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Theology in ‘contact with its own times’1: Advertising and Evangelization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Patricia A. Sullivan
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Abstract

The Catholic Church's efforts at evangelization must include even its own members in an age of growing secularization wherein religious impulses can be subordinated to culture even unconsciously. Bernard Lonergan observed that religious values should transcend cultural and personal values. But prominent advertising confirms that in contemporary Western societies religious values are subsumed under others, even where spirituality may be held important. The goal before the Church, then, is a transposition of values possible in focus upon a common perception of theology and the culture reflected in advertising—the felt transcendence of the human person. The Second Vatican Council called for the Church to engage with the world; if the message served by the Church is to be heard above the din of the larger culture, it must be delivered in manners persuasive upon the sensibilities of contemporary people. The powerful cultural transmitter that is advertising may assist in this task, for study of the anthropologies of advertising and theology reveals certain surprising commonalities suggesting that methods, if not media, could be equally effective in both realms. Advertising's use of ethnography and narrative, in particular, may provide lessons for the Church in defining audiences and targeting the message to them.

Keywords

AdvertisingConsumerismEvangelizationLonerganTheological Anthropology
Type
Original Articles
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 92 , Issue 1040 , July 2011 , pp. 443 - 463
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 The Author. New Blackfriars © 2010 The Dominican Council.

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Footnotes

1

Gaudium et Spes, in The Basic Sixteen Documents: Vatican Council II: Constitutions, Decrees, Declarations, rev. trans., ed. Austin Flannery (Northport, New York: Costello Publishing Company, 1996), para. 62. The initial ideas forming the basis for this article were presented at the 2007 meeting of the College Theology Society in a short paper entitled “Theology in ‘contact with its own times’: Interpretation of and Response to a Contemporary Cultural Lens.” Development of these reflections by the same author, a former public relations practitioner for advertising/marketing/public relations firms, led to this revised and greatly expanded study.

References

2 Ibid.

3 Recent papal documents discussing these perils include John Paul II's encyclicals Redemptor Hominis, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, and Centesimus Annus, as well as Paul VI's encyclical Populorum Progressio and his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi.

4 Important studies include Beaudoin's, Tom Consuming Faith: Integrating Who We Are with What We Buy (Lanham, Maryland, and Oxford: Sheed & Ward, 2003)Google Scholar and Generation X: The Irreverent Spiritual Quest of Generation X (San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1998)Google Scholar, Cobb's, Kelton The Blackwell Guide to Theology and Popular Culture (Malden, Massachusetts, Oxford, and Carlton, Victoria: Blackwell Publishing, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Gallagher's, Michael Paul Clashing Symbols: An Introduction to Faith and Culture (Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1998)Google Scholar [original edition, London: Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd., 1997], Gay's, Craig M Cash Values: Money and the Erosion of Meaning in Today's Society (Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, and Vancouver, British Columbia: Regent College Publishing, 2004)Google Scholar [original edition, as part of New College Lecture Series, Sydney, Australia: University of South Wales Press Ltd., 2003], Kavanaugh's, John Francis Following Christ in a Consumer Society: The Spirituality of Cultural Resistance (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1981)Google Scholar, Miller's, Vincent J. Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture (New York and London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004)Google Scholar, and Moore's, R. Laurence Selling God: American Religion in the Marketplace of Culture (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 While it is an easy assumption that advertising exists because of consumerism, the case could be made that advertising has always existed. The great rhetoricians of Ancient Rome, for example, were no less adept at promoting their aims by showing an agenda's consistency with an accepted or desired worldview than advertisers are at convincing of the importance—real or imagined—of today's products and services to our world.

6 Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Ethics in Advertising (Vatican City: Vatican, 22 February 1997), para. 10 [updated 15 July 1999; cited 5 April 2007]. Available from http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/pccs/documents/rc_pc_pccs_doc_22021997_ethics-in-ad_en.html.

7 Ibid., para. 10–12. The document recommends three moral principles for advertising—truthfulness, respect for the dignity of the human person as an intellectual being with freedom, and social responsibility (Ibid., para. 15–17).

8 See Maslow, Abraham H., Motivation and Personality (New York: Harper, 1954)Google Scholar. Maslow's hierarchy included the named needs in the order given, with self-actualization as the highest need but the last to be met, after the more basic needs. The 1970 revised edition of Maslow's work included two categories above self-actualization—to know and understand, and aesthetics.

9 Blackwell, Roger D., Miniard, Paul W., and Engel, James F., Consumer Behavior, 10th ed. (Mason, Ohio: Thomson South-Western, 2006), p. 436Google Scholar, cf. Joseph T. Plummer, “Changing Values,”Futurist 23 (January/February 1989), p. 10.

