One store, many churches: Bookseller Byron Borger

With his wife, Beth, Byron Borger co-owns Hearts and Minds, an independent Christian bookstore in Dallastown, Pennsylvania, and writes a blog for the store’s website. The store seeks to foster “a uniquely Christian worldview where Christ’s Lordship is honored and lived out in relevant ways in the midst of our highly secularized, postmodern culture.”

Why did you and your wife start a religious bookstore?

In the late 1970s Beth and I worked for a campus ministry organization called the Coalition for Christian Outreach, which was based in a Presbyterian church near Pittsburgh. That congregation and the CCO both emphasized a wide-as-life vision of redemption, relating faith to all areas of life. This meant we read a lot of books with students across the curriculum, relating theology to technology, medicine, business, whatever. We realized that the students who told us that we ought to have a bookstore were right. We loved books and loved suggesting resources. With a naive love of books and belief in their power, we opened our shop in 1982.