tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post3327829979854532803..comments2024-03-24T11:30:08.199-07:00Comments on Can you believe?: Publishing truth--ethically!Johan Maurerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-43917028029990194282009-02-19T09:16:00.000-08:002009-02-19T09:16:00.000-08:00I do like your phrase "ambassadors of reconciliati...I do like your phrase "ambassadors of reconciliation", Johan! And I wasn't suggesting that the marketing disciplines were wrong because they "let us off the hook of applying prayerful discernment".<BR/><BR/>We're also in agreement that "we have some self-defeating communications inhibitions". This was one of the points I tried to make in my last comment, stressing the phrase <I>ongoing conversation</I>.<BR/><BR/>Truly, some of us have served as wet blankets to quench the spark in others. Not all of us do this, and even those who do, don't do it all the time. But it's a terrible thing whenever it happens. I find it significant that Fox so often advised his followers (quoting, of course, I Thessalonians), <I>not</I> to quench that spark. (Fox, letters 35, 150, 169, 264, 270, 271, 275, 291, 360, 364; also in his doctrinals.)<BR/><BR/>It is always a pleasure to discuss these things with you, Friend!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-1578414496438667182009-02-15T11:45:00.000-08:002009-02-15T11:45:00.000-08:00Hello, Marshall! You never fail to deepen any disc...Hello, Marshall! You never fail to deepen any discussion you join.<BR/><BR/>If I didn't know you better, this time I'd accuse you of "spiritualizing." Yes, Jesus is intrinsically attractive, and his teaching doesn't need our embellishments. But what I call "marketing" is simply a set of disciplines intended to help us do the work we're supposed to do--serving as ambassadors of reconciliation, as messengers of Good News. These disciplines do not let us off the hook of applying prayerful discernment.<BR/><BR/>Jesus and his teachings are a lot more attractive than you'd guess from Quaker membership numbers. Are we to conclude that our relatively stagnant situation is because we have too much integrity to sell out like the Vineyard or Pentecostals or other rapidly growing groups? Or do we (as I believe) have some self-defeating communication inhibitions that we need to address? Or do we send out unintended messages that sabotage the values-based messages we actually want to send? (Classism is a "classic" example.) Or have we simply not honored the calling of being public communicators and advocates of Friends faith and practice, therefore putting a subtle wet blanket on those of us who are gifted in that way?<BR/><BR/>(Or are there other explanations?)<BR/><BR/>The disciplines of marketing that I learned at Crane are not a method for neatly packaging anything. The amazing intellectual and spiritual heritage of Calvin College, for example, could hardly be represented fairly by a tagline, graphic identity, and signage guidelines. But those disciplines help us be more creative and more attentive to audience and culture as we try to shape a more welcoming, more inclusive doorway into our little corner of the Church. In the meantime, elders like you can discern when creativity decays into form, and into sterility.<BR/><BR/>You're right: no one "line" summarizes all Friends insights, even "Christ has come to teach his people himself." (Although, just as Anthony Bloom asserted in the case of the Jesus Prayer, it packs a lot of meaning into an amazingly few words.) But much early Quaker evangelism actually did consist of very pithy, provocative statements or actions. The use of plain language or plain dress in the public arena, for example, was not just self-gratifying fastidiousness--it provided occasions for urgent communication about what really matters; it offered a chance for dialogue beyond the immediate message or occasion. No one communications piece, no one channel, was expected to say everything that could be said about us or about Jesus.Johan Maurerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-76232681393409183612009-02-14T08:18:00.000-08:002009-02-14T08:18:00.000-08:00I like the Crane site you linked to! And marketin...I like the Crane site you linked to! And marketing thinking can indeed help churches see some of the mistakes they're making. Charts and diagrams like the one you posted can help them find the necessary perspective, and detachment, to agree on some needed changes.<BR/><BR/>But the difference between what Crane tries to do ("<I>help[ing] you distill and convey your identity, attract your best-fit audiences, define — and capture — your market position</I>") and what Friends are actually about, feels to me very like the difference between a packaged PR message and the free ministry of the Spirit. I have serious doubts about the <I>value</I> of any religious community that thinks in terms of a marketing strategy, instead of simply knowing and serving God and their fellow human beings. And I don't suppose I'm alone in feeling that way.