The April issue of Christianity Today has a cover story on the decline of the Christian bookstore.  There are a number of articles describing the struggle of such businesses as large chain stores and Amazon.com sell many of the same titles at cheaper prices, how they are often seen by the younger generations as being staid and stuffy, and other issues.  This is causing such businesses to close there doors as a huge rate and the articles suggest some ways that some of them have chosen to expand their appeal to the masses.  It makes for interesting reading, but in some ways for what it doesn’t say, rather than what it does.

In my mind, one of the first things that has to be questioned is the core mission/purpose of a Christian bookstore - is it to make money or to glorify God?  I know that those two things aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, but sometimes to do one, the other would have to be sacrificed.  Case in point, at least one national chain of Christian bookstores has decided to do business on Sunday. Their choice was obvious: stay closed in obedience of the principle of the Sabbath as given to us in the Word and lose sales to your secular competitors or open your doors for business and lose the witness to the community that God’s Word is more important than money.  It makes you realize the struggles that Christians have in the world of business and why Christ told us that we can not love God and money.

The second question that comes to mind is what role does a Christian bookstore have in policing the titles that appear in their stores?  By labeling themselves as “Christian,” I think there becomes an expectation by the person entering the store that what is in that store is God-honoring and can be trusted.  Unfortunately, nothing could be farther from the truth!  Rather like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, many of the most popular titles are filled with error, but because they were carried at a Christian bookstore,  people have read them and adopted their teaching into their lives not even realizing that often times they were embracing a false gospel. While the store should be held accountable for what they carry, so should the believer be held accountable for testing what they read against the Word to insure that it lines up with the truth.

Ultimately, the decline of Christian bookstores as they exist now might not be a bad thing.  When a Christian enters a secular bookstore looking for reading material, his or her radar is up and they realize that they are likely to be exposed to all types of writing from all viewpoints and are likely to be more discerning.  Unfortunately, they may feel more relaxed and more confident that what they are browsing may be God-honoring when in a bookstore labeled Christian and this is often an error.  So perhaps in some ways, the demise of something with a “Christian” label may in fact be a blessing.