Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" continues its $300 million box-office spree, the book series "Left Behind" remains untouchably popular and the religious mystery "The Da Vinci Code" is the fourth best-selling book on Amazon.com.

On the newsstand, Jesus is on the cover of Time, the debate in the New Republic and the big headline on the April 5 issue of People, which asks, "Does Hollywood have faith?"

In hip shops like Urban Outfitters shirts declare, "Jesus is my homeboy." At Screensavers.com, "The Passion" ranks No. 3 on the download list, just after some peaceful waterfalls and the "Matrix" code and just before "American Idol" reject William Hung.

Religious-product sales are projected to hit $8 billion this year, up from $5.7 billion in 1999, according to Market Research.com.

Of course, America hasn't suddenly discovered Jesus. Gallup Polls consistently have indicated that 90 percent of Americans believe in a higher power. But leave it to Hollywood to make him hip.

Jesus the Savior meets Homeboy Jesus is a concept some find offensive and irreverent, but others argue that talking about God at all is a change for the better.

"Pop culture and Christian culture have lined up and are asking similar questions at the same time," says Daniel Richards, a priest at St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church in Tucson. "It's created a peak in interest (in God)."

Questions that have come from "The Passion" have created a lot of the fervor, Richards says. But America has been buzzing about Jesus and religion for a while: The gay-marriage debate, the Catholic priest scandals and prayers for soldiers in the Iraqi war have brought faith to the media forefront.

Jesus' last big pop-culture moment was during the Vietnam War when posters of a hippie Christ popped up everywhere and "Jesus Christ Superstar" ruled stages and movie theaters.

Jesus is everywhere now, says Bob Hodgson of the American Bible Society in New York because of events that have been building over the past few years.

"Part of it is anxiety surrounding September 11, the ongoing security threats to our nation, a lagging economy. All that hard news traditionally brings people back to their faith," Hodgson says.

Richards wears a "Jesus surfs without a board" shirt from Urban Outfitters, where you can also find a Jesus action figure.

"If Jesus is so reverent that we can't laugh about him, then Jesus isn't in our everyday lives," says Richards, 28.

But when it comes to being King of the Mall, other scholars wonder, what would Jesus do?

In the Bible, Jesus drove the market people out of the temple, angry that religion had been turned into a commercial enterprise, notes Jim Farrelly, director of film studies at the University of Dayton in Ohio, a Roman Catholic university.

"That seems to be what's going on now," Farrelly says. "It trivializes the sacred while at the same time exalting the profane. 'Love of money is the root of all evil' stands as a warning to all those who exploit religion for their own monetary gain."

At www.ShareThePassionoftheChrist.com, people are buying the officially licensed works: mugs emblazoned with the cross, lapel pins in Aramaic and sterling silver nails strung on necklaces for $50.

For some, those are artifacts of faith, but, Farrelly says, they're also worn by "people who like to stand out as knowing what's hip at the moment.

"What they've done is make religion into something that they are comfortable with. People want to go to church and experience what they might at a rock concert," he said. "How can you then see your connection to something supernatural or divine when you're making everything into a natural or ordinary experience?"

Christian rapper Vocab Malone, 26, hopes that Jesus the Savior and Jesus the Homeboy can find some middle ground.

"I hope that people don't make (Jesus) all untouchable and silly. I hope that's not the perception of Christ," he says. "But I hope they don't make him into some modern type of hippie that walks around talking about peace and love. The place to really find him is in the Scriptures."