If you are a Christian, believer or leader (not always the same), or don’t like humor, parody, satire, or simply being poked, see Disclaimer below Endnotes before continuing.

Image this:

It’s a warm sunny day outside of Jerusalem. Jesus is wrapping up a sermon. Wherein, he or Peter or John or James, or, maybe more likely Judas Iscariot (JI), since he has the money, get’s up to address the faithful (and unfaithful).

“Friends, I hope you enjoyed today’s sermon. And the delicious fish and loves. Comeback tomorrow for even more thrills, chills, tasty treats, and insults about your favorite Pharisee.” He laughs hard. “Those guys suck, right?”

Everybody cheers. Pointing over their heads, Judas says, “In the back we have some really great ‘Jesus Has My Back (And My Sins)’ t-shirts, wine flasks, and phylacteries.”

One dude, flashing his shirt, yells, “I got mine dude. This is so cool.”

To be continued later …

I

What if Jesus Christ, the Son of God, had a brand? Or a mascot? Or, jingle?

Sounds ludicrous. Right? Most would find that weird.

Or maybe not.

Many churches in modern American Evangelical Christianity (AEC) don’t find it weird or unusual, but necessary.

Evangelical Christianity has enjoyed branding Jesus, the Gospel and, especially, churches for 150 years, going back to the Second Great Awakening in the early 1800’s. Even more so in the last 75 years with the inclusion of secular business administration, sales, and marketing techniques wrapped in the advent of popular television and now the Internet and social media.

Currently, there’s the major media and social campaign from Servant Foundation: He Gets Us. Millions of dollars have been spent on this campaign, including an 8 million dollar Super Bowl ad.

Makes you wonder what their Return On Investment (ROI) might be. Or how is it measured: Souls won per dollar spent? But their commercials are cool and savvy.

Caution: sardonic parody of bad grammar, next:

He Gets Us. What does he get us? A cold beer and a bag of potato chips?

There’s a northeast regional insurance company, New Jersey Manufacturers Casualty Insurance Company (NJM), which has great commercials on national televisions. They declare they have “no mottos or jingles, just good insurance”. Get it? No Jingles or Mascots.

Of course, it’s parody, at the very least, an oxymoronic paradox as a sales and marketing device[1]. Saying that they don’t have a motto is a motto. They paid money for this? Apparently the American Evangelical Christian church does, too.

II

The modern iteration of the “branding” movement came in Eighties. AEC, from their seminaries pushed down to the churches, churches were merging modern business administration techniques with church administration and leadership. For evangelism and proselytizing they were merging evangelism and church growth technique with consumer-friendly marketing and sales (lead, by example, George Barna, among others et al.)[2].

This caught fire and created everything from megachurches such as Willowcreek Church to Saddleback to celebrity preachers like Joel Osteen, David Jeremiah, Joyce Meyer, and Andy Stanley. Locally, we have Lancaster County Bible Church (LCBC), Calvary Church[3], and Victory Church, by example.

Largely, across the last 75 years this development has revolved around surveys, data mining, and the rise of the pastor as the CEO, COO, CMO (chief marketing officeer), andCCO (chief content officer)[4]. This, at the expense of diminishing Gospel-driven pastoral ministry and preaching.

The result is to redefine the church identity and purpose of the church in consumer-friendly, marketing and sales terms. Give the people what they want. Whether it’s Christian self-help therapy, hip music, a happy youth group for parents who need a break on Sunday nights.

At our church, right before the sermon, we are told: “What we want our church to be.” Actually, it’s what he wants it to be[5]: a place for those on a “spiritual” journey, meaning the atheist, the curious or seeking, the marginal Christian, or those who “identify” a Christian (which is, essentially, a capitulation to our Identity cultural motif).

What is not said and is most curious and dangerous: the person of Jesus Christ. His incarnational birth, sinless prophetical life, death for our sins and salvation, bodily resurrection for our justification and imputation of righteous, holiness (et al), and ascension and reign for our sanctification and living in the inaugurated Kingdom of God. For the glory of God.

Nope.

We have substituted a subjective, audience-centered focus for an objective person and reality, Jesus Christ and his Gospel. Again, this begs the question: According to Scripture and Jesus Christ what is the primary purpose of the church? I’ll give you a hint: I just mentioned it above.

Unfortunately, what you get, in all this, is a capitulation to American culture, philosophy, theology (yes, American culture has a theology), and practice, and so, a dilution of Christianity. The rise of the Internet, social media and, now, artificial intelligence, which makes this marketing vehicle of ecclesiology and evangelism a raging race car of consumer saturation in a therapeutic gospel.

This man-centered consumer marketing trend continues today, along with its unbiblical propositions and failures. To suggest Yeats:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre …
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world
(or the Church)

Our local church has always had a slogan, probably more than one. I can’t remember what it is or was. So, I guess it wasn’t memorable or simply didn’t have any weight or purpose. Or it was meaningless having the weight or air, a cliché, an impractical pitch, a gimmick.

