Byron and Beth Borger, independent Christian bookstore owners, face uncertain times

Byron and Beth Borger have long been an anomaly in the world of Christian booksellers.

After the Borgers launched Hearts and Minds bookstore in Dallastown, Pennsylvania, during the faith-based bookstore boom times of the 1980s, they bucked evangelical conventions by including Catholic writers such as Thomas Merton and featuring books on topics such as racial justice. They faced boycotts, picketing, and even death threats from the Ku Klux Klan over a display of books by Martin Luther King Jr., Byron Borger said.

The store survived and thrived for years, appealing to mainline Protestants and to those Beth Borger calls “thinking evangelicals.”