Jeremy Lott has a fascinating report about the comingly of commerce and religion with a long, excellent piece reporting on the Christian Booksellers Association convention. I especially liked his concluding paragraphs, which echoed similar sentiments aired by Paul Freund in another brilliant Reason essay about the “culture industry.” Lott writes,
Are many of these products merely a way to make a fast and cynical buck? They probably are. But the more revealing question is not about what the products do for their producers; it is about what they may be doing for their consumers.
The anti-materialistic/anti-consumerist criticism overlooks an essential fact: that material artifacts, even kitsch, can embody real meaning for those who use them.
The products, good and bad, that dominated the CBA both reflected and validated the subculture that generated the demand for them. The people who read the books, listen to the music, hang the Thomas Kinkade paintings in their homes, and use the other products of this industry are surrounding themselves with artifacts that reflect their values and beliefs, that validate who they are. For such consumers, the Left Behind novels, the evangelical pop music, and all the rest serve as the building blocks of a shared evangelical cultural identity. In brief, evangelicals are using the market to fashion and refashion themselves, and to project the resulting identity to others, in just the way that all consumers do.