<BR/><BR/>As far as I know, the most successful evangelist in Christian history was Paul. Paul was sufficiently free of concern about marketing success that he was able to poke a little fun at his own message in marketing terms — saying that it was "to the Jews a stumbling block, and foolishness to the Greeks" — without showing any desire to get rid of either the stumbling block or the foolishness. Can we be like that, here and now? I'd like to think we can.<BR/><BR/>Your essay raises interesting questions. For instance, if "Christ has come to teach his people himself", might not his teaching include in itself whatever marketing is truly needed? I'm not saying it <I>always</I> does — it may be that in some circumstances Christ does all the work himself, while in other circumstances he leaves something to us. But I think the question is one that ought to be asked in every situation where we feel the itch to "help". There seem to be a lot of times when our well-intentioned efforts to "help" just get in the way.<BR/><BR/>And we might consider: Christ is <I>intrinsically</I> attractive. We both feel that attraction! And I recall how a mid-twentieth century FUM writer paraphrased Montaigne by saying that there is a God-shaped hole in every human heart. If both those things are so, then I think it is fair to say that Christ, whenever he truly manifests, reveals himself as the One who truly fills that hole.<BR/><BR/>So if that is so, then what can we do to help? The answer, perhaps, is not marketing but ministry: offering the friendly touch that helps people let go and open to the Sun.<BR/><BR/>You bring up the fact that the early Friends thought of themselves as "publishers of Truth", and that they "poured their lives into doing" so. That is another interesting point. Perhaps we should take a careful look at what they published —<BR/><BR/>Early Friends were only gaining converts in significant numbers up to around the 1680s. After the Toleration Act 1689, most of the English-speaking world moved with a great collective sigh of relief into a period of irreligion; those who did not become irreligious in that time were the hard-core members of one religious community or another who had no interest in converting to something else. So if there was any Quaker publishing that actually made converts in significant numbers (and this, I believe, is debatable), it would have to have been in the first thirty-five years of Quakerism — the 1650s, 1660s, 1670s, and <I>early</I> 1680s. Alas, that rules out all those wonderful Quaker memoirs and journals. We are left with the tracts.<BR/><BR/>I've read a number of those tracts; I suppose you have, too. The idea that "Christ has come to teach his people himself" is really only one part of their message. The message as a whole can't be summarized in any single point; it is a constellation of points, knitting together a variety of testimonies, a way of relating to scripture, an attitude toward human authority, and a sense of the availability of sanctity, perfection, and miracle, in addition to the idea that Christ has come. In combination, those points map out a specific way of being human, one that many non-Friends were halfway into even before encountering a Quaker tract.<BR/><BR/>I <I>think</I>, therefore, that the tracts won converts, it was because (1) they <I>validated</I> that different way of being, and (2) they <I>proved useful</I> to non-Friends in trying to answer the questions that held them back from giving themselves over fully to that way of being. That's a somewhat different thing from marketing, or so it seems to me. I'd be rather more comfortable calling it part of an <I>ongoing conversation</I> between Friends and seekers, than calling it marketing.<BR/><BR/>Like David, I like the bulleted list you provide at the end of this posting. It puts an emphasis, not on marketing, but on servanthood, faithfulness, and integrity: good virtues, all.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-49568884371446700862009-02-13T07:13:00.000-08:002009-02-13T07:13:00.000-08:00The bullet points are wonderful examples of how we...The bullet points are wonderful examples of how we must "live out" our "truth". It seems that their relationship with truth is the same as Barths final statement with the thing that gave it weight, the way he lived it out. The world will know that we are his disciples by HOW WE LOVE ONE ANOTHER.SavageDLhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03408014159630454594noreply@blogger.com