to be ordained.

Church supplies are an important part of the inventory at these stores. There is a wide selection of Christian clip art for use in church bulletins. You'd be surprised how many different ways there are to draw doves, crosses and praying hands. There are books of cartoons, some of them truly funny, that churches can also use in their publications. There are pre-made flyers announcing the usual church events such as picnics and revivals. Surprisingly, I found no book of sermons. They probably keep these in a back room, accessible only to those displaying the proper credentials.

At the opposite end of the spectrum from the Christian action figures are the small Christian statues, undoubtedly the most cornball items in the store. These items manage to combine the suffocatingly schmaltzy sentimentality of Hummel with the the most overworked Christian themes of the last 1,000 years. Just thinking about how awful they are makes me want to go back and buy some more.

Christian paraphernalia has been big business seemingly from the time Christianity became the dominant Western religion. The current market in assorted goods in some way enhanced by a Christian motif was probably given a big boost when Constantine decided that crosses would make swell decoration for the shields of his soldiers. Suddenly it was hip to be Christian, and the church fathers were soon to exploit this new acceptance by the establishment of a wide range of officially recognized relics to draw the faithful to the reliquaries, whereupon their financial support could be secured. Of course, while seeing Jesus's foreskin was good for a certain amount of valuable graces, actual possession of some blessed object, for instance a tiny bit of cloth said to have been laid upon the basket which caught John the Baptist's severed head (I don't make this shit up - I used to have that one myself), would be even better. The marketing of personal relics enabled the believer to have round-the-clock protection. Unfortunately, since the popularity of these wallet-sized sacred objects has in recent times been limited to the Catholic church, such interesting items are not to be found in the average Christian bookstore. But don't be surprised if such products aren't eventually made available to Protestants, too. In the field of Christian marketing, business is just as important as theology.

But the primary attraction of these Christian bookstores is still the books. You can learn a lot about religion by perusing these shelves. The selection in some of these stores isn't limited strictly to religion, per se. For instance, on the shelves of a One Way Book Store you can find a book entitled Something Going on Out There: Visitors from Space - Friendly or Fiendish? by David Wimbish. This book attributes alleged visitations by "space aliens" to Satan. The basic veracity of the reports of UFO sightings and contacts with extraterrestrials is not challenged, and the accounts of alleged contactee Whitney Streiber are cited extensively. For Biblical backing, Wimbish quotes 2 Cor 11:14,15: And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is not strange if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Wimbish makes the argument that these spacemen from Hell are only out to lead us away from God.

Don't think that these bookstores are merely places to buy the products of the Christian religious industry. It is also a place to tie into the Christian subculture. Maybe I'll see you there.

Copyright 1998 by Patrick Inniss.  All rights reserved.