“MARKETING RELIGION”
A Sermon by the Rev. Bruce Clear
Sunday,
All
I begin with two very different stories:
First story: Last week,
Second story: Last Christmas, the Chicago Tribune carried a story about Christmas pageants at
megachurches – the huge churches defined at having more than 2,000 people at
services over one week. At the Savannah
Christian Church in
Here are
briefer examples. A Baptist church in
Something seems
to have been happening with religion in
In 1955, only 4 percent of Americans practiced a religion different from their parents. Four percent is almost statistically insignificant. But that was to change in the 1960s and 70s, and most of us know why. This was the generation of rebellion – my generation, I might add. Baby boomers. Many youth and young adults wanted to distance themselves from their parents’ values, and one way to do that was to reject their religions. Many just left religion altogether, and others experimented with movements like the Hindu-rooted transcendental meditation, or religious communes on the farm, or more commonly, carving out their own unaffiliated personal religious views. One indicator of a person’s age is if they can remember Hare Krishna singers handing out flowers in airports.
Eventually we baby boomers settled down, and as our own families were born, many of us sought the stability of religious community. Sixty percent of us baby boomers, though, either found that religious home in a tradition different from the one we were raised, or else left organized religion altogether. Only 4% of our parents changed religions compared to 60% for us.
And then our baby boomer generation did something different with our own children. We decided, probably more sub-consciously than consciously, to give our children the broadest possible opportunity to make choices in their lives. We wanted our children to decide for themselves in most areas of living. While many of us were criticized by the older generation for long hair on boys and bell-bottom jeans on girls, we were determined that our children would choose their own wardrobe and hairstyle (and were startled when they chose a buzz haircut and Abercrombie and Fitch clothes!). Instead of “you must eat at least some of everything on your plate,” we told them they didn’t have to eat those lima beans if they didn’t want to. We weren’t going to force them.
This next generation, then, was nurtured to make choices for themselves. We had no idea what explosion of choices would be presented to them. Instead of choosing between three network television stations, as we remember, our children were faced with over a hundred, and by now three hundred. We could basically drive Ford, Chevy, or Chrysler products; they could choose from hundreds of auto companies based around the world, most of which made not just sedans but SUVs, sports cars, and off-road vehicles. Birth control was a fact of life for them, and offered some choices that seemed risky to us. We enjoyed going to movies, they grew up also with VCRs and now DVDs, and their entertainment choices were dramatically broader than ours. We talked to each other by corded phones in the living room; they can talk by cell phone, text-message, computer instant messaging, webcams, and probably a few things we don’t even know about.
But back to religion. By the time of this next generation, religion was no longer part of a person’s identity, shaped by the family. It became, instead, one among many choices to be made by a person at the age of maturity. This, by and large, was not a problem for their baby-boomer parents. At least in theory. But sometimes we were bewildered by what they chose.
And that is where it remains today. Religion is not something that we identify with because it is our inheritance. Religion is a choice in a cafeteria of choices to be made by each individual.
It would be disingenuous of me to suggest there is something wrong with religion being a choice. After all, the vast majority of Unitarian Universalists were raised in other churches, having chosen this tradition as an alternative. If All Souls were made up only of people who were raised as UUs, this service could be held in my office, which would accommodate such a number. I wouldn’t be in the room.
Choice is good. After all, I am a certified, card-carrying baby-boomer. What I am wondering about this morning, though, is what happens to us when religion morphs into a kind of commercial product. Do you prefer Frosted Flakes or Cheerios? Is your computer an Apple or a PC? Is your church Lutheran, Methodist, or nondenominational?
When our culture treats religion as a commercial product, what we get is religious telemarketing and slick packaging with million-dollar Christmas pageant extravaganzas. For years, social commentators have observed how politics has been cheapened by the packaging of candidates – their handlers sell the candidate based more on image than on substance. Some have suggested something similar has been happening with religion.
My comments
this morning were triggered by reading a recent book called “Brands of Faith: Marketing Religion in a Commercial
Age.” The author, Mara Einstein, is
a professor of media studies at
It is Einstein’s observation that religion has become commercialized to an extraordinary extent, so that it substantially different from what it used to be. She writes:
“Religion is a commodity. . . (it) is packaged and sold the same way as other goods.”
And her book elaborates in detail on that thesis.
