Jesus: All About Erm… Something
You may have seen the banners (especially if you’re in New South Wales). “Jesus: All About Life,” they read. It is an initiative of the Bible Society, in conjunction with marketing company Taurus. Although I didn’t know that at the time. I asked my mother (a dedicated Anglican) if the signs were something to do with her particular church. She told me that it was actually an initiative across ‘all the churches.’
I looked at her thoughtfully for a moment and said, “Well, at least the ones that believe in Jesus.”
But the general idea and hope is to produce dialogue among those faiths that incorporate Jesus as a central figure – Catholicism, Christianity (various denominations) and Judaism, I suppose.
Daniel Willis, CEO of The Bible Society, talking to Rachel Kohn on The Spirit of Things:
Well I’m saying people don’t know what Jesus said and here is the opportunity, in this campaign, to put out there the actual words that Jesus said. Because when you look at what Jesus said you find he’s actually a very radical person. He was counter-cultural. [...] So what we’ve ended up with I think over the centuries is the message of Jesus being clouded by movies, by what other people have said, by what the church has added to it. And when you get back to what Jesus said it actually makes sense and it under girts the values we all want.
This was a major stumbling block for me. I am not a biblical scholar but I am reasonably convinced Jesus never said anything to the effect of ‘the shetland pony was an absolute cinch’ (as he does in a Jesus: All About Life radio ad). Whether you treat the Bible as literal truth, as allegory or as fiction, it is important to appreciate the distinction between ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ (an invitation to speculate) and ‘What Did Jesus Do?’ (as recorded within these texts). That Willis freely acknowledges that without a understanding of the Bible many artistic, literary and pop culture references are lost on individuals while feeling he has license to further cloud ‘the message of Jesus’ within the context of this campaign is perplexing. But it seems to be a broader trend within Christian traditions, one that sees this kind of embellishment as permissable if it exists within a generally accepted narrative and understanding of Jesus.
And even the tagline ‘All About Life’ is open to interpretation. In what ways is Jesus ‘All About Life’? Does Jesus’ supposed relevance to life relate to him as a historical figure, as the key to ’salvation’ in the Christian tradition, as a ‘personal’ figure? If you accept the idea of a ‘personal Jesus’ over a historical one, suddenly the popular tendency towards speculation and embellishment makes perfect sense.
Writer and former religious reporter, Tom Harpur:
I can’t prove to anyone Jesus Christ or Muhhammad or whomever never existed. And in one sense, it doesn’t really matter because the average Christian has a mythical Christ that they’re talking about anyway. You take ten people coming out of a service anywhere on a Sunday and ask them what their picture of Jesus is. And you’ll find it is not exactly something that can be replicated because everybody has their own personal Jesus. This is a creation of the religious imagination. Not that they have been brainwashed, but taught, or however you want to put it by a religious tradition into thinking a certain way about it. But I mean, Christ in you, Paul says. How can a historical person be in you? I fail to understand.
I don’t have a personal Jesus. Like Harpur, I struggle with the historical Jesus. And I wonder what the ‘word of Jesus’ might do for me, as a non-believer, that modern morality cannot? Perhaps the emphasis on Jesus (as opposed to God) is about highlighting the New Testament in favour of the Old Testament (with its burnt offerings and slavery). I once suggested that the Harry Potter books had as much to say about life as the Bible did. I was being flippant at the time, but there is a great truth here. Any compelling work of literature encapsulates themes and ideas that relate to life and morality and personal and societal values. Modern texts have a modern frame of reference and perhaps a greater understanding of the complexity of modern life, as well as a broader sense of community values. Certainly the bible’s relationship with women, homosexuals, slavery and human sacrifice is a far cry from modern day morality. And at the point where you selectively embrace teachings of Jesus have you not in effect elected a ‘personal Jesus’ over a historical one?
And why Jesus, why not God? I mean it’s all well and good to say this is not about ‘the church’ and rather about Jesus but there is clearly a proselytising element to this campaign.
Happy Sunday!
John,
Thanks for a thoughtful post. As someone who goes to a church that has a JAAL banner out the front, I’ve been watching a bunch of commentary bubble away on twitter and on marketing blogs: no-one is entirely happy about the campaign, in that sense of “it’s saying exactly what I would like it to say”, but as a catalyst for discussion, I think it’s doing its job.
I love that the google ad for this page (at least for me) is pushing a range of different tattoos that have a Jesus theme to them. Not quite my cup of tea.
But I digress. The reason for pushing Jesus in particular, rather than the more generic “God.. all about life” is tied to the things that Christians believe about Jesus: the “personal Jesus” that you’re talking about.
If we have an accurate record of Jesus’ sayings in the gospels, then it’s worth further investigation into just how much overlap there is between Jesus and God. A Christian would tell you that Jesus *is* God, and as such, his sayings, and his life, are worthy of careful consideration. If there is a God, and his anger can only be dealt with through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, then there are indeed parts of the Christian message that provide for more than modern morality.
As a non-believer, all that you would hope to gain from looking at the words of Jesus beyond modern morality would be an understanding of whether your non-believer stance is – in the light of Jesus’ words – a sensible one.
Sorry if I’m coming across as some kind of religious zealot: I’m hoping rather to engage with the questions you’re asking.
