Holy Diversity! The Bible’s Niche Markets

If you are African-American, a teen, and a Christian, evangelical publisher, Zondervan, has just released a bible for you: the Our Heritage & Faith Holy Bible for African-American Teens. It’s the latest example of how Bible publishers have been pursuing niche markets for generations as a way to keep the good book as the perennial number one bestseller.

There have been Bibles packaged for women, men, children, and teenagers  for decades.  Generationally, there’s even A Baby Boomer’s Guide to the Bible.Since the turn of the Millennium, publishers have also turned their attention toward more racially/ethnically diverse segments. Ten years ago Zondervan’ published the African-American Devotional Bible, In 2002 World Bible Publishing launched the Latino Heritage Bible, which Ethnic Harvest reports to be “designed to meet the unique spiritual and cultural needs of the bilingual and English-speaking Hispanic market,” with “devotional contributions from contemporary Christian Hispanics.” Zondervan says this about the supplemental material in its Our Heritage and Faith Holy Bible: “it helps teens understand their heritage and enables them to identify and interact with Scripture”; in it, “well-known African-American leaders bring the Bible’s insights directly to bear on the black experience . . . to encourage the potential and ease the pain of African-American Christians.”

But these Bibles are not without controversy.  On their Bible geared toward African American Christian believers, Zondervan found itself at the center of a debate on the BlackVoices’ “Black Spin” blog where writer Carmen Dixon raises a pointed question: “Why does this Bible begin with the black national anthem, ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’? As I see it, although the black national anthem is a heavenly song, its lyrics are secular.”

While there’s nothing controversial about bringing the Bible’s insights to bear on personal experience — that has always been at the heart of devotional reading — Dixon raises a bigger question: what role should diversity play when it comes to marketing a sacred text such as the Bible? Given orthodox understandings of the Bible as a transformative text that interrogates cultural values, can publishers go too far in packaging it to conform to their readers’ perceived cultural identities? Does it diminish religious experience by suggesting it merely contributes to cultural identity, rather than having the power to transform it? Are there good reasons for not invoking diversity in marketing the Bible and other sacred texts?

Or do we need to invert the question: how much has the long stranding commentary in Bibles been overwhelming informed by a majority culture worldview in terms of interpretation and relevant application?

What do you think?

 Print This Post   Email This Post