The For-Profit Jesus

This Sunday is Easter, of course, and even if you’re not particularly religious (or Christian,) odds are good you’ll have trouble avoiding Jesus this weekend. In fact, Christianity is not only on the rise in the U.S., it’s taking over the bestseller lists. That’s fine for the fiction list, but “over on the nonfiction list, the laughable ‘Jesus Papers’ debuts at the No. 5 spot. ‘Misquoting Jesus,’ a proto-academic howler, ranks No. 8, followed by the conversational ‘Home With God’ at No. 10, and Garry Wills’s ‘What Jesus Meant’ at No. 16.” Alex Beam sees a trend emerging, and it isn’t nearly so much about religious piety as it is about a cynical attempt to make millions off of gullible readers who will buy anything with the word Jesus on the cover.