• Advertising Age, Monday, January 26, 2009 10 AM

Times are so bad that print publishers are finding religion. Literally. Reader's Digest Association is unveiling the Purpose Driven Connection, a magazine and media network based on the teachings of megachurch pastor Rick Warren, author of bestseller "The Purpose Driven Life," and the man who gave the invocation at Obama's swearing-in.

For $30 a year, subscribers are treated as members of a community. They receive the quarterly magazine, four spiritual DVDs, four workbooks and access to a Christian social-networking site. Congregations get a discounted price of $20 per subscription and the magazine is sold at Walmart and other stores for $9.99. The starting base rate is 500,000, with plans to double that by this fall.

RDA CEO Mary Berner said Purpose Driven Connection is a "multimedia, multiplatform community." Such products are "at the core of what our strategy is globally and in the U.S."

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