Marketing Jesus
December 23, 2008
The latest edition of Christianity Today carries a cover story on `Marketing Jesus' by Tyler Wigg-Stevens (who sounds as if he should be a Ref21 character). The article makes some good points about the unavoidability of having to market the gospel in a consumer culture, but also of the need to avoid making the gospel into just another product. At Christmas time, this is perhaps more obviously pertinent than at any other point in the year.
But here, to use one of my favourite cliches, is the rub: Christianity Today is, in many ways, the epitome of a market-driven product where aesthetic values and market forces rule the day. Glossy, full of commerical advertising space, with an editorial policy driven by the need to avoid being too hard and fast on all but the merest Christianity in order to avoid alienating the core constituencies who pay for said advertising, buy the magazine etc. Lest I be seen to be arguing as if I am outside the problem, my own institution does, of course, market itself within the pages of CT as well.
Criticism of a system can -- indeed, when the system is itself effectively universalised, must-- take place within the system itself; but one must be very self-aware and deliberate in order to avoid such criticism being co-opted and muted by the system. I have noted on more than one occasion that a certain television network puts the Simpsons on at dinner time every weekday -- a program which mercilessly lambasts the mythology of the American family, and at a moment in the day which encourages families not to sit and eat and talk together but watch the TV. And this from a conservative media company. Which is undermined? The conservative values which the company allegedly promotes, or the alleged cutting-edge satire of The Simpsons? When Saturday Night Live sends up politicians something rotten, and then invites Barack Obama or Sarah Palin (or any other politician) to join in the fun, is the satire not effectively killed, or at least de-fanged -- because the internalising of the target domesticates the message.
To attack consumerist religion from with the pages of CT is laudable; but the fact that such criticism is itself parasitic upon a consumerist context highlights the real problem with which consumerism presents us.
I have no answer to this problem; what is frustrating is that nobody else seems to be refelcting on the issue. Perhaps it is because the problem cuts too close to home.
But here, to use one of my favourite cliches, is the rub: Christianity Today is, in many ways, the epitome of a market-driven product where aesthetic values and market forces rule the day. Glossy, full of commerical advertising space, with an editorial policy driven by the need to avoid being too hard and fast on all but the merest Christianity in order to avoid alienating the core constituencies who pay for said advertising, buy the magazine etc. Lest I be seen to be arguing as if I am outside the problem, my own institution does, of course, market itself within the pages of CT as well.
Criticism of a system can -- indeed, when the system is itself effectively universalised, must-- take place within the system itself; but one must be very self-aware and deliberate in order to avoid such criticism being co-opted and muted by the system. I have noted on more than one occasion that a certain television network puts the Simpsons on at dinner time every weekday -- a program which mercilessly lambasts the mythology of the American family, and at a moment in the day which encourages families not to sit and eat and talk together but watch the TV. And this from a conservative media company. Which is undermined? The conservative values which the company allegedly promotes, or the alleged cutting-edge satire of The Simpsons? When Saturday Night Live sends up politicians something rotten, and then invites Barack Obama or Sarah Palin (or any other politician) to join in the fun, is the satire not effectively killed, or at least de-fanged -- because the internalising of the target domesticates the message.
To attack consumerist religion from with the pages of CT is laudable; but the fact that such criticism is itself parasitic upon a consumerist context highlights the real problem with which consumerism presents us.
I have no answer to this problem; what is frustrating is that nobody else seems to be refelcting on the issue. Perhaps it is because the problem cuts too close to home.
