Over at Sydney Anglicans, Dominic Steele has kicked off a discussion about the Jesus, All About Life (JAAL) campaign—in particular, focusing on the follow-up material that is sent to enquirers who see the JAAL ads on TV.
I had a squiz at the JAAL follow-up material several months ago. The main component is a very nicely produced 128-page book, consisting of 80 pages of material about Jesus and Christianity, followed by the text of the Gospel of Luke (from the Good News Bible). There is also a tract/leaflet that expands on the TV ads, and a five-week DVD-based follow-up course (in the mould of Alpha and Introducing God).
I was very interested in how The Bible Society had put all this together and interested in what they had decided to include and not include—not least because I was making very similar decisions myself around the same time in producing the Matthias Media gospel giveaway book, The Essential Jesus (so full disclosure: what follows could be seen as critiquing a ‘competitor’).
At the time, I concluded that the JAAL follow-up material was mostly harmless. It didn’t say anything wrong or misleading, and it said many helpful and true things about Jesus and the Bible and how to become a Christian. It sought to persuade me that accepting Jesus would be an excellent thing to do, and it would make a huge and very positive difference to my life (Jesus is all about life, after all). And the whole thing had the warm, chatty tone of those new NRMA commercials that tell you to ‘unworry’. It was a very pleasant package, but it was also strangely flat and unconvincing.
I think what I found unnerving was the sense that Jesus was being marketed to me, rather than preached to me. I was being sold the key benefits, and I was reassured about the quality, while at the same time any negative feelings I had about the product were negated or soothed. There was a notable absence of anything that might be perceived as a downer (things like sin, the anger and judgement of God, the need to deny yourself and take up your cross, and so on).
Since then, I have come across an excellent little piece by Jay Lemke in Modern Reformation that helped clarify my feelings of unease. Lemke, who has worked for many years in the PR industry, argues that Christians are making a huge mistake in jumping on board the marketing bandwagon of ‘bait and switch’—where you promise a glowing product, and having got the customer interested, explain the real thing with all its attendant costs and disadvantages. According to Lemke, many desperate American churches are trying to drag people in by making church fun, teaching people how to be better husbands, how to manage their finances and how to be cool and do rockclimbing, and then, once they’ve got them there, they say, “Oh and by the way, Jesus died for your sins”.
This is hopeless, Lemke argues, not only because it’s not the Bible’s message, but because it doesn’t work in the long run—which is what secular marketers now realize. The modern consumer is very savvy. They’ve been deceived too many times, and now they see through the spin and hate it. Modern PR and advertising is jumping off the “bait and switch” bandwagon just as (predictably enough) the church is jumping on. Lemke’s conclusion is worth quoting:
We tell people they should read the Bible because it will help them in their daily lives. While there is a sense of truth to it, that is like telling someone to read Moby Dick because it will help them with whale spearing.
Whether overtly or subtly, we are telling people they should be Christians because it will make them better in their particular area of interest. The American church is playing a huge game of spiritual bait and switch. At some level we must be ashamed of the basic message of Christianity, and we don’t believe that on its own it is powerfully interesting—to men, to women, to boys, and to girls. We are scared to give people the best message of all—because we believe we know better than God …
The bad news of Christianity must be very bad, and the good news must be even better. If those two tensions are not there, then the Bible is simply boring and dull.
Now, I don’t think the JAAL material is a particularly egregious example of this trend, but it’s further down that end of the spectrum than I would like. It’s just too nice and bland and positive. It tries too hard to present the good news of Jesus without any bad news, but in so doing, the gospel feels less like a momentous announcement that will save me from the judgement of God and more like an ad for lifestyle improvement.
But then, I freely admit, I’m hopelessly biased!
Thanks for your thoughts Tony. Very helpful.
(No surprise that this is a topic I take great interest in!)
I am wondering when a bit of ‘spin’ is OK. Because I don’t think its always wrong to simplify or even ‘contextualise’ our message.
For example, I was thinking about this today because someone questioned why I was ‘playing down’ the churchy language in a flyer I was working on for a Connect09 project. (ie terms like church service, sermon etc… there was no attempt in the flyer to pretend the project was being run be anyone else but a church which had an ultimate spiritual agenda.)
