WASHINGTON — In the busy aisles of the Potomac Adventist Book & Health Food Store, Dori Wooten made her way past the crystal crucifixes, books on biblical finance, and Scripture-embossed license plate frames in search of something profound to give for Christmas. Money is extremely tight this year for the churchgoing single mother of four.
"It gets you to focus when there isn't money," said Ms. Wooten, 37, of Mount Rainier, Md. "What was I giving my kids before? What was I putting value on before?"
How shoppers such as Ms. Wooten answer such questions is being intensely dissected by the $4.6 billion Christian retailing industry, which is in a state of, well, soul-searching.
Although religious retail tends to be more resilient during tough economic times, the market is in tremendous flux. After several decades of intense growth in Christian books, music, and films, there have been no religious blockbusters in the past couple of years to drive sales during the holiday — a time religious retailers rely upon even more than their secular counterparts.
No end-of-days best-sellers such as the Left Behind series. No self-help tome such as The Purpose Driven Life. No major crossover film as successful as the The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the first in the Chronicles of Narnia series. No new celeb-evangelists with the status of T.D. Jakes or Joel Osteen to propel sales.
Thousands of Christian bookstores — long the backbone of the religious retail industry — have closed in the past decade.
A good part of the churn is happening in retail generally as sales go online and become more competitive and more segmented. Religious music sales have been hit hard by digital sales (and piracy).
Some industry experts say sales might be flattening because of a glut of Christian products. Others say the industry is struggling to interpret the desires of young Christians who were raised with these cultural touchstones but have grown skeptical of what they see as a commercialized, isolating version of faith.
"This is a generation that doesn't necessarily want a store that segregates Christian from non-Christian products," said Stan Jantz, a marketing consultant and author who ran a chain of Christian retail stores for 25 years.
In a business that has to walk a fine line between the spiritual and sellable, these are tricky times.
"Even the word ‘authenticity,' has become inauthentic," said Michael Covington, a spokesman for the Phoenix-based Evangelical Christian Publishers Association.
Hot sellers span a quirky range. Top religious books include some about the Bible that "explain it as a cultural document, not an article of belief," said Publishers Weekly religion editor Marcia Nelson.
Christianbook.com's best-selling tchotchkes this past week included a $35 Names of Jesus throw, a green tapestry that features the various names of Jesus, and a $20 doormat with a verse from the Book of Joshua.
"The last few years, people are looking for the right message," said Mary-Floride Omwenga, who oversees gifts at the Potomac Adventist store in Silver Spring, Md. "So many people are looking for work, and they want a message that's encouraging but also spiritual."
The industry is looking to a boost in 2011, when there will be a new edition of the most popular evangelical Bible — the New International Version — as well as multiple spinoffs from the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible.
First Published December 24, 2010, 12:39 p.m.
