Marketing church and religion

My kids were in VBS yesterday. They and the rest of sub 8 year olds received such a hard sales pitch to ask Christ to be their personal savior that it would make a used car saleman blush in embarassment. The reason the marketing of religion bothers you is that marketing appeals to the lower senses rather than the intellect, and it is for that reason that it should bother you.

I agree with not marketing the church like a consumer product, but if you're going to do it, what's with basing your ad campaign on the premise that people don't actually want your product in the first place, and communicating that in your advertising?

It seems as though church-marketing tacitly admits that they're trying to lure people into something they don't want. Why not just consider your message Good News and share it?

Poorly-done parody, IMO, as I've been to several megachurches and/or churches that have Starbucks Coffee Bars in the lobby.

Church marketing practices indeed invite (and warrant) parodying, but I don't think this video really cuts it.

The problem with marketing, in general, is that it attempts to make the worse case appear the better. Rather than giving valid information about a product, along with a price comparison so you can see if it's a good value for you, marketing uses irrelevant emotional issues to tug at your heartstrings, guilt trip you, or otherwise con and pressure you into buying stuff whether or not it's a good use of your money. For a religious organization, supposedly devoted to The Truth, to use such tactics is unconscionable.

Off the top of my head, I can think of several arguably acceptable reasons to practice a religion. One might do so out of a respect for tradition--"all my relatives do this, and I like being as one with them, so I continue to do what I was taught to do as a child." One might wish to join a church for the benefits it offers--a well-organized structure for helping the poor, an ethical system to teach one's children, a support in combating one's own vices, or simply a comforting social community. Finally, one might actually be convinced that the dogma was true, and therefore feel compelled to practice it whether or not any benefits or traditions were attached.

Marketing strategies focus on promised benefits and emotional appeals, not on truth claims. Unfortunately, most religions require members to swear to their conviction of the truth of the dogma before they can be part of the community or enjoy any other benefits. You can justify or excuse yourself for buying a car you can't afford because it promised you sexual potency and personal agency. You can excuse yourself for eating a fat-filled oversized pasta portion because Olive Garden promised you would feel love. But there's never any excuse for saying you believe something to be true when you know in your heart it isn't. If I believed in the devil, which I don't, I'd say religious marketing is satanic, because it tries very hard to get people to determine whether or not a proposition is true, not on its merits but by how good a toy comes with the Happy Meal.

My problem with church advertising is that most times it's so unapologetically bad that it loses all its effectiveness immediately. As if the whole ad campaign was dreamed up by the septugenarians who make Eyetalian Spagetty for the funerals.

The best exception that I can think of is the compellingly haunting Mormon billboards that propose to answer all the important answers in life (http://www.nine-moons.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/med_Testimony_billboards_1.jpg) and the engagingly powerful videos on http://www.CatholicsComeHome.org.

The "Starbucks" as megachurch parody - Hilarious, dead-on, and very very creepy.

I recall a series of well done ads by the LDS that weren't particularly recruitment ads but talked about families and good parenting. It was clear that this was something that mattered to them.

Davis, I don't object to breakfast burritos, coffee or donuts per se. What I object to is placing them in the church lobby as people are entering for worship. That is a place where people should be in a more reverent mode since they are about to worship a holy and awesome God. Do you really want people brining their food with them into the service because they weren't quite finished?

AB makes an important distinction; an ad or billboard, letting folks know you exist and when services are, is one thing; slick marketing campaigns (remember the UCC "ejector seat" ads of a couple of years ago? *shudder*) entirely another.

This post reminds me of how and why I realized I could no longer be a Protestant; I came to the conclusion that an intrinsic feature of Protestant Christianity is "church/denomination/confessional tradition as consumer choice." As a Protestant, which particular tradition I ally myself with is, ultimately, a matter of taste. That just struck me as fundamentally wrong.

Even worse, the choice leaves me at the mercy of my own discernment abilities. As a Christian, I am convinced that, distorted by sin as it is, my judgment is entirely untrustworthy.

Advertising exists to sell second rate (or worse) products homogenized and adapted to the appetites of the masses.

"Even worse, the choice [of churches to attend] leaves me at the mercy of my own discernment abilities. As a Christian, I am convinced that, distorted by sin as it is, my judgment is entirely untrustworthy."

In this society, it is still YOUR choice and discernment. This leaves you, by your own untrustworthy judgement, well and truly screwed.

Re: People don't go to church because it's too stuffy, because it's too formal, because you can't ask questions, because you have to be something you aren't. So if you are a 20-something who doesn't have "church" clothes and wants to learn about God while chewing down a burrito, these kinds of churches make sense.

Actually, many people don't go to church for quite the opposite reason. They perceive (rightly) that many churches have devolved into a kind of mushy, meaningless, Hallmark card spirituality, with no sacrifice, ritual, tradition or dogma involved. And they figure, rightly, that if they are going to worship a "Buddy Christ", as Kevin Smith's great movie describes it, then they might as well sleep in and do so at home. The more liberal, mainline churches have lost a h*ll of a lot of people in the last 50 years. Christ isn't our buddy, he is the Incarnate God.

As for coffee and burritos, personally I think that people should abstain from food before attending church. The Catholic rule about fasting before communion seems right to me (though I know a lot of people who try to fast for 3-4 hours instead of just 1, and I try to do that myself). Simply put, God should not be worshipped on a full stomach.

This thread reminds me of a funny crack I heard from an Evangelical college student in Colorado last week. She was making fun of praise-chorus music. She described it as "make-out-with-Jesus music."

