My roommate’s girlfriend walked into our apartment one night carrying a bright yellow shopping bag from the store Forever 21. She stood in the living room while we were watching a basketball game and held it proudly until we asked her what the deal was with the bag? “It’s for Andy,” she said. I was confused. I’ve never been in Forever 21 before and I’ve always assumed it’s just another shop where teenage girls buy clothes that their parents wouldn’t approve of them wearing. Why would she bring me a bag from this store? Well my questions were soon answered. It turns out that Forever 21 bags have “John 3:16” printed in small letters on the bottom, so she thought I might be interested. She was right.

Seeing that well-known Bible verse on a shopping bag got me thinking about how other “Christian” companies (or at least companies run by Christians) sometimes use their influence on consumers to share messages of faith. I ended up spending quite a bit of time doing some “research” online about Forever 21’s bags and several other stores and businesses that practice similar acts of subtle consumer evangelism. I’ve also been hungry since seeing that bag because Forever 21 isn’t the first business I’ve known about that prints Bible verses on the packaging of their products. The mecca of fast food burgers and fries, In-N-Out Burger (from California and surrounding states), has been printing Bible verses on the bottom of their drink cups and food wrappers since the 1980s. In-N-Out Burger is my absolute favorite fast food restaurant — I once walked from LAX to the closest In-N-Out (probably about a mile away) so I could taste it one more time before returning to Minnesota — and it turns out the former president of In-N-Out was a Christian who wanted to share his faith with customers in a discrete way. He has since passed away, but the company has decided to continue the practice today. It seems the president of Forever 21 has decided to do something similar by sneaking a little Gospel message into each customer’s purchase by, as one blog I read called it, “Bible bagging” their goods.

During my research on all this I found several sites that were neither helpful nor informative (mostly online forums where teenage girls discussed what they bought at Forever 21 during their last trip to the mall and how “like cool” or “totally dumb” they think it is that the store has a Bible verse on the bag), but I did manage to find a few articles that offered credible insight into what appears to be a growing phenomenon in the industries of retail clothing and fast food restaurants. For instance, in August of 2006 The New York Sun ran an article titled “Evangelism in Fashion” discussing the Forever 21 bags. Included in the article were responses from Forever 21 customers who were asked if they were aware of the religious message on the bottom of the bags. The two responses shared in the article are priceless for their own unique reasons. The first was from a 22-year old guy who, when told there was a Bible verse on the bottom of the bag he was carrying didn’t seem bothered at all, but he did offer the insightful comment that “Jesus wore clothes.” I’m going to give the dude two benefits of the doubt by assuming that 1) he was shopping at Forever 21 for his girlfriend and 2) he’s not a seminary student. The other customer response was from a young woman who was shopping for a “black sparkly halter-top to go with a pair of red high-heeled shoes.” She was not as understanding as the young man we met a few sentences earlier. When she found out there was a religious message on the bottom of her shopping bag, she responded by saying “That’s so freaky. It kind of annoys me that I’m carrying this around without even knowing it.”

I learned about a few other businesses that make similar faith statements on their products and/or through the practices of their stores in a USA Today article from 2005. The most notable, in my opinion, being that Chick-fil-A (a fast food restaurant mostly in the southern US) is closed on Sundays so that employees can “focus on faith and family.” I thought that was a pretty cool move for a company to make, but I can’t help but wonder how much money they give up making by only being open 6 days a week.

I’m sure there are plenty of other mainstream stores, restaurants and companies who – because of either the faith of the people in charge or a company-wide decision – incorporate Christian messages into their products, services or practices. If you know of other examples, please leave a comment and let us know.

Andy Jolivette is a freelance communicator, creator, cultural analyst, consumer, practical theologian and missionary. He is currently completing a Masters degree in Theology & Pop-Culture from Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN. Read more of his “reflections of faith in an MTV world” at anewdoxology.com. He can be reached at andy@anewdoxology.com.

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