Religion: Jazzy Jackets

Members of the Christian Booksellers Association, who met in Chicago last week, could hardly believe the book jackets before their eyes. On one, a girl with a coy come-hither glance was profiled against a street of shadows; on another, a rocket ship looking like a futuristic swordfish zipped across interstellar space; a third, titled Vivid Experiences in Korea, was blocked out with vivid green and orange totem poles. It was all part of Moody Press’s current campaign to give soul saving more sales appeal.

The jazzy covers will bounce this year’s sales of Moody Bible Institute’s pocket-size books to an estimated 500,000 copies, 30% above last year’s mark. “Even faith can stand a little merchandising,” says Ken Taylor, director of Moody Press. One merchandising experiment is to market the books on display racks in 30 North Carolina grocery stores. If the plan catches on, Moody Press intends to invade drugstores next.

The new look is merely superficial. Inside the jazzy jackets, the little books toe a firm fundamentalist line going straight back to fiery Evangelist Dwight L. Moody, who founded the press in 1894. In The Prodigal, copyright 1898, Moody himself delivers a brisk little homily on the perils of cigars, whisky and wild women. More up-to-the-minute, A Visit to Mars is mildly in the modern science-fiction vein. The Martians, it turns out, are not only supermen but super-Christians, who have attained a state of grace. The only graceless, earthian thing about them is their dialogue. Sample; “Our church is over the brow of yonder eminence.”

Director Taylor has put all of his 132-book list into “modern dress.” For qualmish conservatives. Director Taylor has a ready answer: “There’s nothing un-Christian about a pretty girl, and the image of one should pull the heartstrings on the cover of a religious story just as much as she does on a magazine cover. Beauty is of the Lord.”