Wed 18 July 2007 - Be nice
It’s been a while since I’ve been to church, but on Sunday I found myself at an Anglican service, for a christening.
I think if you had to sum it up briefly, that kind of mild suburban Christianity could be best described as a 2000 year old advertising campaign to try and get people to be nice to each other.
A lot of the service (which included the parable of the Good Samaritan) talked about loving God and being nice to people, and if you do that, you’ll get eternal life. Sometimes I wonder if a lot of religions weren’t based in part around using bribery to try and convince people in those wild and ancient times to stop chopping each other up and to be a bit more civilised.
I wonder though, if one were promoting such a message today, how would you do it? I’m betting that to reach the bulk of the population, you wouldn’t do it by setting up a weekly meeting (especially on a Sunday morning) in a big old building and getting people with robes to light candles, talk and sing about your message.
Nah. Billboards. TV spots. Newspaper ads. Promotional giveaways. Sponsorship. Online. Youtube videos. Podcasts. Viral marketing. That kind of thing.