Christian Bookstores

Once every 4-6 months I build up enough patience to venture into a Christian Bookstore. And it takes approximately 7.4 minutes for me to lose all of the patience that I had accumulated. Why you ask? Heed the following observations/ frustrations/ questions/ warnings.

1. Christian Bookstores are petri dishes of false humility. Every 4-6 months when I walk into one I feel like I see an exponentially greater number of faces slapped on book covers. I'm not talking about a postage size stamp picture on the back next to the author's bio, I'm talking about massive, airbrushed, well-positioned, self-exalting pictures. Consider for a minute why, when (or should I say if) their message is Christ, an author would feel that it is necessary to plant their mug on the cover of their book.
2. Christian Bookstores celebrate celebrity as much as the world. There are whole sections of books that dedicated to athletes, presidents, and their wives. Do these people have something spiritual to say to us? Maybe. I won't say that they never do. But the pressures of being the first lady or Brett Favre's wife pale in comparison to the single mom raising three children one of which has down syndrome. Does that mom need to hear about a celebrity's climb to the top or does she need to hear about Jesus Christ?
3. Be wary of books with "you" as the subject in the title. Why? It's not about you. Get over it.
4. Christian Bookstores are full of conspiracy. Russia wasn't Babylon. Iraq is looking less and less like it is Babylon. Why are we so worried that Iran is going to turn out to be Babylon? I know Ahmadinejad is sympathetic with Islamic extremism and is down with bringing about the apocalypse as he sees it, but do we need to devote a whole section to this at the Christian book store? Besides we have no need to live in fear of this. Jesus is coming back. He will take care of it. Don't be afraid.
5. Where are all the books by the faithful servants that went before us? I can't find any books by men like Charles Spurgeon or Jonathan Edwards. This baffles me. These men served Christ faithfully and lived lives worthy of their calling. Why are we abandoning their work?
6. Christian Bookstores like to be trendy. Trendy can be fun. You can have a nice up-to-date cover on your book or a cool modern art piece with a Bible verse on it. But how about we steer clear of letting it seep into our content, shall we? I am shocked by Teen Magazine Bibles or whatever they're called. What the heck. It looks like a magazine and has a new testament in it plus a bunch of garbage articles like "how to get a Christian boy." What is that? It's pretty hard to justify tying in an article about getting Christian boys with the book of Acts. Just don't do it.

Probably what frustrates me the most is that I see very little difference between a secular book store and a Christian one. Disagree if you like, but Christianity is about following Christ, not reading watered-down, self-enhancement manuals that mention God in a few out-of-context Bible verses. So let's follow Christ and not the Christian Bookstore trend.