Faith-based toys to hit US stores

Faith-based toys to hit US stores [Excerpts]

Instead of Spiderman or Bratz dolls, children in the US could soon be clutching a talking Jesus toy, a bearded Moses or a muscle-bound figure of Goliath.

From the middle of August, Wal-Mart, the biggest toy retailer in the US, will for the first time stock a full line of faith-based toys.

The Bible-based action figures will initially be given two feet of shelf space in 425 of the company's 3,300 stores nationwide.

There, the Tales of Glory dolls will take on what their makers are calling "the battle for the toy box" with some of the nation's most popular action figures.

So will the 12in (30cm) Jesus doll quoting scripture or the 3in (8cm) figure of Daniel in the lion's den open up children's imaginations -- and their parents' wallets?

David Socha, founder of One2believe, the company which makes the dolls, is confident the demand is there for "God-honouring" toys which reflect Christian teachings and morality.

"We get a lot of people, even people who are not of faith, don't go to church, saying 'I've got a four and a six-year-old and I don't know what to get them any more'," he said.

"If you go in a toy aisle in any major retailer, you will see toys and dolls that promote and glorify evil, destruction, lying, cheating."

"In the girls' aisle where the dolls would be, you see dolls that are promoting promiscuity to very young girls. Dolls will have very revealing clothes on, G-string underwear."

What his company offers instead is "something faith-based that is not only fun to play with but also is solidifying a person's spiritual wherewithal and their spiritual journey," he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6916287.stm

[TBC: In seeking to provide "God-honouring" toys, the marketeers have anchored their hopes in human reasoning. While they seek to provide a "faith based" alternative, they instead are only providing an alternative to the Bible. Not understanding how the Lord uses very ordinary people to accomplish His will, the marketeers have designed figures that resemble victims of steroid abuse rather than real people empowered by a real God.]