This would have been....let's say the mid-1990s. There was a strong movement at the time for that which is called reformed theology. If you listen to John MacArthur.....or John Piper....or Tim Keller....or had listened to R. C. Sproul when he was still with us....that is Christian belief known more simply as....'reformed.' Martyn Lloyd-Jones in London also has to be mentioned here. This word stems from the 16th century Reformation beginning in Luther's Germany and spreading out....eventually to England....and America.
Evangelicalism over the past sixty or seventy years....the Billy Graham era if you will....has been more broad. That's why I mentioned in a very recent post that Billy Graham's gift was not in theology.....for evangelical theology....overall....ran the gamut from fairly strong to extraordinarily weak.
During this time period.....let me limit it to the last forty years.....Christian bookstores....and therefore obviously the Christian books in them....were showing continued growth. We....my wife and I....owned a Christian bookstore for two years....around 1999-2000. The books that we sold were as solid as you would find in any Christian bookstore anywhere in America. That was the essence of the store.....and there were no knick-knacks or wall coverings or Christian music or magnets for your car or anything like that. I was critical of Christian bookstores that contained mostly this kind of merchandise.....and even the books were littered with some pretty bad stuff.
Well those bookstores are just about all gone. Yes if you go down South or some areas in America you may come across some.....but essentially....the Christian bookstore that served as a general store and signpost to unbelievers like myself....are gone. In regretful retrospect....I could only wish that those same trinket filled stores were still here.....because they served a purpose. Let me expound on that a little bit.
It was probably 1982....possibly late 1981....my wife was shopping at Penney's at a popular shopping center in our area called Northern Lights. I decided to just walk the concourse. I stopped in a Christian bookstore out of curiosity called....It Is Written....and walked out with Josh McDowell's Evidence That Demands A Verdict....and forty years later you are reading this.
I knew all the Christian bookstores in our area.....and there were a lot of them....I knew them like the back of my hand. There were some nonsense books there....but to stay in business they sold a little of everything....therefore there was some great stuff there....the men I mentioned above....CS Lewis....Bunyan....big sections of books on cults....and prophecy....apologetics all over the place....warnings of the church turning New Age......biographies galore....and even Puritan books! It needed some discernment....but we....the church in general....had these Christian general stores....all over the place. We were growing....both in numbers and in knowledge.....and unbelievers were coming to Christ. That is what is all gone folks. That is what shows my complaints about knick-knacks to be a mistake.
So what do we have today? What does the church have today? We have megachurches pushing their own weak theology....and either people buying the books in the church bookstore or going to the Internet for books that were recommended....all of this which over time put the Christian bookstores of old out of business. If you go to this church or that church today....you are essentially locked-in....you will come across nothing outside of your own church.
As I have mentioned so many times in these posts....the Billy Graham televised crusades are essentially gone also. We had four TV channels back then....and Billy Graham was a staple on one of them. Today we have hundreds of stations....and probably about six or seven Christian stations that are Word/Faith. I can't even find The Weather Channel anymore on my television. I have to got to the brick & mortar cable store today to see what is up with this. Good luck....(just a phrase....there is no 'luck').....good luck finding some quality Christian message on TV.
So for one thing we in the church are sitting ducks. Our supply lines have been cut....and we see nothing outside of us other than what is fed to us in the church we stumbled across....in our search to get away from this new in-your-face Progressivism. We are not there for the gospel....in large part....but from one form or another of Christian nationalism. We are there....all too often....for religious conservatism....while the unbeliever or the searcher is not going to stumble upon the blessings that I did.
This whole situation is why I so regularly recommend here in these posts.....ministries such as....
Piper's....desiringgod.org
and Sproul's....renewingyourmind.org & refnet.fm
and MacArthur's....gty.org
and Michael Hortons....whitehorseinn.org
and Alistair Begg's....truthforlife.org
and Spurgeon sermons on the Internet
and J.C. Ryle sermons
and Lloyd-Jones sermons....
and Derek Thomas sermons
and so many other places if only we knew were to go.
I also want to recommend cvbbs.com....a book service that carries strong Christian books.
Also....You may have noticed the link on my page for a short novel that I wrote many years ago....that I simply gave the name....Isaac Crockett. Well that novella revolves around a Christian bookstore.
