Talking Jesus doll grabs wide attention

SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE

VENTURA, Calif. — It’s not the Wii, but the new talking Jesus doll is grabbing national attention this holiday season.

The toys are not like your typical G.I. Joe action figure or your old pull-string plaything. The Barbie-size dolls don’t walk on water, but an integrated circuit chip similar to those found in computers gives them the ability to recite Bible verses and stories.

The dolls are one of the hottest toys at GodSpace, a Catholic bookstore and gift shop in Thousand Oaks, Calif.

“To find toys of this quality that are posable and that talk and have a story is just awesome,” said Claudia Satori, owner of GodSpace.

There are eight “Messengers of Faith” talking dolls: Jesus, Mary, Moses, Peter, Paul, Noah, David and Esther. Most of these can be found at GodSpace, as well as the brawny, non-speaking warriors Samson and Goliath. The Jesus dolls recite Bible passages such as “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

GodSpace, along with Wal-Mart and Target, started selling the dolls this fall. Since then, the toy line has been featured on CNN, Fox News and in USA Today.

Target sells the toys only through its Web site, while Wal-Mart carries them nationally in about 425 stores, predominantly in markets across the Southern and Midwest states.

To determine where the toys would be sold, Wal-Mart focused on places where there is a large concentration of churches near its stores and looked at shopping patterns to measure the popularity of faith-based products, said Jami Lamontagne, spokesman.