Talking on a slightly different tangent(because Im not as well versed as cafedave above) I would like to say how i feel about this topic. Whilst watch “The Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy” on Channel 7, during a commercial break, what I thought to be an plug for maybe a health fund/superannuation plan turn out to be “Jesus – All about life” ad.
I understand there is a free to air Christian channel but it bothers me to see this ad as I never thought religion would be promoted on commercial tv, the same way we don’t see ads for Scientology, Buddhism or Islam on Channel 9 or 10.
I disagree with the platform used for their promotion, if people want to learn more about a religion, they can seek out for it themselves via other means. It doesn’t need to be broadcast nation-wide as it could be offensive for other people from different religions who may be watching tv and didn’t expect the word to be spoken to them without having a choice about it. Sure they could change channels during the break but why put them in the position in the first place.
Personally, i believe as long as our personal actions does not harm another individual in any way and better yet enhances another person’s wellbeing, it really doesn’t matter what religion they belong to. At the end of the day, it is just a different route to the same goal, which hopefully is world harmony.
Rarely am i so opinionated about a subject, let’s hope it doesn’t open a can of whoop ass, and have backlash right and centre. Sorry for the regular use of I in the comments (it sounds quite selfish), my command of English is poor, which is why, even though i have been reading your blog for 6 months now, no comments were left because they would be as awkward as this one, but your last blog on Disparity gave me the courage to just say something and stop avoiding being judged. Thank you.
P.S. I may leave more long winded comments from this point on, you do not need to publish these comments, please feel free to delete them after reading it. All that matters is that i have been heard.
Zoe,
You’re quite welcome to leave comments here as often as you like, though I probably won’t delete them so I guess keep that in mind.
I don’t really have a problem with any religion advertising themselves. We suffer through all manner of ads on free-to-air television for things we may not be interested in and I tend to think of religious advertising in this same light. Similarly I wouldn’t think an ad for a faith I was not a part of would be threatening or particularly offensive to me. (Indeed the radio ad mentioned in the text above only reaffirmed some of my pre-existing beliefs about Christians.)
CafeDave,
I guess that is the whole thing for me; I had this profound sense that this campaign was essentially preaching to the converted. There’s no obvious correlation for me as an outsider between being thankful for things and Jesus. There’s this assumption that everyone who would encounter this material would understand the implication and accept it at face value. It is as though somebody said:
I don’t think it is obvious. It isn’t obvious to me. I doubt it would be particularly obvious to anyone within a religious tradition that didn’t feature Jesus Christ as a central figure.
I read an opinion article about this campaign the other week:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/02/2674056.htm
I have seen from my Mum’s facebook photos (how times have changed) that my parents are involved in some manner with all this business. There was a thing on in Junction Court with a banner and a heap of motorbikes and stuff.
The campaign leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. It’s the sort of American-influenced evangelism that we don’t see much of in Australia (with the exception of Hillsong), which attempts to embrace modern commerce and culture in full and has a preoccupation with presenting religion as appealing and culturally relevant.
But it’s all just coating, really. They might genuinely be into motorbikes, have tattoos, make some music from all sorts of genres that is actually independently quite good (I recall seeing one of Australia’s most successful metal bands at Blackstump, growling “Jesus! Jesus!” into the microphone), but at the end of the day they’re still going to be basing their lives of a religious text full of social and moral ideas that our society has advanced far beyond, they’re still going to be telling you not to have sex before marriage and when the question of homosexuality comes up they will, at best, mutter something about accepting people wherever they are in their lives and change the topic. Basically, passionately religious evangelicals do not live like the rest of us, they are not indeed supposed to live like the rest of us, and attempts to seem as similar to everyone else as possible in order to seem relevant and appealing are just too transparent.
So what’s really left is a concerted effort to embrace the most shallow and consumer-driven elements of modern life. I can understand the logic behind this, but I dislike it as much as I dislike the elements of our culture that it tries to mimic.
Related to this is the question of money and priorities. Good concert equipment and sophisticated marketing campaigns cost money. This campaign, in fact, is costing well over a million dollars. This in economic times in which charities are experiencing a massive increase in demand for their services and a substantial drying up of donations as people pull in the purse strings. The one thing for which I still really appreciate and admire churches is for their welfare and community work. The fact that almost all national and international development and welfare agencies are run by churches, and without them, a lot of disadvantaged people would be left out in the cold.
At least from my point of view, that influence makes churches far more appealing than any amount of pop culture proselytising. It’s certainly more in line with where Jesus was working, and it’s more successful too. Spoilt pop culture brats and the middle class are a hard nut for religion to crack. People who have something missing from their lives are far more receptive. Jesus acknowledge that specifically: it’s harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to Heaven. The cynical side of me says that it’s wrong to play on people’s weaknesses to sell your religion. But the other side of me says that if religion must be sold, at least sell it to people who have something to gain from it and who can get a bit of shelter and food to eat in the meantime.
Oct 11th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
[...] may have been a tad too generous in thinking there might’ve been a more thoughtful purpose to the Bible Society’s Jesus: All About Life advertising campaign than prosletysing… A Bible Society brochure has cleared up all the question [...]
Oct 25th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
[...] Call me a conspiracy theorist if you must, but has the Department of Education done a deal with the Bible Society? It seems interesting that such a question should coincide with the Bible Society’s “Jesus: All About Life” campaign. [...]