There are several common observations about trends in religion these days, all of which support what Einstein suggests. It used to be that religion was a part of life around which other activities would be chosen. Today, religion clearly competes as one among many other leisure activities – recreation, hobbies, entertainment, and so forth. (The culture used to reinforce church as a priority of choices. In my youth, no children’s activities were planned for Sunday morning or even Wednesday evening, which was a time for the mid-week church service. Today Sunday mornings are scheduled with kids’ soccer games and other sports, and Wednesday is for school activities, like any other day.) To compete, churches must present themselves as more attractive than any other choice someone can make for their leisure time.
I lived ten
years in the most un-churched region of the country: the
Another observation is that, compared with earlier times, denominational loyalty means little these days. It used to be that when people moved to a new community, if they had been Methodist, they’d try out different Methodist churches until they found one they liked. It is more common today that people “shop” for churches without paying much attention to denomination, and easily move from one denomination to another. This is one reason for the impressive growth of new mega-churches that are non-denominational.
Another observation is that religion has become more of a personal activity than a community event in today’s society. Some years ago, religious sociologist Robert Bellah wrote an important book about the changing role of religion in society, entitled “Habits of the Heart.” In that book he invented what has become a sort of “inside joke” in academic religious circles. He wrote about a religion called “Sheilahism.” Bellah interviewed many people about their religious views, and one interview was with a nurse named Sheila. When asked what religion she practiced, she answered “Sheilahism.”
Sheila explained that she was not impressed with anything out there so she created her own religion, based on her beliefs. The tenets of Sheilahism are whatever Sheila believes. This approach to individualistic belief has become known in religious studies now as “Sheilahism.” Bellah suggests that this approach has become increasingly common. It is especially encouraged by the existence of the internet, where individuals can log on to any religious environment they choose, even experience a worship service through streaming video, without leaving home. If Sheilahism continues to be a popular religion, then marketing by churches becomes even more important.
Given these cultural trends, Einstein takes a close look at what happens today when religion is marketed like other products. Her book opens with a look at the marketing genius behind Mel Gibson’s film, “The Passion of the Christ.” It was a box-office mega-hit. The film marketers encouraged the pre-screening controversy over whether the movie was anti-Semitic. That controversy publicized the film more than any paid advertising could. Next, the design was that the film would open on Ash Wednesday. But the most effective marketing was to enlist the support of local churches. There were thirty by invitation-only screenings around the country for church leaders before the movie opened. Over 250,000 DVDs about the film were mailed to ministers across the country. Promotional packets included sermon ideas, trailers to show at church, banners to put on the church walls, and inviting congregations to buy tickets in bulk and attend together. There were other products offered for sale – Passion coffee cups, crosses, and pewter nail pendants on a leather string.
Religion and the marketing of commercial products were so interwoven that one couldn’t be distinguished from the other. From this specific example, one looks at other cultural religious phenomena, and everywhere is the blending of religion and marketing.
The most obvious examples may be the televangelists. The previous generation of televangelists – Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, or Pat Robertson – preached “fire and brimstone.” They used “fear” to market salvation. That doesn’t seem to work as well in the kind of culture we now live in. It is not “fear” but rather “hope” that seems to sell religion now.
The most
successful televangelist at the moment is Joel Osteen. His church in
His message is very different from previous generations. There is no hell. There is no fear. There is positive thinking, and there is promise of being successful in life, including, maybe especially, financial success. Mara Einstein said it this way:
“Today’s televangelist delivers a
more subtle message than his or her early day counterparts. Instead of fire and brimstone, the preachers
sell fine living and abundance. This
type of preaching – which goes under a number of names, including prosperity
preaching or Name it Claim it, among others – has made the evangelistic message
attractive to a wider audience. . . In
order to draw in the masses, preachers must include what will attract the
largest number of people – ideas about how their lives will be better, more
prosperous, more fulfilling – and exclude those things that will lead viewers
to reach for remote control – mentions of Jesus, requests for contributions,
suggestions that they are going to hell.”