While I was in Colorado, I got to talking with an ex-Evangelical about that music, which she had grown up with. I told this woman that I find myself turned off by the kind of praise chorus music that seems to be a big part of Evangelical and "emergent" worship, but that I'm not sure why. My friend said that in her view, it's because so much of that music is about the self: "Jesus, thank you for what you do for ME," "Lord, I love you for being my best friend," etc. It's all about personal uplift, she said to me, and eventually she burned out on it.

Again, I don't claim to know personally. I'm just repeating what I was told from people who do.

Agn Stoic,

Actually, that's not unique to modern Christian Rock. There is a _lot_ of poetry and music out there- John Donne, medieval Christian mystics, Hindu bhakti poets like Mirabai, and a lot of modern folk music- which deliberately uses romantic and erotic imagery to speak of communion with the divine. The idea being that the love of one's partner is a carnal figure of the spiritual love of God (which dates back to the Book of Revelation and even before). Dante's great work is largely an extended meditation on the theme.

Davis,

FWIW I'm high-church Anglican, not Catholic (or Orthodox).

A million years ago when I was a sugar-coated, born-again Christian boy, there was a movie from, I think, the Billy Graham ministry called 'the Gospel Blimp'. It was a comedy illustrating how the advertising of the Gospel became an end in itself, crowding out the witness of a Godly life. I've never forgotten it. Made my transit out of organized religion much easier.

Ok Rod, I got it. You don't like religion's advertisement. The video however does not fit at all your line of argument - it makes a good point but not for this article - and your whole ra-ra is just a plain insult against Scientologists. So, sorry, but this is beyond useless an does not inform at all about "marketing strategies of real churches and real religions".

Tony D.:

As a Christian, I am convinced that, distorted by sin as it is, my judgment is entirely untrustworthy.

So whose judgment do you trust?

Ok, everyone knows that the proper way to worship any god is in a three piece suit with an expensive necktie. Anything less is an insult to the god and will get you struck by lightning.

Now for the matter of the difference between Jesus and the Buddha et al. There is another way of looking at it. The Buddha says that there is a way to Enlightenment and he is offering it, but there are probably others. Ok, that is a sane and rational statement if one accepts the possibility and desirability of enlightenment. But Jesus says that HE is the way to blessedness. That is not a rational point of view. So while the Buddha can be listened to, Jesus may be rejected as just another nutcase with a press agent, no better than crazy old Ben Creme's Maitreya in his London sewer pipe.

It all depends on your point of view.

I find the comments here as entertaining as the video.....

The video is an example of poor quality marketing practices. That's pretty common among the vast majority of "wanna be" evangelical churches. Would it be any better if the marketing were really well done?

See this link and decide for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb9DF16Fx8k

"and your whole ra-ra is just a plain insult against Scientologists."

I'd take Louanne's statement with a grain of salt, she is an Office of
Special Affairs agent, Scientology's Intelligence division, who patrols
the Internet at the behest of Scientology to attack critics.

"I'm curious about the distinction between religion and pseudo-religion"

Well, we don't have Jesus or Mohammed saying they started a religion
"to make a million dollars", like L Ron Hubbard did. L Ron Hubbard also
said that "Scientology is not a religion". Scientology only claimed it was
a religion when the IRS started pursuing it for back taxes, top level management who have since left Scientology have testified about this, google
"religious cloaking". Scientology also teaches it's adherents to lie, when it's
beneficial to Scientology, I'm not aware that any religion teaches this. I'm
a ex-Catholic atheist but I believed lying was categorically wrong when
I was still Catholic, my presest atheism has'nt changed that one bit.

To know if a cult is or isn't a religion you must go to what they claim or require you to sign.

The fact is that full and complete disclosure is always lacking in any Scientology contract.

Here is just .oo1 percent of the stuff you are not told.

LRH used God's Natural laws to make slaves of mankind!

"So long as a physiological phenomenon remains the knowledge of a few and is denied to the many it can be utilized to control the many." LRH (from Journal of Scientology Issue 4-G from Oct. 1952)
"This universe has long been looking for new ways to make slaves. Well, we've got some new ways to make slaves here." LRH (from PDC tape lecture #20 "Formative State of Scientology, Definition of Logic", given on 6 Dec 52)

"All men shall be my slaves! LRH
All women shall submit to my charms! LRH
All mankind shall grovel at my feet and not know why!" [L. Ron Hubbard, "Affirmations", late 1940s] Affirmations, exhibits 500-4D, E, F & G. See Church of Scientology v Armstrong, transcript volume 11, p.1886.
"Somebody some day will say 'this is illegal'.
By then be sure the orgs say what is legal or not."
L. Ron Hubbard, HCOPL 4 January 1966
"THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN CONTROL PEOPLE IS TO LIE TO THEM". You can write that down in your book in great big letters. The only way you can control anybody is to lie to them." - L. Ron Hubbard, "Off the Time Track," lecture of June 1952, excerpted in JOURNAL OF SCIENTOLOGY issue 18-G, reprinted in TECHNICAL VOLUMES OF DIANETICS & SCIENTOLOGY, vol. 1, p. 418
"Scientology...is not a religion." - L. Ron Hubbard, CREATION OF HUMAN ABILITY, 1954, p. 251
L. Ron Hubbard's religion before he discovered physiological reactions was "Satanism".
He wanted to invent a new religion masked as being good, but in fact was totally evil so that he could take his place on the "Throne of the Beast," which he firmly believed himself to be the rightful heir. Being an evil Satanist he wanted to destroy all other religions and have Scientology as the only religion left on Earth. He wanted to be the RULER of the NEW WORLD ORDER and sit on the Throne of the Beast.

THE RONBOT HUNTER