Predicting the future is dangerous, especially when a world-be prophet puts her thoughts in writing.<\/p>\n\n
But that\u2019s what author Phyllis Tickle did two decades ago when she wrote: \u201cBooks are about to become the portable pastors of America.\u201d That turned out to be true. Now, in light of \u201cThe Matrix,\u201d she is updating that prophecy about how Americans talk about faith.<\/p>\n\n
It helps to flashback to a statistical earthquake that rattled the book business.<\/p>\n\n
In 1992 the company that dominates sales to libraries saw a stunning 92 percent rise in its religious trade. Then in 1994 religious sales by the giant Ingram Book Group soared 246 percent. In a few years this niche grew 500 percent, said Tickle, who has covered this trend for Publishers Weekly and in several of her two-dozen books.<\/p>\n\n
The growth \u201cwas malignant,\u201d she said. \u201cBookstore owners kept telling me people would vanish into that back corner where the religious shelves were and stay for hours. When they did that, you just knew they should have been going to see their pastors. But they weren\u2019t doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
These seekers didn\u2019t buy into doctrines and denominations. They didn\u2019t want \u201ctheology.\u201d They wanted new ideas, images and spiritual stories. They wanted what Tickle began calling \u201cGod-talk\u201d and millions started finding it with the help of cappuccino and Oprah.<\/p>\n\n
And in 1999 everything changed again.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cWhen \u2018The Matrix\u2019 came out, it became the best treatise on God-talk that has ever been made,\u201d said Tickle. \u201cIt could not have been done with a book. It could not have been done with words. \u2026 The primacy of place in creative, cutting-edge God-talk has shifted from non-fiction in the 1980s to fiction in the 1990s and now it is shifting again to the world of the visual, especially to the kinds of myths and stories we see in movies such as \u2018The Matrix.\u2019 We\u2019re talking about the manipulation of theological fantasies and this is a natural fit for visual media.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\u201cTheology,\u201d she said, is found in the world of doctrine, history, academic credentials and ecclesiastical authority. But \u201cGod-talk\u201d thrives far from most pulpits. Its standards are flexible, evolving, user-defined and rooted in small communities. This is a true \u201cdemocratization of theology,\u201d she said, and can been seen as an extension of Protestantism\u2019s division into thousands and thousands of independent denominations, movements and churches.<\/p>\n\n
But God-talk leaders are more likely to work in popular media than in religious institutions. As creators of \u201cThe Matrix\u201d trilogy, Andy and Larry Wachowski are touching millions of lives. The first film grossed $460 million worldwide and shaped countless movies, computer games, music videos and commercials. Now, \u201cThe Matrix Reloaded\u201d \u2014 on a record 8,517 screens \u2014 topped $130 million at the box office in its first four days. \u201cThe Matrix Revolutions\u201d hits in November.<\/p>\n\n