P. 121
You may wonder about the point of omitting “requests for contributions.” This is where marketing comes in. Older televangelists characteristically spent the end of every broadcast in an emotional plea for money. The new televangelists use their internet store for sales of products. In Osteen’s programs, the website “JoelOsteen.com” is continuously displayed at the top of the screen. Throughout the broadcast, at the bottom of the screen is a scrolling commercial for products that can be purchased on their website: DVDs of Joel’s programs, books by Joel, promotion of tickets to Osteen’s national tour with dates and cities, and so forth. There is no need to tarnish the actual broadcast with personal pleas for money. The store is successful enough. Mara Einstein comments on it this way:
“More than a sermon, [the] Joel Osteen [show] is an infomercial. The product is Joel.”
The author goes into further detail about the marketing of Joel. A huge industry of church marketing consultants and public relation specialists has grown up in the last ten years – looking for target audiences, using demographic analysis, testing the mass appeal of sermon topics, and so forth. There is a science to using email lists and bringing people into the virtual church.
I won’t go into
much more of Einstein’s analysis. In
addition to her study of several televangelists like Joel Osteen, she looks at
the commercial aspects of the Jewish Kabbalah center in
She also looks at Oprah Winfrey, who, of course, is not self-evidently selling a religious product. But one can see in her programming over the years an increasing spiritual focus, and it is, like Joel Osteen, a gospel of success. Oprah is presented here as an interesting contrast. While televangelists like Osteen are criticized for watering down doctrine, to appeal to mass audiences, Oprah in contrast has a secular program that markets spirituality.
In the marketing culture, it appears, the sacred becomes more secular and the secular becomes more sacred, and sometimes it is hard to distinguish the difference. Oprah’s tagline for her show is “Live Your Best Life.” Joel’s bestselling book is entitled, “Your Best Life Now!” (By the way, both are best known to their fans using first name only – “Joel” and “Oprah” – a marketing strategy that allows fans to feel closer to them.)
In is an interesting phenomenon, this marketing of religion today. I don’t want to say that there is no place for marketing. It plays an important role, for example, in a religious tradition like ours which is not well known by many people. The UUA is constantly trying to come up with ways to get our message out, for example with bumper stickers calling us the “Uncommon Denomination,” and advertisements in targeted magazines. Leaders here at All Souls know that the two or three years we had promo ads on NPR brought quite a few visitors.
There is a place for marketing. But this look at what is happening today with the marketing of religion should make us cautious. There is a point at which the marketing can overtake the message. There is a point at which religious integrity becomes lost in the packaging of religion. Perhaps Einstein’s strongest comment comes near the end of the book, when she writes:
“Religious marketers have made their products ones that consumers want, not necessarily what they need. . . . There’s a reason why Jesus flipped over the tables when the Pharisees tried to turn his church into a marketplace – he was furious at the commercialism and the idolatry of the market.”
Like all commercial marketing, the marketing of religion presents the product as something that will fix all your problems, making you healthy wealthy, and wise. “It easy” is the message of marketing. “All products,” writes Mara Einstein, “religious or otherwise – are presented to us (by marketers) as quick and easy fixes.”
I’m here this morning to say, religion isn’t quick and easy. Or at least it shouldn’t always be. When did religion change from wrestling with difficult and complex questions about the meaning of life to finding a quick fix for our troubles? Religious life means commitment and effort.
Sometimes, Unitarian Universalism is criticized because it asks too little of us. You don’t have to subscribe to and defend any certain creed. You don’t have to pray at certain times or obey religious rules that restrict what you can eat or drink or say or read or think. You don’t have to tithe 10% of your income. And you don’t have to attend church regularly to be a true UU. There is some truth that our tradition requires little of people in these matters.
But these are mere details; it seems to me, compared with what is required to be responsible for your own beliefs. And that is the most profound requirement our religious tradition makes – that your beliefs are yours through careful and sometimes difficult personal study and thought.
Religion is not a quick and easy fix. I agree with these words about religion from D.H. Lawrence:
“A person has no religion who has not slowly and painfully gathered one together, adding to it, shaping it; and one's religion is never complete and final, it seems, but must always undergo modification."
What is easy is to have someone else decide for you about right and wrong, have someone else tell you what God is like and how God works, have someone tell you the meaning of life. What is difficult is to approach these questions taking full responsibility for your answers because you spent a lifetime weighing the choices. But the difficult road is also often the most honest and the most personally fulfilling.
And now as I finish this sermon, I want to remind you that there will be no “Bruce” T-shirts, shoes or hats for sale during the Social Hour. Our bookstore does not sell “The Book of Bruce.” At least not yet.