The "Bobble-head" Brouhaha
The early emoting over the United Church of Canada's half-dozen advertisments seems to have died away: having a short attention span, the media have moved on to other matters. Still, a month on, various journals and newspapers are carrying the first ad., and that suggests this may be a good time for a sober appraisal of the ads. and indeed, of "Emerging Spirit", their parent program.
I periodically visit the ES website, but even so the media's excitement over the introductory ads. caught me completely by surprise. I learned about them when the phone rang fairly early one morning - half way through my second cup of coffee, actually - and it was a CTV reporter demanding to know what I thought of the these apparently controversial ads. Not having seen or even heard of them, responding was pretty difficult, but, undaunted, he immediately emailed them so that I couldn't plead complete ignorance. He was of course on a fishing expedition, hoping to reel in something controversial and quotable. After all, "You don't always see eye to eye with the United Church, right?" When I refused to mumble anything off the cuff, he agreed to call back several hours later.
Which he did. So, what did I think of the ads. now? And what about the Emerging Spirit program? And what about the church spending $10.5 million on it?
Having tracked ES for some time, I had to say that initially I was somewhat underwhelmed. Conceptually it had some strength, but in practice it seemed to me to be approaching its target group - younger adults - at a very superficial level, and their published responses were pretty much in kind. As to the cost - on the evidence to that time, it looked like money largely wasted.
So, having spent a fair bit on phone calls, what did the CTV person so far have for his money? Not much. Perhaps my take on the ads. themselves was more helpful, although I'm sure the quotability factor remained pretty low. One ad. that did strike me as more or less on the money is the one now released in the print media - Jesus sitting in Santa's chair in the mall, with the caption, "Would you still take your kids?" That seemed likely to stimulate discussion, putting its finger as it does on a very troubling characteristic of our society, its incipient Christophobia.
As to the rest of the ads. - there was, predictably for the UCC, a preoccupation with sex (two of the six ads.). Another, the notorious "Bobble-head", struck me as puerile, especially given its caption, "Funny, or Ticket to Hell?" I thought the remaining two might raise meaningful questions in people's minds, although I doubted they would be forceful enough to attract legions to local churches for the hoped-for meaningful discussions. (All the ads. can be viewed on line at http://www.wondercafe.ca/ - just click on View Ad Campaign in the LH sidebar.)
As mentioned, the thrust of the program is to attract 30-45 year-olds to the church. Recent blogs at WonderCafe seem to be more thoughtful than what was submitted earlier, so there may be hope for the program's success. However, the proof of the pudding will rest with what happens when people go to their local churches with questions about the Christian faith and how it might impact their lives. In some United churches they will be led to the tried and true answers the church has proclaimed for roughly two Millennia - and some of those answers are challenging. Sadly, in a great many churches they will be told that pretty well anything they want to believe is more or less fine. Given that, it's hard to see them staying if there's nothing very different on offer. And therein, I submit, lies the main reason for the denomination's membership slide from 1,064,033 (1965) to 593,568 (2004). There's no spiritual comfort in soft soap.
It's a time for prayer. God bless -- Geoff
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