One of Marina Albright's favorite recent acquisitions is a Jesus Action Figure, a five-inch-high plastic effigy with arms that move and with walk-on-water gliding action. Ms. Albright, a 19-year-old sophomore at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., has given her white-robed rolling statuette a prominent perch in her dormitory, in full view of passers-by.
"A few people might be shocked by it," conceded Ms. Albright, who received it as a gift. "After all, this is a Christian school. Still, for me it is hard to look at this thing and keep a straight face."
A popular gift, particularly among the young, the Jesus Action Figure, made by a Seattle manufacturer of novelty items, is just the latest in a procession of collectibles with Christian themes to have spirited their way from church gift shops and Bible stores, their primary outlets, into youth-oriented fashion stores and other purveyors of urban hip.
Salt and pepper shakers resembling nun dolls, key chains with miniature Bibles, Jesus night lights and Virgin Mary tank tops are crowding retail shelves — promoted by merchants who subscribe to the credo that one person's object of devotion may be another's kitsch.
Such diminutive objects are the newest, and most baldly irreverent, expressions of a wave of Christian marketing that has overtaken mainstream outlets like Wal-Mart and Kmart.
Faith-oriented products are a $3 billion industry encompassing children's videos, toys, clothing, music and books. It is hard to stroll through a Target store without encountering "VeggieTales," Bible-based children's videos espousing moral lessons, or to tune the AM dial on the radio without hearing a chart-topping rock group like Creed exhorting listeners to watch out for Judgment Day.
With Christian motifs pervading the consumer marketplace, it may have been just a matter of time before faith-oriented products would strike some as ripe for tweaking. "It's fair to say Christianity is no stranger to commodification," said Randall Balmer, a professor of American religion at Barnard College in New York. "But putting an ironic or witty twist on it, as some retailers have done — that, I think, is news."
Inevitably, the tongue-in-cheek marketing of sacred objects has raised objections.
"If somebody is using a religious symbol as an object of ridicule, that is reprehensible," said Joseph Zwilling, the director of communications for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, when the object was described to him. "We should respect people's religious beliefs and not use sacred symbols — Jewish, Muslim or Christian — as matters for scorn."
What might offend others is the way the objects are marketed.
Like Bible Man, an action figure from Thomas Nelson, a Nashville merchant of Christian books and novelties, the Jesus Action Figure might be expected to sell at a Christian bookstore.
But at Urban Outfitters, the chain specializing in lava lamps, tie-dyed T-shirts and hippie-era paisley bedspreads? "Why not?" said Ted Marlow, president of the company, based in Philadelphia. In fact, he said, the Jesus figures, which come packaged with such quasi-biblical quotations as "If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into a ditch," are among the 45-outlet chain's most popular items. They are sold alongside a 17-inch-high, red-flocked statuette of the Redeemer that doubles as a coin bank, an assortment of T-shirts bearing messages like "Jesus Surfs Without a Board," a Bible clock with a musical alarm and tank tops carrying images of the Virgin.
"These products aren't marketed to strongly Christian consumers," Mr. Marlow said. "Are they subversive? I would say not. Their context is more about fun. But we do think our customers view them with a certain amount of irony."
Jesus also has adherents at Ricky's, the unconventional New York drug-and-cosmetics chain. Leon Charles, manager of the Ricky's at 718 Broadway downtown, said Jesus and Mary figures have been a hit lately with adults and teenagers, both tourists and New Yorkers. "People come in and buy two or three at a time," he said. "We can hardly hardly keep them in stock."
Alphabets, a Manhattan gift and novelty chain, has seen a run on nun dolls and snow globes, "God Bless Our Home" plaques emblazoned with the images of Jesus and Mary, key chains with mini-Bibles and Our Lady magnifiers, said Jennifer Jinks, manager of the Alphabets on Broadway on the Upper West Side. She said the shop did nearly as well with the Miracle Jesus, a picture whose eyes "kind of follow you around everywhere — it's kind of freaky."
Not every purveyor of novelty items endorses the trend. Spencer Gifts, a mall-based chain, sells edible underwear and black candles (for aspiring Wiccans) but recently stopped ordering its briefly popular nun dolls. "We do carry crosses, but not faith-based items so irreverent that they might be misconstrued," said Michael Champion, Spencer's promotion and publicity manager.
Because such products sell in the thousands, not the hundreds of thousands, they have for the most part slipped beneath the radar of religious watchdog groups.
David Wahl, the catalog manager for Archie McPhee, which markets the Jesus Action Figure, said his company had heard little criticism of it. It's clear that while some consumers buy novelties with Christian themes in jest, many others regard the same products as objects of piety. Their meaning is "pretty much in the eyes of the beholder," Dr. Balmer, the Barnard religion professor, said.
Irma Zandl, a New York youth marketing consultant, said she strongly doubted that the majority of young Americans viewed such items, even those merchandised in a cynical way, purely as kitsch. "It is easy when you live in New York to ascribe thinking to others that reflects your own jadedness," she said.
John K. Simmons, professor of religious studies at Western Illinois University, agreed, saying: "You just don't know what is shtick to some people and what is deeply religious to others. I'd think most people who buy these things are probably serious."
Ty McBride, 24, who heads the East Coast sales division of an American shoe manufacturer, collects Virgin Mary paraphernalia. Some of his treasures include a Mary beer mug and an alarm clock. Mr. McBride, a churchgoing Protestant, said: "I'm not someone who is a full-out religious roller. But I do view Mary as an object of mystery and intrigue, especially because of her standing as a mortal who has given birth to something divine."
Some buyers experience ambivalence. On Easter weekend, during a visit to a Wal-Mart in upstate New York, Gini Kopecky Wallace bought a crocheted polyester tablecloth embellished with an image of the Last Supper. "It was only $7," recalled Mrs. Wallace, a magazine editor who lives in New York. "At that price, I had to have it."
Mrs. Wallace, who describes herself as "loosely Catholic," served Easter dinner on her new tablecloth. "I use it in the spirit of irony," she said, "but a kind of respectful irony." She suggested that the cloth was the sort of object that appealed to people "who consider themselves too sophisticated to take certain beliefs seriously." She went on: "But I think there is a little residual something inside us that does."
To Mr. Wahl, of Archie McPhee, the issue of belief is moot. He prefers to argue that Jesus is a cultural icon, on a par with Freud or Einstein. (Not coincidentally, Freud is the model for another of the company's best-selling action figures.) Will a line of the apostles be next? Mr. Wahl doubts it. But accessories for the Jesus Action Figure are in the offing. "We're not sure yet what they will be," he said. "But we think maybe fishes and loaves."