The Precious Moments Chapel: Suffering, Salvation, and the World's Most Popular Collectible

In May 1996, Joan Frankhauser made her first visit to the Precious Moments Chapel in Carthage, Missouri. Sixteen months previously, her husband of forty-two years, Fred, had died from a heart attack while she and her daughter attempted to provide CPR. Upon entering the chapel, Joan expected to find a modest space adorned with a few paintings of Precious Moments figurines. However, as she opened the doors of the sanctuary she discovered a shrine laden with dozens of murals and highlighted by the multi-story piece named Hallelujah Square. This work, which represents the unique vision of heaven crafted by the Precious Moments creator, Sam Butcher, was especially pertinent to Joan, as she had purchased a print and hung it beside Fred's photograph shortly after his death as a testimony to his afterworldly existence. Averting her eyes from that mural, Joan looked to her left and saw a representation of the "Jacob's Ladder" narrative, with Jacob lying on the ground watching a band of angels descend from above. Once again allying the art with her own personal experience, she wondered (in her own words), "If Fred might have seen a similar scene as he lay there that morning." Determined to purchase "Jacob's Ladder" prints for herself and her three children, Joan discovered, to her dismay, that the picture was part of a retired series and thus unavailable through the gift shop. The next morning, while eating at one of the dining establishments on the grounds of the chapel, Joan noticed that Sam Butcher was seated at an adjacent table with some business associates. She asked the waitress to request an audience, and Butcher left his meeting to join her party. After recounting her story to the artist, he told her to remain at the restaurant while he went to his house and searched for the elusive prints. Returning with a leather portfolio in hand, Joan pondered what she would say to him when asked to purchase a series which sold for $500 before retirement and hundreds more on the current secondary market. However, she was never confronted with such an uncomfortable situation, because Butcher offered the series as a gift, an act of benevolence which Joan claims "ministered to our whole family" and prompted an amazing six visits to the chapel from Seattle over the next year. At the close of her reminiscence, published in the Precious Moments Chapel's official magazine, Chapel Bells, Joan echoed the sentiments of most of the pilgrims who offer testimonials by stating, "Thank you, Mr. Butcher, for creating that atmosphere, for being sensitive to the Holy Spirit, and showing compassion to so many hurting people" (Frankhauser). While Joan's story is certainly unique and uplifting enough to be highlighted in the site's literature, the general tone of her saga is often mimicked by many of the estimated 500,000-750,000 pilgrims who pour through the chapel on a yearly basis. Articles in Chapel Bells and numerous newspaper reports recount a variety of healing experiences facilitated by the power of consuming Butcher's special creations. Thus, the Precious Moments Chapel presents an observer of contemporary American religion with a distinctive example of the delicate melding of religion and consumer culture which, while pervasive throughout the history of Western religion, has only recently come to the forefront of academic study. In addition, the chapel serves as a sparkling case study for the examination of popular religion and the ways in which piety manifests itself outside the walls of a formal ecclesiastical setting, removed from the gaze of conventional church authorities and structures. While foundational thinkers in the field of religious studies such as Emile Durkheim, Mircea Eliade, or Rudolph Otto have theoretically drawn a thick line between "holy" situations and practices and all else that is deemed "unholy," suggesting that "religion" is bracketed and confined to explicitly sacred realms, this discussion of the religiosity of the Precious Moments Chapel aims not only to examine the intersection between the pious and popular or consumer culture, but also to suggest that the site's ethos is a premier example of that which is deemed "popular religion. …