Advertising and Evangelization
In his reflection on Mark 6:7–13 in Food for the Soul (Cycle B), Dr. Peter Kreeft makes an interesting observation about the difference between evangelization and advertising. He writes:
“Evangelization is not a form of advertising. God invented evangelization; Satan invented advertising, in the Garden of Eden. ‘See this apple? You need this apple. You can afford it. The price is only one soul.’ Advertising is the world’s oldest profession, from ‘the father of lies’ (John 8:44).”
His point is that the missionaries Jesus sends out in the gospel “are not advertisers” and so “they are not to worry about results, and numbers, and success.” This point resonated with me. As someone who works in full time ministry it can be tempting to use numbers as a metric of how well I’m doing. How many people are showing up for Mass? For Bible studies? How many new people are being baptized or confirmed?
On a personal level, I know well that evangelization is not a numbers game. Let’s say only one or two people showed up for a particular liturgy, talk, or Bible study. If those one or two people had a transformative experience that brought them closer to Christ, that’s a success. But it can be difficult to translate that success to someone evaluating your efforts from the outside (i.e., donors or ministry supervisors). Numbers offer an easier metric, even though they don’t tell the whole story.
One campus ministry offers a free “midnight pancake dinner” to college students during exam week. Hundreds of students line up for the late-night snack. It looks like a great success! But are any of them growing closer to Christ? Another ministry offers weekly Bible studies, but only four students participate with regularity. Those four students, however, grow in their faith by leaps and bounds over the course of the semester. That is a true success story. So it’s not about numbers… yet, you cannot help but want to reach as many as possible. What good is an excellent Bible study if no one knows about it? How do you get the word out in a way that appeals to people?
When thinking about how we present the gospel message, the world of marketing offers a lot of useful tools. But it is all too easy to fall into one of two traps. One is to say our “product” (the gospel) is the most valuable thing in the world and therefore needs to be promoted with the most slick and professional marketing package possible. All the latest tools and trends need to be brought to bear in promoting the gospel because Jesus deserves nothing less. Otherwise we do the gospel a disservice. We could also go to the other extreme, which is to say that the gospel sells itself. We don’t need to “advertise” it at all, because the truth is self-evident and if people don’t recognize it, that’s their problem.
Both of these attitudes make the mistake of viewing the gospel as a product to be sold. While there are certain analogies between advertising and evangelization, the two are not the same, as Dr. Kreeft points out. When sitting in meetings discussing the best way to promote the gospel in our ministries, I’ve always felt a bit uncomfortable whenever the conversation turns too much to marketing strategies, for this precise reason.
There is often a certain amount of dishonesty involved in advertising work. There is a reason used-car salesmen have such a bad rap. No one likes the feeling that they are being manipulated. The underlying assumption behind much of advertising is that the consumer needs to be convinced to buy this product. The advertiser’s job is to convince me that I want it, I need it, because it will make my life better. But I don’t need it. And I don’t want it (or I didn’t until tempted by the ad). And it almost certainly won’t make my life better. A lot of advertisement is built on manipulation and lies. So if the way we promote the gospel looks, sounds, and smells like advertising, we have taken the wrong approach.
Evangelization comes from the Greek word euangélion (εὐαγγέλιον), often simply translated as “good news.” A basic definition of evangelization is to share good news (specifically the good news of Jesus Christ). Sharing good news is quite different from selling a product. Good news, if it is truly good, doesn’t need to be sold, only announced. If it seems like someone is trying to sell you “good news,” that’s propaganda, not evangelization.
But historically, euangélion meant more than just sharing any old good news. The fact that the baker down the street is having a two-for-one sale on loaves of bread is good news, but it’s not euangélion. Euangélion is something specific. It is a proclamation of victory.
When a battle was won in a far-off land, the king or emperor would send out messengers to announce to his people that victory has been won and the soldiers were returning home. That announcement of victory was the euangélion. It is in that sense that the gospel writers use the term to describe the good news of Jesus Christ. It is the announcement of victory won by our king — the King of Kings — not over flesh and blood enemies but over the ultimate enemies of sin and death.
Ilistened recently to an excellent interview on Matt Fradd’s Pints with Aquinas with Fr. Louis Merosne. During that interview, Fr. Merosne offered a profound perspective when sharing some of the truly horrific things going on in Haiti — a perspective that applies to every struggle and horror in every corner of the world. That perspective is one of victory.
It is a godly perspective, because from God’s eternal vantage point, all conflict has already been resolved in Christ, the victor over every evil. It is true that we still live in a world where the battle with evil is being fought — the chief battleground being in the human heart — but we cannot lose sight of the fact that Christ has already won. That means whatever struggles we face, we know that victory has already been achieved in Christ. God already knows how all of our problems will be resolved. He has a plan to deal with every evil, that plan has already been put into action, and it can lead to no other end that total victory in Christ.
When we bring Christ to others, when we bring Him into the various situations we struggle with, this final victory is what we bring. Holding fast to that truth is the source of great peace and strength for the Christian while we minister to one another and live as disciples in the world.
“All things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose,” (Rom 8:28) is one of Fr. Merosne’s favorite Biblical verses, and mine.
Listening to Fr. Merosne talk about the atrocities (both human and demonic) that he deals with on a regular basis, and hearing the strength, peace, and calm assurance in his voice, I thought to myself, this is evangelization. He is not trying to sell me something. He is standing in the midst of a battlefield, unafraid and unashamedly proclaiming victory — the ultimate victory that has been won for each one of us in Christ Jesus.
This is not something we need to sell. It is not something we need to convince others to “buy into.” It is something to be proclaimed. It is something to be lived.
