A Life Worth Living

Jesus Sold

Jesus is being sold.

Not by Judas Iscariot for thirty silver pieces, but by an atheist on behalf of the church.

Angus Kinnaird, a "non-believing humanist", is the campaign manager behind the latest church marketing strategy to bring Jesus back into people's lives.

What is interesting about this latest attempt to bring Jesus to the masses is not the fact that it's conceptualised by an atheist or is a campaign that tries to engage the audience with a contemporary style. The television commercials, the website and the book that is mailed out to anyone who asks for it is extremely well produced, and brilliantly designed. But it's not the first time Christianity and Jesus have been "updated".

What is interesting are the results of the market research that drafted the rationale behind the campaign. It convinced Kinnaird, and the multi-denominational group of Australian churches behind the campaign, to leave the church and anything relating to organised religion, out of the picture.

"You can take or leave religion," says a young mother in one of the commercials that looks somewhat like a health insurance ad with its clean-cut, wide open spaces and happy family shots. "But I can't get away from the fact that a lot of what Jesus said makes sense."

That's the focus of the campaign - Jesus. Anything that even remotely looks like a church building, even religious symbols, anything that would remind someone of organised religion is left in the abyss.

According to Kinnaird, "The church was seen as the problem, not the solution."

But the research revealed that people saw value and power in what Jesus taught, such as peace, forgiveness and acknowledgment of the sin of pride. Some in the focus group even thought Jesus would be disgusted by the way the churches carried on.

People turned off by church.

Jesus disgusted by the church.

Isn't it sad that in order to target the "unchurched", we now have to take the church out of the picture?

Isn't it sad that research on current opinion revealed that people, even Christians, don't want to associate themselves with the church?

Is it like what Reggie McNeal observed, "A growing number of people are leaving the institutional church for a new reason. They are leaving not because they have lost faith. They are leaving to preserve their faith."

In all honesty, I won't be the first to jump up and defend the church when it is criticised. I'll probably be the one sitting at the back, nodding in agreement at the many things wrong with the church.

Too much hypocrisy.

Too much judging.

Too much legalism.

I will nod my head because I have been hurt several times by my "siblings in Christ" who prefer to tell me what I should or should not do rather than focus on the grace of God.

I will nod my head because I find the church is becoming more and more irrelevant in the way it relates to the lives of people who are still very much in touch with the world today.

I will nod my head because there are many things about the church that I am disillusioned by.

But I will not nod my head if someone asks me to take the church completely out of the picture.

It's true a relationship with God is not about how often someone goes to church. But going to church is very much a part of having a relationship with God. If we take the chuch out of the picture, what would happen to fellowship, support and a community that strengthens and enables fellow Christians to embark on projects that would glorify God?

It is depressing that there are so many people, Christians and non-Christians alike, who do not want to have anything to do with the church because of what it has become. It is sad to find out that in order to attract people to God, a marketing campaign needed to distance itself from any association with church or practice of religion.

The church is an essential element to a growing relationship with God, but is slowly being phased out of people's lives because of its imperfection.

But imagine a world where all the rational-thinking, grace-loving, God-like people who are relevant to today's generation left the church.

The church will degenerate into an ugly, intolerant, embarrassing institution where God will most likely be misrepresented.

An entire network of Christian schools founded on the principles of God will not exist.

Healthcare and welfare systems based on the compassion of Christ will struggle to support themselves.

Developmental work in third world countries will be stunted.

Christians who are loving and true will find themselves stranded on an island, lacking a support network that existed because of relationships they've developed with fellow believers whom they've met in church.

Life for me will be completely different since it was through seminars and mission trips organised by the church that first developed my relationship with God. It was through a church-run institution that I got my qualifications and deepened my love for God. It was through church that I met people who became my close friends that supported me in times of wavering faith. It is because of the church that I'm able to put bread on the table and pay my bills.

The church needs to exist, and it needs to exist with Godly, relevant people.

Rome wasn't built in a day, but it did eventually get built. If everybody who have been hurt and disillusioned by the church, who see what needs to be changed, stays within the church, I believe we can make a difference.

It's a difference with results we may not even live to see, but it's a difference that we would have at least started on, a difference that may trigger a ripple effect and eventually change the way people see the church.

It's definitely a theory worth trying, instead of leaving the church to the vocal minority who mar it.

Click here to view the television commercials and to learn more about the "Jesus. All About Life"" campaign.