My answer was that the ‘churchy’ language was a potential roadblock to the main game: ‘connecting with them and connecting them with Jesus’.
What do you reckon Tony?
Hi Tony,
Thanks for posting your thoughts on this. Can anyone clarify for me whether the Roman Catholics are involved in the Sydney campaign? They’re not officially listed as one of the supporting denominations in Sydney, but I think they have been involved when the campaign has run elsewhere. I’m not sure it would be helpful having a ‘Jesus all about Life’ Banner outside our church, and having a similar banner outside a local Roman catholic church which preaches a different gospel. It would send a confusing message to those in our church who have been converted from Roman Catholic or Orthodox backgrounds, as well as to outsiders. Any thoughts?
I thought this a rather “ungenerous” article – in the vein of a recent article – (http://solapanel.org/article/on_being_generous/ )
It sounded less like a fair appraisal and more like a snippy swipe at a non-MM product.
You were honest in your admission of bias. But even that came off a little like a cliched “constructive criticism” where someone begins with, “No offence, but, you stink etc …”
No offence
Tony, I think you are right both the advert (understandably perhaps in the context) and the follow up material are fairly soft sell.
Sympathetically, it’s encouraging people to give consideration to the person and teaching of Christ. Don’t forget that the key and dominating part of the follow up material is the Gospel (of Luke from memory), and that’s got to be a good thing.
Another thing is that the Bible Society does not require participating churches to use their material. They are very open about that. So we are certainly going to use <i>The Essential Jesus</i> as the follow up, which I think is better.
Thirdly, another important factor is the people and relationships involved in delivering the follow up.
Lastly, for Kevin’s info, the involvement threshold is the Nicene Creed and that means many Roman Catholic Churches and even whole Dioceses are participating.
That is a given with the Bible Society, and the campaign is going to happen regardless. So we have to decide whether we ignore the opportunity, or whether we make sure evangelicals energetically grab it. (My limited experience is that the Roman Catholics are still exhausted after World Youth Day last year.)
If we seize the chance, then we can choose what we judge to be better follow up resources, and we can train people not to undersell the the hard or demanding side of the gospel.
For mine, it will provide an enormous boost for us when we come to systematically offering <i>The Essential Jesus</i> street by street (hopefully after other systematic and sensible contact activities) in our Diocese’s Connect09 year.
Albert
Unless you explain why you think Tony’s post was not a “fair appraisal”, I think perhaps you are not being ‘generous’ to him.
Tony has 21 years experience in assessing ministry resources theologically and practically. Do we really not want him to ever express an opinion on non-MM resources? Do we really not trust him to bring a certain degree of godly integrity to such assessments?
But then again … I’m biased too!
No offence taken, Albert! I was a little nervous about posting these thoughts for exactly the reasons you mention. However, I ended up posting them for the kind of reasons Ian mentioned!
Jeremy, yes that’s exactly the right question. I think the answer the NT gives is that we should be flexible and ‘contextual’ (if that is the word) about the wrapping paper while remaining inflexibly plain-speaking and honest about the gift inside. It’s the Paul of 1 Cor 9 who is all people to all men, and the Paul of 2 Cor 4:1-6 who renounces anything underhanded or cunning, and refuses to tamper with the message, but plainly and openly declares that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Now I think Paul may have had to defend himself against charges of inconsistency in this connection, and it can sometimes be perceived that way if you don’t understand the principle underlying it—which is that some things are easily variable for the sake of our hearers (what we eat and wear, the building we meet in, the language we use to describe incidental things, etc.), but that other things shouldn’t be mucked around with to make the whole package seem (to us at least) more ‘sellable’.
So is there a place for defying or subverting people’s expectations of us, or subtly dealing with apologetic or cultural barriers before they are even raised? Of course. That’s one of the things I like about the JAAL ads themselves. I’m with Sandy on this—when the ads go to air, it will be a great time for conversations and evangelism.
