Sweet, Savory, Spiritual

While waiting for the subway to arrive at Porter Square, I noticed this ad across the platform: it read “Church with Benefits” in large print, with the sub-header: “Practical spirituality served up with complimentary culinary treats. Sweet, savory, spiritual.” Fittingly, I had just come from a church service and was amused but also annoyed by this advertisement. A few things crossed my mind:

(1)  When did churches start advertising themselves? Are they in such a position where they need advertising through commercial means? Are they "keeping" up with the times or is the face of "evangelism" changing? Advertising itself is a money-oriented business - which seems to be (in theory) a counterpoint to the "business" of religion. What I mean by money-oriented business is that advertising is driven by money, you need money to advertise, and you advertise to bring in money—which leads me to my second point.

(2)  If the ultimate end-goal of (most) commercial advertising is to bring in money (through convincing the consumer to buy/use a product or service), then what does that say about the end-goal of this “religious” ad? This ad’s immediate goal is to attract people to the church’s services—but does the medium through which they are attempting to fulfill this goal strengthen the deprecatory church-money connection? Should there be a division between church and commerce akin to the division between church and state? (Also, refer to Matthew 21:12 where Jesus overturns the tables of the money-changers in the temple.)

(3)  The selling point of this ad, for a church, is food. Food? Really? I wonder about the effectiveness of this ad because I’m not sure who their target audience is, and I think it’s necessary for an effective advertisement to understand their viewers. The kind of person who is seeking spirituality might be on the subway, but if they are spiritually “hungry,” will the lure of “culinary treats” be enough to spur him/her on? Or is this ad literally trying to attract people who are physically hungry and looking for food? Which brings me to my fourth point:

(4)  The content of this ad both undermines both the authority of the church and the intelligence of the viewer. In other words, this ad dumbs down spirituality. Perhaps it is appealing to a more primal instinct (the need for food?), but to think that someone who is spiritually curious would attend church to fulfill their primal needs seems, to me at least, to make a mockery of human intelligence and the desire for real spiritual “food.”

What do you think about churches advertising themselves?