10 While there is overlapping of values in many of the categories identified, roughly each value shift identified inspired its own category, with the exception of the final two categories. “‘Expansionism’ to ‘pluralism,’” as well as “‘patriotism’ to a ‘less nationalistic’ attitude” inspired category nine. “‘Unparalleled growth’ to a ‘growing sense of limits,’”“‘industrial growth’ to ‘information and service growth,’” and “‘receptivity to technology’ to ‘technology orientation’” together inspired category ten.

11 Gerald, O’Collins, Christology: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 231–232.Google Scholar

12 Blackwell et al., Consumer Behavior, 439, cf. Richard Cimino and Don Lattin, “Choosing My Religion,”American Demographics (April 1999), pp. 62–65.

13 Ibid. See Moore's Selling God for an analysis of the history of religion's marketing in North America.

14 Ibid., cf. Louise Witt, “Whose Side is God On?,”American Demographics (February 2004), pp. 18–19.

15 Brian Braiker, Newsweek at MSNBC.com [posted 31 March 2007; cited 31 March 2007]. Available from http://www.msnbc.sms.com/id/17879317/site/newsweek/.

16 See Frank Newport, “Questions and Answers About Americans’ Religion,” Gallup, Inc., at Gallup.com [issued 24 December 2007; cited 8 February 2008]. Available from http://www.gallup.com/poll/103459/Questions-Answers-About-Americans-Religion.aspx. See also Joseph Carroll, “Religion Is ‘Very Important’ to 6 in 10 Americans,” Gallup, Inc., at Gallup.com [issued 24 June 2004; cited 8 February 2008]. Available from http://www.gallup.com/poll/12115/Religion-Very-Important-Americans.aspx.

17 Jerry Adler and Julie Scelfo, Newsweek at MSNBC.com [posted 2 December 2006; cited 2 December 2006]. Available from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14754222/site/newsweek/.

18 See especially Miller's Consuming Religion, as well as his articles “The iPod, the Cell Phone, and the Church: Discipleship, Consumer Culture, and a Globalized World,” in Getting on Message: Challenging the Christian Right from the Heart of the Gospel, ed. Laarman, Peter (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006), pp. 173–191Google Scholar, and “Taking Consumer Culture Seriously,”Horizons 27, no. 2 (Fall 2000), pp. 276–295CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Robert Manchin, “Religion in Europe: Trust Not Filling the Pews,” Gallup, Inc., at Gallup.com [issued 21 September 2004; cited 8 February 2008]. Available from http://www.gallup.com/poll/13117/Religion-Europe-Trust-Filling-Pews.aspx.

20 See also Robert Manchin, “Trust in Religious Institutions Varies Across EU Map,” Gallup, Inc., at Gallup.com [issued 24 August 2004; cited 11 February 2008]. Available from http://www.gallup.com/poll/12796/Trust-Religious-Institutions-Varies-Across-Map.aspx.

21 Lonergan, Bernard J.F., Method in Theology, repr. ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), p. 357Google Scholar.

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid., p. 362.

24 Ibid., pp. 305–319.

25 Ibid., p. 363. Lonergan stated: “If one is to communicate with persons of another culture, one must use the resources of their culture. To use simply the resources of one's own culture is not to communicate with the other but to remain locked up in one's own. At the same time, it is not enough simply to employ the resources of the other culture. One must do so creatively. One has to discover the manner in which the Christian message can be expressed effectively and accurately in the other culture” (Ibid., p. 300). Such discovery is not an easy task, for, as Lonergan also noted, “A culture is a set of meanings and values informing a common way of life, and there are as many cultures as there are distinct sets of such meanings and values” (Ibid., p. 301).

26 Ibid., pp. 132–133. It is at the level of the seventh functional specialty, systematics, that “appropriate systems of conceptualization” are worked out “to remove apparent inconsistencies” in “doctrinal expression” and, importantly with respect to communications’ concern for cultural plurality, “to move towards some grasp of spiritual matters both from their own inner coherence and from the analogies offered by more familiar human experience” (Ibid., p. 132). In Lonergan's first four functional specialties—research, interpretation, history, and dialectic—the tasks of theology include consideration of broad human experience as well as that specifically Christian. For concise explanations of the eight functional specialties—research, interpretation, history, dialectic, foundations, doctrines, systematics, and communications—see Method in Theology, pp. 127–136.

27 Blackwell et al., Consumer Behavior, p. 431.

28 Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Ethics in Advertising, para. 19.

29 Ibid., para. 20.

30 Ibid., para. 21.

31 Ibid., para. 23.

32 Ibid., para. 22.

33 See, as a sample of such reports, Andrew Higgins, “In Europe, God Is (Not) Dead,”The Wall Street Journal Online, 14 July 2007 [cited 8 February 2008]. Available from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118434936941966055.html.

