It has only been four short weeks since I predicted that theologian, Rick Warren, was going to be a hot commodity in 2009. Sure enough, last week the Wall Street Journal (which somehow has become a major source of my entertainment and celebrity news) reported that Rick is launching a quarterly magazine called (drum roll, please), what else, but Purpose Driven Connection.
The folks at Readers Digest have teamed up with the Warren Purpose machine with high hopes of reaching publishing nirvana by literally connecting millions of readers around a common interest, that of being purpose-driven Christians. The idea is to bundle the magazine together with an online social-media web site and multimedia resources to leverage a captive audience of evangelical Christians.
According to the WSJ, “The idea is to envelop subscribers in a multimedia web of Mr. Warren’s message.” Very sticky, indeed.
This is all just fine with me because I am so tired of Oprah’s omnipresence, and it’s high time someone else steps in to dethrone her. She has somehow saturated her watered-down brand of self-help spirituality through every possible media outlet imaginable. I wouldn’t be surprised to find her in my underwear tomorrow morning. Now I hear there’s an Oprah store? Well that just about did it for me. Enough already with Oprah. Come on people, let’s make room for Rick!
“But kind sir,” you say, “Isn’t this a bad time to be launching a major media publication, what with the global economic sinkhole in my back yard and all?” Au contraire, mon ami! These, in fact, may be terrific times to launch something like this.
Think about it. People can no longer tap into their home equity lines to find meaning and purpose, and the troubles of the world are causing more anxiety and depression than we’ve seen in 50 years. Americans are probably more in the mood for spiritual substance than ever before (another one of my 2009 predictions), especially if the offer of online community comes with it. Plus, the publishers say they don’t have to rely on advertising to make it successful at thirty bucks a pop for a one-year subscription. Get it?
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