Force for Change In Western Acceptance of Islam? (Or...Isn't It Just a Teddy Bear?)

I remember my first conversation with someone who was Muslim about Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. It was a person I respected immensely and I was not let down. The person helped me at least manage my confusion about the fatwa on Rushdie's life in part by explaining that Rushdi, raised a Muslim, knew exactly what he was doing. He was not ignorant of the implications of his novel. A liberal Westerner could understand how, while a fatwa may seem extreme, it was internally consistent with cultural customs and therefore--somehow--acceptable. Worthy of tolerance if not support. Fast forward 20 years to a very different situation (if one is to believe the press). A British teacher in Sudan asks her students to vote on a teddy bear name, accepts their overwhelming choice of "Muhammad," ...and is arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to prison time for insulting Islam. Protestors chant for death. A government spokesman says "it's not much of a punishment at all. It should be considered a warning that such acts should not be repeated."

The story has gotten wide coverage, so my goal is not to repeat it. It is to link back to my Rushdie conversation. Open-minded Westerners understand and support a culture, Muslim or otherwise, having strong convictions that differ from their own. And the most open-minded would certainly say that anyone living on foreign soil must understand local customs and beliefs. But I fear that these same Westerners may have a sort of subconscious Kantian absolute standard that draws a line in the sand for acceptability. And a former Muslim writing a blasphemous book is one side of that line and a grade-school teacher accepting her seven-year-old student's choice for a teddy-bear name is very far on the other. And the more teddy bears show up in the press, the more strain Western support will sustain.

I get it that religion is about purity, not marketing. But if mutual understanding and support is any part of the goal, this situation didn't help.

Personification as Marketing...in Religion

I heard a very cool lecture about play called Phaedo written by Plato about his hero, Socrates. Yeah, I know. There’s no way that a play by Plato can be just fun, right? And the star is Socrates, so that seems a double whammy. But it was only one lecture and I figured I could zone out during a workout and just listen to it again later. It turned out to be a great story. Socrates is the star. He's about to be killed for annoying the politicians and he has a couple of groupies hanging out with him. They can't figure out why he's so happy. So he tells them. And along the way builds a story about being completely sure that good and evil are linked to some sort of consequences in the afterlife. The story is simultaneously fantastic as pure relaxing entertainment and, yes, thought-provoking--even if you're trying to avoid thinking and just focus on the story.
Anyway, Socrates is sure that there must be consequences for whether you pick good or evil while you're alive. It dawned on me that if you lived in Socrates' time and believed him...and if you wanted to "market" that idea to the masses, you'd be far more successful if found a way to personify that good/evil/consequences thing. (Certainly more successful than Socrates who was put to death for his trouble.) This had an obvious link to some earlier thoughts about personification of the Republican and Democratic parties. To personify good and evil, you might want someone to be behind the scenes matching actions to consequences. And this is, after all, pretty much the definition of God's job in most faiths (well, after you get past creation of the universe, stars, planets, plants, animals, mankind, etc.). Unless you want God to be simultaneously good and evil, you might also want a Satan, but there could be a lot of disagreement on his role. As abstract a concept as God is, it would certainly be dramatically more concrete than just "good and evil." That might work for a few thousand years. But you know humans. They eventually get jaded, so as a good marketer you need to make the concept more concrete again. You'd want to bring the authority figure down to earth, figuratively and perhaps literally. So you need Jesus. At least initially appearing human, but by all accounts, pretty stand-offish. So you know where this going, right? Over time, you need to get more concrete. Hey, instead of an esoteric son of a carpenter, how about building on a trader, business person…even a military leader? Like, say, Mohammed? This is a crude storyline based on only one dimension of persuasion. And I certainly don't know the true role in the universe of these influential entities/deities. But it's staggering to me that at even such a superficial level you can derive the origins of Christianity and Islam from the simple words of an old, dead Greek guy and one good marketing rule of thumb.

All in all, if you agree that it's compelling to personify the idea you want people to accept--and there's plenty of modern proof this is true--it's a short hop to use Socrates' ideas of good and evil to derive the need for a more concrete being with which to identify good, that is, God…and then Jesus…and then Mohammed…and others who in recent centuries have tried to put themselves in that pantheon. It's like all of religion since the Greeks can be interpreted as marketing for Socrates' view of absolute good and absolute evil. This is a lecture…and story…not to be missed. I'm going to get off religion as a topic soon, but it's obviously a pretty fertile area for pondering.

Get a Book, Start a Church

As mentioned last entry, I recently enjoyed Rufus Fears' take on Dante’s Divine Comedy. I noted the Divine Comedy finally brought logic and a realistic motivational approach to the concept of being "Saved" by believing in Jesus. I also promised the that book could offer you a new career as the head of your own evangelical church…using the Divine Comedy can be your (only) sermon source. This entry dives into that….

