SharonDee

Hello, Helen. Long time admirer, first time addresser.

Do the Christians you know pay for commercials like the ones described in the OP as part of their ministry? Do they pay some other outfit for the local airings of these ads?

Maybe it's my cynical nature but when I see airtime bought to promote religion, I can almost smell money-to-burn somewhere. The slicker the promo the stronger the smell, too.

I don't see how you can surmise this unless you know some Christians reaching out via television spots. Do you? I'm curious.

HelenM

Nohweh

That's right Helen, go ahead, blame the atheist!

sighhswolf

You are absolutely correct Helen that the average
Joe Blow Christian is not rolling in dough.
But I think you misunderstand my point here.
No one is bashing any christian who goes to church on sundays, gives his/her tithes and offerings and supports their local clergy and church work, or charities.
The real power structure and wealth is not manifest at the level of the Minister or the average christian, but with the national organizations and the political affiliations they have carefully nurtured.
Many of the denominations have operating budgets
in excess of the gross national products of some smaller countries.
I have said it before and I will continue to espouse the conviction that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
With wealth comes the ability to manipulate the average persons lives and direct them into the
bonds of charity.
The religious organizations know very well that to foster dependence is the best way to assure
that your agenda whatever it may be, is carried out to it's fullest extent.
Offer the hand of charity, give to the needy, and assure their loyality forever.
Loyality that is based on supply and demand.
By sustaining poverty, and then feeding the needs created by that poverty, you assure the continued dependence on your sect for survival and the loyality will never wane.
That is until someone comes along that has the intestinal fortitude to expose the power structure for what it is and break that terrible cycle of dependence.

Ahhhh, sorry...I tend to get carried away with this topic...No offense intended.
Wolf

Kosh

Sighhswolf beat me to the punch Helen! But consider that in the secular "business world",
everybody is there to make money, but very few
of them are actually getting rich. As Sighhswolf
points out, it's the upper eschelon that gets
the bucks.

HOWEVER.... consider what those careers in the
clergy are like even if you're not getting rich.
You have a fairly secure job for the rest of life,
and all you have to do is know the contents of
one single book (I know I know, but the total
collection of books in the bible is about as long
as a good novel), regurgitate it constantly, and
provide warm fuzzies to your "clients".

Good work if you can get it!

Boshko

hmmmm, haven't seen those. What about those Baha'i TV ads anyone else seen those? They were relatively warm and fuzzy...

critical thinking made ez

A business strategy I use is whenever I have an increase in business for a while, I take some of that profit and pour it back into additional advertising. This keeps a long term growth to the overall advertising / sales.

I suspect that with 911, you had the increase in church attendance, therefore more income. Now the numbers are falling off in attendance, and the money is flowing out to advertising to build it back up as much as possible while they still have the cash.

Arrowman

While it can't be denied that many religious organisations have more to do with money than faith, I think it's an unfair generalisation to say that "getting more business" is the sole or even major motivation for this sort of advertising .

There are many people in society who pay lip service to religion. They check the "Christian" box on the census form and they don't see what's all the fuss about the President funding "faith based initiatives" but they don't go to church more than once or twice a year. They probably flocked back to church with their friends after 9-11 and since then they've fallen back to their old ways. They never really "meant it".

And the people who run the churches know this. They know that they have an audience out there that is predisposed to church attendance; that audience just needs a little "what if it were true?" kind of reminder, along with a reminder that church can be fun and social too. So they play on this with an advertising campaign.

To some extent, this campaign and others like it are about a genuine attempt to "get people back to God". To some extent, it is about institutional survival. And to some extent (more in the Oral Roberts type church than the mainstream churches) it's just about the money.

And to some extent it's hypocritical because the advertisers know full well that so many of their audience "don't really mean it".

PS My ex-wife's parents are stalwarts of their local church. I've been there off and on for the past 15 years; we were married there. I still pop in now and then to pick up my children. This church is one of the more "traditional" and I would have thought, solid, Anglican churches in Adelaide and the demographics of the local suburbs are ideal for a church.

I'm amazed at how attendance seems to have diminished over the past 10-15 years; at how very few people are there on a Sunday morning these days, and how most of the few who remain are older people. That of course pleases the evil atheist in me, but I can't help having a little sympathy for those for whom this church is so important - to see it slipping away around them. They're not fundies and they're not in it for the money.