Page 73 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

62 Media and religion in transition

gradual expansion in terms of public accessibility, accountability, and
purpose that typify much of the rest of the religious media world as well. 57
Borden’s study of the central institution of this marketing industry, the
Christian Booksellers’ Association (CBA), provides interesting insights into
the ways in which American religious movements developed in some ways
in co-ordination with religious publishing and marketing.
The history of American publishing is deeply rooted in religious
publishing. 58 Many major publishing companies began as religious
publishers, and the key publishing centers, such as Philadelphia, originally
emerged because of that market. The more recent history of religious
publishing, however, shows a marked divergence between activities from
the more traditional provision of Bibles, Sunday School materials, and
tracts (still an important industry in dollar terms) and the activities of inde-
pendent, or “para-church” publishing, of which the CBA is an example.
Borden’s history of the CBA demonstrates that, over the course of the
twentieth century at least, its members and related organizations gradually
began to integrate themselves into the broader media landscape of promo-
tion, marketing, and the mass media. Their independence from the
religious establishment became an important marker, but at the same time
placed them to take advantage of emerging anti-institutional trends in
American religion, at least of the conservative-Christian or Evangelical
varieties.
The result has been the emergence of the CBA over the past decades as
the central marketplace of religious publishing and a much wider range of
59
media products as well. The significant thing about the industry for our
considerations here is its spread and ubiquity. From a relatively small and
marginal player on the media landscape, it has grown to a major economic
and media force, with CBA-related bookstores now found in all major
cities, sitting alongside more conventional “secular” outlets in shopping
malls across the country. This means that the books and other resources
produced by CBA members are more and more accessible, and have
become more and more a commonplace part of the religious and cultural
landscape. This “mainstreaming” is similar to that contemplated by reli-
gious broadcasting during its rise to prominence. 60
The CBA and similar activities exist alongside the more “secular” media
marketplace, and this has led to a good deal of discussion about such
things as the distinct “best-seller lists” that exist for secular and religious
publishing. One of the phenomena in this realm has been the Left Behind
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series of books, authored by Tim LeHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Like many
other Christian books, these have sold millions of copies, but have found
their place on the more marginal “religious” as opposed to “secular” best-
seller lists, something that rankles many in the religious world. A film
based on these novels failed at the box office, but was an example of
attempts to “cross over” between the religious and secular media markets,