Frankly, I’ve never given it one cent.[6] Branding is nonsense and a sign of cultural capitulation[7], a sales and marketing ploy and not a good one. But that’s to say, as a concept, I’ve also never taken things like this seriously in the local church. The folly that men do is also known as hubris.[8] Wait. Isn’t that a gift of he spirit?

Now, the past slogan/brand has been cast aside to become a (new) motto, the motto has become a vision (or something), and these have become whatever comes next. The presentation and explanation is rather blurry at this point. No doubt justification will be made by indoctrination from the pulpit and in our educational system.

However, already, we are being indoctrinated into this secular marketing scheme with weekly PowerPoint images that declare these tactics. [9] What’s next, a jingle? Maybe a rap version of Amazing Grace. Maybe a mascot? The widow and her mite might work. Nope. That wouldn’t work with our therapeutic gospel (little “g” intentional).

III

Two more thoughts. First one, I mentioned branding as being a gimmick. This makes me think of the one cultural phenomenon where gimmicks are the life blood of the product: professional wrestling.

I love watching professional wrestling; it’s got rabid fans, tricky dramatic storytelling, funny costumes, and it makes me laugh. AEW: Where The Best Wrestle. There’s the correct context for a branding and marketing slogan applies.

In pro wrestling, the wrestler’s persona is the “gimmick” (Macho Man Randy Savage, Jake ‘the Snake’ Roberts, Hulk Hogan). But if the brand/gimmick isn’t working (that is making the wrestler successful bygetting the wrestler “over,”), you must change the gimmick. Even then if it still sucks, and the wrestler fails, he loses market value, sales, and professional success. It’s a vicious cycle, if you can’t succeed.  (Ecclesiastes 1)

What’s the next big thing in Church marketing? My hope is …

As John Malcovich said to Nicholas Cage in Con Air,  with a sly laconic voice.

. . . Nothing.

Back to A Satire in Story:

What if the Son of God had a brand? What if Jesus Christ had a mascot? Or, what if the Christ had a jingle?

And a one … and a two … everybody now … to the tune of the Gloria Patri …

---

[1] Which is what we’re doing in Evangelicalism, as I suggest.

[2] I experienced this personally when I was in seminary and attended Willowcreek Community Church.

[3] The funny thing about this church is that it was the local vanguard of conservative, Evangelical, Dispensational, and separatist Christianity. Their motto in the Eighties could have been, Better Dead, The Liberal. Then things changed. The got the consumer-friendly bug. The latter was extant when I was in Bible College and Seminary. Upon my return in 1990, the church had evolved, by one example, a worship service that would rival a Broadway show. In less than five years this church had capitulated to American consumer culture.

[4] Actually, this is not a new phenomenon. Cf. Nathan Hatch, The Americanization of Christianity, among others. The second great awakening gave us the dawn of pamphleteering and tracts. Also, Americans, especially Christians, love their iconic and autocratic Trump-like president in the pulpit telling it how it is, or how it should be.

[5] Because our church polity, the “we” is never “us” the people in the pew, members, especially, or not. Rather we is always the dictates of the leadership. The desires and vision of the pastor (assumed to be) the will of Christ and the Bible) with the agreeable rubber stamp of the leadership. Which are supposed to be fully accept without question. Wherein, to disagree is often considered sin

[6] Read: I don’t give a shit. Sometimes the vernacular says it best. (Don’t know what that is? Look it up. Here’s a slogan from American Christendom history and an irony at the same time: What Would Jesus Do?)

[7] This is the second time I’ve made this remark. Let the reader understand. Ironically, this was made known by the great Reformed and Evangelical pastor and theologian J. I. Packer in his Introduction to John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ.
But the Evangelical church’s capitulation culture and politics in the 21st century is both rampant and dangerous. (Cf. John G. West, Stockholm Syndrome Christianity: Why America’s Christian Leaders Are Failing — and What We Can Do About It.) We’re also allowing the dangerous thought system of Christian Nationalism to infect our churches. (Cf. Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.) Now, we can be culturally hip and Nazis at the same time.

[8] Often, sadly, whatever the concept, plan, or ministry maybe.

[9] Recently, these clever cliches have been appearing as advertising via PowerPoint slides before and after the worship service. Which reminds me of how propaganda is made effective (the Nazis were terrific at this): Repeat it a least three times, and it soon becomes memorable. Keep repeating it and it becomes a memorable and undisputed (but also an unsupported innocuous, but dangerous) fact.

Disclaimer:
This essay is known as an Op-Ed essay (a commentary of personal opinion, observation, including observed facts) wrapped in satire, and sometimes parody). And so it is an exercise in creative writing, and not answerable as libel.
If you, don’t understand this creative literary concept, you should probably not read on. You are likely to be unhappy, even offended, and want to run me out of American Evangelical Christendom or my local church. (Neither is the worse thing that could happen to me considering present state of both).
However, if you do read on and this essay makes you intellectually, emotionally, or spiritually uncomfortable then, as a writer, I’ve done my job.
If you want an exercise in futility, you can fill out the comment section below, and receive no reply. As my theology professor once said, “You can agree with me or be wrong the rest of your life. (BTW: That is another example of satire.)