34 Gaudium et Spes, para. 10.

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid. These questions are communicated in “positive values” of “modern culture”: “study of the sciences and exact fidelity to truth in scientific investigation, the necessity of teamwork in technology, the sense of international solidarity, a growing awareness of the expert's responsibility to help and defend the rest of humanity, and an eagerness to improve the standard of living of everyone, especially of those who are deprived of responsibility or suffer from cultural destitution” (Ibid., para. 57).

37 Ibid., para. 10.

38 See especially Cobb, The Blackwell Guide, pages pp. 184–188 on “Accessorized identities.”

39 See a sampling of literature discussing the use of ethnography in marketing efforts, including research, product design, and advertising: Venkatesh, Alladi, “Interpretive Research: Lessons from the Field and A Report from the World of Practice,”Advances in Consumer Research 32 (2005), pp. 347–348Google Scholar; Halliday, Jean, “Nissan Delves Into Truck Owner Psyche,”Advertising Age 74, no. 48 (1 December 2003), p. 11Google Scholar; Gonzalez, Olga, “Futurespeak” Interview: “Solutions for Evolving Consumer Needs,”American Demographics 26, no. 3 (April 2004), p. 44Google Scholar; Maddox, Kate, “Researchers Learn More From What People Do Than Say,”B to B 91, no. 4 (3 April 2006), pp. 63–66Google Scholar; Wasserman, Todd, “Sharpening the Focus,”Brandweek 44, no. 40 (3 November 2003), p. 28Google Scholar; Rosenthal, Stephen R. and Capper, Mark, “Ethnographies in the Front End: Designing for Enhanced Customer Experiences,”Journal of Product Innovation Management 23, no. 3 (May 2006), pp. 215–237CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Drew Barrand, “Closer Encounters,”Marketing (UK) (14 July 2004), pp. 48–49; Louella Miles, “Living Their Lives,”Marketing (UK) (11 December 2003), pp. 27–28; Downes-LeGuin, Theo, “Integrate Ethnographic Data Into Decisions,”Marketing News 39, no. 4 (1 March 2005), p. 51Google Scholar; Johnston, Gavin, “Leveling the Field,”Marketing Research 17, no. 4 (Winter 2005)Google Scholar, pp. 16–19; and Ephron, Erwin, “The Reality Show of Research,”MediaWeek 16, no. 11 (13 March 2006), p. 28Google Scholar.

40 A Gallup report addresses this “social desirability” theory as pertaining to church attendance, cautioning that observational data suggesting a discrepancy between Americans’ claims and action may itself be inaccurate: “Americans may actually be accurately reporting attendance at various forms of worship, even if not the traditional church attendance,” church attendance may be “a regular part of their lives, even if they are not there each and every Sunday,” and “the reality of that perception [of regular church attendance] in their daily lives may be very real – regardless of their actual church attendance.” See Frank Newport, “Estimating Americans’ Worship Behavior, Part II,” Gallup, Inc., at Gallup.com [issued 10 January 2006; cited 8 February 2008]. Available at http://www.gallup.com/poll/20824/Estimating-Americans-Worship-Behavior-Part.aspx. For additional information, see also the companion report, Frank Newport, “Estimating Americans’ Worship Behavior,” Gallup, Inc., at Gallup.com [issued 3 January 2006; cited 8 February 2008]. Available at http://www.gallup.com/poll/20701/Estimating-Americans-Worship-Behavior.aspx.

41 Gaudium et Spes, para. 3.

42 These suggestions are born of my own ongoing research and reflection upon the saints. But ratifying them is an intriguing segment of Miller's Consuming Religion, pp. 167–171, in which he describes Robert Orsi's research into the re-appropriation and, indeed, re-articulation of devotion to St. Jude “as a spiritual practice that enabled the devout [immigrant Catholics in the New World] to clarify their problems and focus their desires” (p. 170). For the original study, see Orsi, , Thank You, St. Jude (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

43 The saints’ roles are model, companion, and intercessor, as affirmed by Lumen Gentium in The Basic Sixteen Documents: Vatican Council II: Constitutions, Decrees, Declarations, rev. trans., ed. Flannery, Austin (Northport, New York: Costello Publishing Company, 1996)Google Scholar, especially chapters VII and VIII, “The Pilgrim Church” and “Our Lady.”

44 This point is made in the opening chapter of Donahue's, John R. The Gospel in Parable: Metaphor, Narrative, and Theology in the Synoptic Gospels ([Minneapolis]: Fortress Press, 1988), pp. 1–27Google Scholar, especially, pp. 1–4. Donahue admits the debt of this now universal insight to Joachim Jeremias; see his The Parables of Jesus, 2nd rev. ed (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1972)Google Scholar, original edition, Die Gleichnisse Jesu, 8th ed., Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1970Google Scholar, trans. S.H. Hooke, 6th ed., 1962. For a study of the development of the parables themselves, see also Scott, Bernard Brandon, Hear Then the Parable: A Commentary on the Parables of Jesus (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989)Google Scholar.

45 Gaudium et Spes, para. 62.