Virginia Theological Seminary, which lost its campus bookstore late in 2013 amid mass closures by Cokesbury, will now do business with Amazon.com.
“I am sure that I am not alone in feeling sad when Cokesbury made the decision to close its retail outlet on the campus,” wrote the Very Rev. Ian Markham, dean of VTS, on his weblog. “We are living in an age when the ease of the Internet has made the traditional bookstore difficult to sustain.”
Markham added that students “will find tabs for every course that is being offered this Fall. The required and recommended reading is available. You simply sign into your Amazon account, click on the books, add them to your cart, and hey presto — the books will be delivered to the Welcome Center.”
Like the former Cokesbury store, the online shop offers general-readership titles such as Hail! Holy Hill! A Pictorial History of the Virginia Theological Seminary, which is available at a discounted $35.93.
Matthew Townsend is a Halifax-based freelance journalist and volunteer advocate for survivors of sexual misconduct in Anglican settings. He served as editor of the Anglican Journal from 2019 to 2021 and communications missioner for the Anglican Diocese of Quebec from 2019 to 2022. He and his wife recently entered catechism class in the Orthodox Church in America.