First things first: I'm not advocating a non-believer put themselves in a position of power over believers. Got it? You could. And Dante wrote the songbook. But it's a bad idea on so many levels. Not the least of which is that if you're a non-believer and you're wrong, yowsa, is there a wild and nasty special level of hell for you! Come on...starting a church for your own benefit using Dante's masterpiece for your sermons? What are you thinking? I mean, if Dante is right about the afterlife, you don't even want to imagine how many of your organs will get gorged on daily by large birds and ugly beasts! I'm not saying that will happen. I'm just saying...it's a bad idea. One other thing, as far as I know, there is no single evangelistic tradition that actually holds Dante's work as an accurate guidebook on the afterlife or the rules around ending up, well, where you'd prefer to end up. But it's also true that modern evangelical tradition does not require adherence to any particular form of gospel. So again, I'm not promising redemption, just stellar marketing.

Ok, so we've already covered the basics: Dante tours hell and then goes back up through Purgatory with a glimpse of the levels of Heaven. He hangs out the residents along the way and hears their stories. The rules of getting to heaven are clear: live a life without accepting Jesus and you go to hell for eternity. It might be the bad part of town or it might be the really bad part of town. Either way, you're there forever. Or accept Jesus and you end up in Purgatory and it might also be extremely unpleasant and you might be there a very long time. But you'll have a friend on the other side and someday, someday, you'll check your mailbox--filled for a thousand thousand days with the most useless of junk mail, and you see a glowing ticket to that final, highly coveted field trip to heaven.

The rules are crystal clear and the story is detailed…and has it all. Death (obviously), intrigue, murder, lechery, sex, last-minute changes of heart, wild animals, redemption, hope, hopelessness, bad things happening to bad guys, good things happening to good guys, and a happy ending for the hero. And everything, everything in this killer story is tied to one single theme: accept Jesus and things will be OK. That's it. You've got a rich story with staggering discipline about thematic purity. And it's not just a good story. It's one of the great stories of human civilization.

The point? If you can tell the Divine Comedy in a convincing fashion, you can start a church. It’s that simple.

Success requires knowing the story, managing your delivery, building suspense—all the stuff a good storyteller needs. But the story is done. You could deliver one fiftieth of the story as your sermon every week, take 2 weeks off, and start over in January. And that's your church. Yes, it will take practice and a little talent. In the second year, maybe you start vamping a bit and adding your own color. But if you're a purist, you don't even have to. Believers in the Jewish tradition read the Torah cover to cover (hmm…do scrolls have covers?) and start again each year. You could too. Yes of course, there are business issues to worry about: where to hold services, marketing the availability of your ministry, finding larger spaces as your congregation grows, payroll for staff, etc. But the core is waiting for you for just $15 ($10 for paperback, less if you're OK with "used").

And speaking of the business issues, the marketing lessons are also incredible: personify the challenge as well as the goal, appeal to fear and to desire, contrast long-term value and short-term value, and fundamentally ask “what’s in it for me (to follow these scripture-based laws you keep telling me about)?”

And keep in mind, you have more than a good story--you offer hope. And (I'm sorry, this may sound like the voice of a skeptic, but that's not the intention)…no one will know whether your sermons are correct in time to tell your current or future customers, er, congregants. This could be a very good career.

I'm not pretending this will be easy. How many career changes are easy? But the Devine Comedy is an awesome product (the rules) wrapped in amazing marketing (the story). The story can be told briefly or in deep, gory detail. It has pain, drama, justice, fear, redemption—heck, a one-hour primetime show would get great ratings. And the story does get great ratings! But less on TV than in congregations all over the country. Yes, yes…you have to work weekends….

The Divine Comedy of Being Saved

I recently enjoyed Rufus Fears' take on Dante’s Divine Comedy (paper, audio). I knew of the book and its descriptions of the levels of hell, but I'd never read it. Two things jumped out at me like a ton of bricks (yeah, I know, bricks can’t jump, but I live with a 4 year old, so they can do most anything): first, the concept around being "Saved" by believing in Jesus finally makes sense at a logical level. And it is both as profound in its implications and also nowhere near as all-forgiving as non-believers understand it to be. I'm not saying you should run out and be Saved. I'm just saying the concept as it is typically portrayed seems odd to those outside the culture and it is actually grounded in logical, motivational imagery. Second, if you want to start an evangelical church, the Divine Comedy can be your (only) sermon source. This entry is about the first of those….

