Build-a-Bear as a Model for Religion

Building things to our liking is a very human thing

Photo by Oxana Lyashenko on Unsplash

I remember the first time I saw the store. Many years ago, we were shopping for school shoes for my son at the Mall of America in Bloomington, MN, and we came across a store called “Build-A-Bear.” When I peeked inside, it was exactly what the name stated. It was a place that, for a price, you could build the teddy bear you wanted instead of just picking one, shall we say, off the rack.

I don’t remember how much it cost to build a bear, but I do remember thinking it was outrageously expensive. I thought to myself, “Who in their right mind would spend that kind of money to make a teddy bear?” For Pete’s sake, it costs I almost as much as trying to win one in a game of chance at the State Fair.

Ahem.

I also thought that this was a business that was doomed to fail. There can’t be that many people who would be willing to spend that kind of money on something so frivolous. The fact that Build-A-Bear is still around today, however, is a testament to how wrong I was. Then I remembered that back in the 1970s, people were willing to buy pet rocks. Pet rocks. Seriously. More recently, there have been people willing to shell out money for tuition at Trump University or buy a case of Trump steaks. There were even a few people who…