Religious Books Sales Booming

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ATLANTA, GEORGIA, November 1, 2001: The book business boomed during the ’90s. The New Economy has suffered some setbacks, and general book sales are down. But in one part of the book business, business is still good: Sales of religious books are up more than four percent. “People are extremely hungry for experiences of God, experiences of faith, experiences of the divine,” said Tom Beaudoin, a theologian and author. He observes that this spiritual desire comes even as church attendance in America has declined. “The more suspicious people are of their local church, then the more apt they are to just assemble their own books, to assemble their own spiritual life,” he explained. The idea of drawing from many religions is a popular one these days, said Beaudoin. “Americans take very seriously their right to assemble in their shopping cart a little bit of John Paul II, a little bit of Judaism, a little bit of Hinduism, a little bit of Buddhism … and say, “That is my spirituality.”