As you may know, the book flows through Dante getting to tour hell with the poet Virgil as a tour guide. He goes down and down through the famous and increasingly nasty layers of hell…and then starts going back up. On the way up, he sees Purgatory, a separate place for people not ready for heaven because of things they did in life, but in a holding pattern until they get their ticket punched. If I’m getting it all correct, the key is that the levels of hell are for eternity. That’s it. You’re done. Maybe you have a REALLY bad location where animals eat your liver all day and maybe your level is just having to eat greasy chicken strips and okra every meal. Either way, get used to it. But Purgatory is temporary. It’s no picnic either and you may be there a long time, but hey, a long time is nothing compared to eternity. And once you leave Purgatory, you get promoted into heaven where all is lightness and brightness and you hang out with (and maybe even become part of) the top guy (uh, I mean Top Guy). And how do you get to Purgatory instead of hell? Through Jesus. Why do I find this so fascinating? Well for hmm, what term to use? Well, for typical "non-believers," one of the problems with the whole finding Jesus and being “Saved” business seems to be, “What a deal! You’re a jerk your whole life and you accept Jesus on your death bed and you go to heaven. What’s up with that? It’s so irrational that it can’t make sense. No omniscient being would make up rules like that. So either the Deity (in the form being described) is a fiction or those who claim to speak for the Deity are mistaken.” Well what a surprise, the rules are a little more rational…in fact, a lot more rational. Do bad things and you get punished. No matter what. Either way. But if you accept Jesus, you’ve got a friend in the diamond business. You’ve got someone willing to stick up for you and say, “Come on Dad…er, God…sure, this person did some nasty things, but his heart is in the right place, so let’s put him through the ringer for a few millennia and then let him into the party.” And God says “OK son, that seems fair. But make sure people down there know that those millennia aren’t going to be fun!” These are rules that make sense! If people knew and believed these rules, then some would try to be good all the time and some wouldn’t, but all would realize that Christ conversion and acceptance will help in the final resolution. Earlier is better (in fact, there’s a special--NOT particularly sunny--spot in Purgatory for those last-minute, just-in-case converts), but joining the team at any time gets you a friend on the other side. It’s a much more compelling story. Which leads to the second much more practical point. A point that could give you a new career anytime you want. But that's the next entry. I just need a few days….

Marketing within the Evangelical Tradition

I'll dip into the topic of religion as great marketing with a reference to an incredible view of marketing within the evangelical tradition in this Business Week article, Earthly Empires: How evangelical churches are borrowing from the business playbook. Believers and non-believers have to stand in awe of the success of the so-called "megachurches" at achieving their mission. The article asserts,

"Their runaway success is modeled unabashedly on business. They borrow tools ranging from niche marketing to MBA hiring to lift their share of U.S. churchgoers."

Even if Business Week has a particular slant, direct comments from Church leaders carry a similar tale. Thinking about market segmentation, Martin King, a spokesman for the Southern Baptists' North American Mission Board remarks,

"We have cowboy churches for people working on ranches, country music churches, even several motorcycle churches aimed at bikers."

And Pastor Joel Osteen, whose Lakewood Church is buying a former NBA arena to create a 16,000-person high-tech church, says,

"Other churches have not kept up, and they lose people by not changing with the times."

And what about the "product?" In a world of stress, pressure, and timelines layered with companies trying to deliver services to ease customers' busy lives, how can it not be inspiring to read about a customer, er, congregant saying,

"When I walk out of a [Lakewood Church] service, I feel completely relieved of any stress I walked in with."

Religion as (Great) marketing

Blogging about religion is a terrible idea. A terrible idea. At best, no one will care. At worst, I'll be dealing with flames instead of reasonable replies. Before I go any further, here's the obvious part: I have no idea whether one religion is correct or even whether any of them are correct. Personally, I'm a strong believer in some sense, but those of many faiths would question my devotion. For the topics I'll consider, that doesn't matter. I have trouble believing that any--from congregants to religious leaders to atheists, from the faithful of Christianity to Islam to Judaism to Zoroastrianism--would argue with the assertion that one of the foundations of religion is to influence behavior. Even the Universal Life Church, a self-described "non-denominational" institution that offers ordainment to anyone over the web and is vehemently open-minded about behavior, has the tenet: "Do only that which is right." So here's my problem. "Influencing behavior" is the definition of marketing. And I admire great marketing. (OK, to be strictly accurate, I'd say "Influencing behavior" is the definition of outbound marketing. Inbound marketing is about creating the right product or service. I'm going to avoid this aspect because if you extend the metaphor, you get into decisions about the defining the right religion and, well, that would be even more foolish of me to discuss.) Anyway, I've been doing some wondering about religion as marketing. I mean no disrespect and, for example, I don't capitalize "marketing" because I don't mean it as a business department or a self-serving function. I mean it simply as a phrase to imply a core of religion: behavior influence. More on this to come...

Evangelicals Going Green Revisited

In a December post, I noted interest at hearing a claim of growing support among religious leaders, in particular Evangelicals, for fighting global warming. The Associated Press put out an article on the subject, mostly confirming it, but with a requisite denial also. Definitely a changing landscape. Here's the article via the San Jose Mercury News' site (the maroon bold highlight is mine...I just find that quote very intense):

Evangelicals, scientists unite on climate

GROUPS SAY LEADERS MUST FACE REALITY OF GLOBAL WARMING

By John Heilprin, Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Saying they share a moral purpose, a group of evangelicals and scientists said Wednesday that they will work together to convince the nation's leaders that global warming is real.

The Rev. Rich Cizik, public policy director for the National Association of Evangelicals, and Nobel-laureate Eric Chivian, director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, were among 28 signers of a statement that demands urgent changes in values, lifestyles and public policies to avert disastrous changes in climate.

``God will judge us for destroying the creation. Therefore, we as evangelicals have a responsibility to be even more vigilant than others,'' Cizik told a news conference.

``Science can be an ally in helping us understand what faith is telling us,'' he said. ``We will not allow the creation to be degraded, destroyed by human folly.'' >> more