Every few months in childhood, my mother would receive the Oriental Trading catalog. I remember her poring over it with a ballpoint pen, occasionally circling items she thought would be good for Sunday School, VBS, or Mission Friends. I would eagerly take a peek at the crafts and toys that I wanted but had no real use for and that would ultimately end up in the trash a few weeks after receiving them. These pins, bookmarks, holiday items, etc. were supposed to help the other children and me recall the biblical lesson learned. Did they? No. Repetition and study did that. But did my childhood church still devote thousands of dollars in the budget to such things? Yes, they did. In her poetry collection Jesus Merch, Megan McDermott perfectly highlights the absurdity of Christian merchandising when it comes to the messages such items give, the money spent on them, and the supposed outreach they will achieve.

McDermott’s poems capture my innocent memories and distill them to show what my childlike wonder did not understand but that my adult mind easily sees. Using objects, game boards, and the Oriental Trading catalog, she shows how, for centuries, we have tried (and continue trying) to wrap Bible stories in little shiny, disposable packages. The intent of these packages may be good and well, but the only real success is the commodification of the gospel. My childhood attests to that, and my experience working in a church and ordering such items myself shows the continuing cycle. McDermott’s poems brought back these memories and a flood of various emotions to go with them, but they also showed the evolution of the merchandise with time and trends as well as my own subsequent growth and reactions toward them. Facing some of these items in the book, my childhood excitement is replaced with revulsion, and my gag reflex is barely kept in check. I appreciate that McDermott offers candid thoughts and sometimes scathing and provocative commentary on these.

I often found myself shaking my head in frustration (when I did not want to cry) at the lessons these items convey and their prevalent usage within the church. For instance, a “3D Fiery Furnace Craft Kit–$12.49” meant to celebrate a miracle of not burning and the gift of God’s presence is all good in theory, but McDermott asks the questions we should all ask: Why isn’t the lesson about Nebuchadnezzer’s sin? Why aren’t we learning to not shove people into fiery furnaces in the first place? And then there are the items that seem to blithely skim over the traumatic side of our beloved biblical stories, but that McDermott poignantly asks us to reconsider, such as in “Noah’s Ark Twisty Puzzle–$11.27” and “Vintage Box Life of Jesus Bible Flash Cards–1984.” For those of us who grew up with these toys, we’ve had to work to unlearn the so-called lessons they teach about scripture in order to imagine how traumatic it would have been to be on the ark, watching God destroy the world, or how difficult it was for Jesus to forgive those who nailed him to the cross. 

I laughed but also held my hands up in bewilderment when learning about some of these items, such as “A Variety of Christian Pumpkins.” (As McDermott notes, isn’t the most “Christian” pumpkin the one that “took in the sun, and…grew, / just like [God] asked”?) Then there is “Jonah’s Journey Board Game–1970s” where the finish line is Nineveh, but we know that is where the real work and trouble begins. My personal favorite, “Little Boolievers Mini Playing Cards–$8.39,” gives faith to the creatures of our nightmares. (Yes, let us take back commercialized Halloween for Jesus!) Absurdity honorable mentions go to “Personalized Cross Mint Tins–$29.99” and “Jesus Has a Pizza My Heart Notepads–$7.19.” (“I get the pun, but / aren’t we meant to give / the whole pie?”)