TP
Jeremy,
A couple of further thoughts while I think of it …
When I’ve raised issues like this before with people—about whether the sell has become too ‘soft’, and the hard-edged challenging truths of the gospel are being held back—the reply has frequently been that it’s a matter of timing. We’re just trying to clear away the baggage people have, and dealing with some of their false expectations, and showing them what’s really attractive about Jesus, before getting to the sharper more personally challenging truths of the gospel down the line. In my experience, ‘down the line’ never seems to happen. It’s always deferred.
Personally, I can understand this. I crave the good opinion of others as much as the next guy (more probably). Say I was given a choice between two gospels. One said: “Look, come to Jesus. He’s great. You’ll love it. And it will add meaning and purpose and joy to your life.” And the other said: “Look, you need to repent before Jesus Christ and beg his forgiveness, and give your entire life to him in every respect, because he is the crucified and risen King of the universe who is coming back sometime soon to judge you”.
Well, given the choice, I know which gospel I’d find it easier to preach. But then, I’m not given the choice.
TP
I wrote a lot about martyrdom as some already know… and it has influenced my evangelism! When Jesus calls us, he calls us to come and die! I think it is an important test of the authenticity of the message: would you face the lions in the arena on the basis of it? Or is it just giving you a sweeter earthly existence?
Ian,
Tony is a big boy and has a sense of humor – and with such extensive experience in the publishing industry is able to detect weak and poorly worded attempts at humor such as mine.
For what it’s worth we all have our bias. Mine is a background in fundamentalism (the non-generous kind), where the popular pundits frequently take great pleasure in attacking “competitors” and tearing to shreds any attempts at evangelism. My sin here, was getting my hackles up without thinking my comment more thoroughly. Please accept my repentance.
I too, like Sandy, will be utilising the EJ materials with TWTL tracts etc as follow up literature during the JAAL campaign. Simply because, I’m familiar with the content and very happy with their soundness. However, as the name of this blog would indicate, it’s not EJ or Bible Society literature that’s going to effect anyone’s regeneration is it? – That’s soley the work of God through his word and his spirit.
– Just in case, I’m not condoning an “anything goes” policy with literature or methods. All methods have their weaknesses and all could do with feedback on how to improve or fine tune their presentation. Which is what, I think, Tony was offering – not necessarily the snippy swipe that I joked about earlier.
regards
Albert.
Yeah – just one thing: if you jump down someone’s throat the moment they express dissent, then you’ll find that discussion dries up… I think Albert was entitled to say what he said, even as I think Tony was. Isn’t a bit of robust debate good for us?
Michael
I’m in favour of robust debate too. But I think it is incumbent on us to do more than just express dissent if we are going to make progress in our debates. We actually need to provide some substantiation of our point of view, don’t we?
Ian
I have two concerns with the JAAL Hunter campaign:
My concern is that with the JAAL campaign, while Baptists may carry the lion’s share of the financial support (10 -25%?), from the direct contact counselling, we shall only receive 1% of the counselling referrals (since referrals shall be organised according to denominational affiliations). The vast majority of referrals will go to the Anglicans (23%) or Catholics (25%), Uniting Church (15%) etc. Umm would someone like to do the maths?
You Sydney Anglicans SHOULD join the campaign, you’ll get at least dollar value!
My real concern is that the adds will be largely counterproductive to the majority of people in our secularised society.
When the different presenters in the add say something like “it’s not about religion”, and reject religion as a category, they are, in fact, identifying what the society perceives as Christian. They are saying that “Christianity as an institutionalised religion is decrepit”. And that is what the society is saying: “Why should I go to church? Even Christians are saying now that Church is decrepit! See, I knew I was right; it’s all hogwash!”
The presenters themselves are contributing to the ascendancy of relativism in the secularisation of our society .
Overall, this would contribute to the alienation of a large percentage of Australians from the Christian church.
The churches may pick up a few folk on the brink of the church who are asking for a relationship with God (oops, the adds don’t even offer that, just some nice principles from Jesus!) instead of “religion”. But instead, the majority of secularised Australians will be affirmed in their conviction that its all rubbish anyway!
I believe a better approach more worthy of funding would be for every church to engage in training members for personal evangelism.