|
Spiritual Adverts
SERMON - 10.15am, Emmanuel Church, Pokfulam, Hong Kong
Sunday 19th August 2007
Revd. Matthew Vernon
I've had a conversion experience this week.
A conversion about adverts.
Until a few days ago, I used to think it was good that religious symbols and spiritual messages are used in adverts.
I took it as a sign that people are still interested in spirituality and religion.
I think people are still interested in those things,
• but following my conversion, I'm not convinced adverts with supposedly spiritual messages are such a positive sign.
Adverts are fun.
The people who design show great creativity and ingenuity –
• God given gifts.
Ads are often entertaining and amusing.
There's an advert for Lan Kwai Fong at the moment.
It has an Indian man, sitting on the ground with his legs crossed
• in the lotus position,
• holding up his eight arms in the style of a Hindu god.
But the man in the advert has nothing to do with religion, or even Indian culture.
In each hand he holds one of the delights available in Lan Kwai Fong:
• "eat, drink and party"
Harmless?
I'm not so sure.
Another ad from a few months ago was for jewelry,
• with the words "the religion of beauty".
I felt uncomfortable about it at the time, and now I know why.
The advert was misusing religion to sell jewelry.
It was using the appeal and mystic the surrounds religion to promote another consumer product for us to buy.
This is the point.
Spiritual images and words are used in adverts to give the product an aura of mystic and holiness.
The product will usually have nothing to do with faith,
• but in advertising image is everything
• and persuading potential customers that this jewelry or that perfume has a spiritual and mystical dimension
• can increase sales and profits.
It's easy to imagine a perfume called "Zen" or "Nirvana", isn't it?
Notice its usually eastern or Asian religious imagery that are used,
• as they have an exotic and mysterious image.
Yoga is a great example of the misuse of religion in this way.
There was a spoof advert a few years ago.
It read: "Less inner thigh, more inner peace: our yoga workout will give you lean, sexy legs and a shot of serenity, too".
This is misusing religion because it removes the image from any of the content of the religion portrayed.
It's using the image to promote consumerism,
• the idea that we will find satisfaction and happiness if we buy that product,
• when in fact the religion itself gives the opposite message.
I use the word religion in general because all the major world religions teach that you don't find happiness through possessions,
• through buying more and more stuff.
The Gospel two weeks ago was Jesus saying
• "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for your life does not consist in the abundance of possessions."
The major religions teach the same message as Jesus when he says
• "sell your possessions and give to charity."
• which was in last week's Gospel.
This is exactly the opposite to the message of the banks here in Hong Kong.
As I mentioned 2 weeks ago, one advert for a bank in Central at the moment says "wisdom about wealth".
Religious wisdom about wealth is to give it away.
Even that bank advert uses religious imagery in a subtle way.
"Wisdom" has a spiritual, other worldly ring to it.
• Whilst the bank's products are entirely this worldly.
The religious critique of consumerism goes further.
Religion raises questions about social justice and equality.
Jesus' concern for justice is why Luke's Gospel this morning has Jesus saying
• "Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!"
Jesus was not happy about the injustice he knew in his day.
When Jesus says "sell your possessions and give to the poor", it's not just about what's good for me.
It's about what's good for people who are poor.
People who do not have the wealth I enjoy are left out of the consumer bubble.
They can't afford the luxury items advertised all over Hong Kong:
• the jewelry, the hand bags, the restaurants.
More seriously the poor can't afford the basic things of life:
• food; water; housing; health; education.
There's never any reference to that in the adverts that use religious images.
The social justice part of religion is conveniently left out by the modern, capitalist uses of spirituality and religion.
One last example.
I often go to the Mix for lunch:
• for a wrap and a smoothie.
Their marketing says "food for the soul served with love."
It would actually be perfect for the church: "food for the soul served with love."
Its part of the Mix's spiritual branding:
• Zen smoothies, for example.
• Strawberry Nirvana.
But the Mix doesn't really have anything to do with the soul, at all.
• Other than the tenuous healthy food connection.
Real food for the soul does involve serving with love,
• but serving other people rather than ourselves;
• giving food to the hungry, for example.
|
