Fervor and Froth

What event could be so important that Jimmy Carter's sister and George Wallace's wife would take a day away from the Democratic National Convention to visit Atlantic City? Answer: the Christian Booksellers Association convention, biggest of the religious-publishing trade shows. While Ruth Carter Stapleton, Cornelia Wallace and other best-selling authors last week met the people who sell their books, moneychangers in some of the 263 booths were offering mawkish, illuminated paintings of Jesus, T shirts that proclaim HE IS RISEN, PRAISE THE LORD paper napkins and LAST JUDGMENT AT HAND bumper stickers. At convention concerts, Gospel crooners sang and spoke of their conversion from sin.

With its sometimes strange mix of piety and commerce, the C.B.A. meeting is the central show of a big business that reflects the shift toward Evangelicalism throughout U.S. religion. The 2,100 C.B.A. stores, which emphasize Evangelical works, grossed $303 million last year and should reach $350 million to $375 million for 1976, estimates John Bass, 50, the able Presbyterian who runs the C.B.A. When Bass first began coming to the conventions, they were populated largely by folks in their 50s who ran dusty little Mom-and-Pop Bible stores. Religion bookshops nowadays are bigger, better located and reaching many more customers. According to the association's ad-fat monthly, almost 50 titles now on the market have sold 1 million copies, and hundreds every year pass 100,000--substantially more than the average novel on newspaper bestseller lists.

By 1988. The current champion author is Billy Graham, whose most recent book, Angels, has sold a phenomenal 1.4 million copies in hardcover. While Preacher Graham helps a secular publisher (Doubleday) hit the Evangelical market, Jimmy Carter and Johnny Cash have turned to Evangelical houses to print their autobiographies (Why Not the Best? and Man in Black). Many best-selling authors, though, are virtually unknown outside the Evangelical circuit. Hal Lindsey, a onetime Jesus Movement leader, has sold more than 15 million books since 1970. His favorite theme: interpretation of Bible prophecies to prove that Jesus will soon return, most likely by 1988. Some best-selling writers in this field are admitted amateurs. "I'm not a writer at all. I could hardly write a letter home," says Marabel Morgan, eyelashes aflutter. Nonetheless, her piously erotic Total Woman has reached 600,000 sales in hardcover, 3 million in paperback.

Fleming H. Revell Co. of Old Tappan, N.J., one of the many successful publishers fervently committed to Evangelicalism, took a gamble on Morgan, but it is marketing a predictable bestseller in Charles Colson's up-from-Wa-tergate saga Born Again (both authors made strategic appearances at the Atlantic City convention). Like Revell, Zondervan of Grand Rapids, another long-established Evangelical house, has grown rapidly--from sales of $6 million in 1970 to $30 million this year. Other firms founded in recent years have done equally well.

No wonder secular companies are starting religious book houses. Boasts the catalogue of one of the newest: "You can rely on Master's Press being a Conservative/Evangelical publisher." The most popular books are also relentlessly upbeat and inspirational, promoting personal experiences and fulfillment, not dry doctrine. And their quality? Even Booster Bass, taking a brief break during his exposition, admitted, "There's a lot of froth coming off the presses."

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