BRANDS OF FAITH

Over the past two decades, tactics of branding and marketing have been applied to the promotion of religion, adding to the commercial clutter of today’s society. This panel discussion will explore the political, social, and theological implications of
this ever-increasing commoditization of faith.

Mara Einstein,
Associate Professor of Media Studies, Queen College,
and the author of Brands of Faith: Marketing Religion in A Commercial Age

Heather Hendershot,
Professor of Media Studies, Queens College,
and the author of Shaking the World for Jesus: Media and Conservative Evangelical Culture

Douglas Rushkoff,
Director of the ITP Narrative Lab at NYU’s Tisch School,
and the author of Nothing Sacred: The Truth About Judaism

Jeff Sharlet,
contributing editor, Harper’s, and co-creator and editor of www.therevealor.org.

Wednesday, April 2, 6:30-8:00pm

The Martin E. Segal Theatre
The Graduate Center, CUNY
365 Fifth Ave (btwn 34th & 35th)
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
No registration. Please arrive early for a seat. 212-817-2005 / ch@gc.cuny

Ok, now that Spitzer is all but forgotten, we can focus on again on Haggard. Alternet recently had this article explaining that the re-programming of Haggard’s gayness didn’t take (like anyone thought it would?).

More interesting than that is the video clip that appears with the piece. It’s from a documentary called In God They Trust that Tom Brokaw did about evangelicals and politics. At the time Haggard was the President of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). He was proud of announcing to anyone who would listen that he had weekly phone calls with the White House.

I keep wondering what a documentary like that would look like today. Haggard is gone. Falwell is gone. McCain seems to get only a lukewarm reception from the Christian conservatives.

With all of this, evangelicals are portrayed less and less in the media as a monolithic group (as if they ever really were one). It seems day after day the stories are mounting about evangelicals abandoning the Republican party. So what will be the effect of the religious vote come November? We know religious people vote more than non-religious folks, but who are they going to vote for? And, if they do vote for McCain, will it really make a difference? It seems the passion inspired by Bush when he was a candidate is far more reflected in Obama than the Republican candidate.

I’ll go out on a limb here and say even if Haggard was still the head of the NAE, Obama’s more likely to be president than McCain is.

In all the discussion about Eliot Spitzer and the endless comparisons to Bill Clinton, I kept thinking the more appropriate comparison was to Ted Haggard.

Sure Bill Clinton had a very public fall from grace, but he never professed to being an angel or a crusader for all that is good and right. Haggard on the other hand built his reputation on morality and was ultimately brought down by his overzealous attacks on gays. The male prostitute who outted him said that if Haggard hadn’t fought so vigorously against the gay rights amendment in Colorado, he might never had spoken up.

In Spitzer’s case, he too is being brought down because he was professing to be “holier than thou.” It was not enough to go after Grasso for possible Wall Street improprieties; Spitzer tried to prove–and never did–that Grasso was committing infidelity and had fathered an illegitimate child. What could possibly be the reason for that? Spitzer was playing in a more dangerous shark pit than Haggard and much of that was of his own making. You can’t step on that many toes and not expect someone to come to take you down off your imaginary pedestal.

Both Spitzer and Haggard did protest too much. It is a lesson for our times and perhaps for any time. Excuse me for getting psychological here, but when someone is that passionate about an issue, or rather overly passionate about an issue, it is likely due to trying to overcompensate for that flaw in themselves.

Whether politician or religious leader, we must question the motives for such heavy handed crusading.

I bought the book. I filled out the first class worksheet (which the web site subsequently lost). I downloaded the appropriate software. I even got my daughter to bed on time…and then I waited and waited and waited and…nothing. For seven minutes, nothing. It was like a repeat of Bush not knowing what to do when he heard the World Trade Towers had been hit — do I leave? do I stop what I’m doing? do I just stare into space?

And then, a Germanic voice was heard from beyond and I got about 3 minutes of the interview between Eckhart Tolle and Oprah before the whole thing pixelated. Then I got periodic words and then I realized I had created my own reality. I really didn’t want to listen to this class for 90 minutes. I wanted to relax and get away from my computer. The Universe truly does provide.

I’d love to know if anyone else got through. If this didn’t work with someone who had cable internet access and I only image how frustrating this must be for someone in the boonies with a phone hookup…

Just as anyone who’s anyone went to the grand opening of the Lakewood Church–the country’s largest megachurch boasting 40,000 congregants and counting–so too Bill and Chelsea made their pilgrimage to Houston.

While Republicans flaunted their Christianity, the Democrats stood quietly to the side. In an effort to play religious catchup Democrats have to be seen in the biggest, best churches. Saddleback has had appearances by Barack and Hillary. Nancy Pelosi made her appearance at the Lakewood opening.

There’s a real good reason for this…It’s really helpful to have the ear of someone who can tell 40,000 people in a day to go out and vote for you. Traditionally, they have said “vote your values” which we all know is code for vote Christian/Republican/George Bush.(Let me note that I write about this in my book and it’s the one chapter that evangelicals aren’t very happy about.)

This is not to say that evangelicals go mindlessly to the polls. They don’t, and it seems a number of Southern evangelicals like Hillary a lot, thank you very much. It is to say, however, that marketing religion makes very large churches that then wield an awful lot of power. It’s one of those unexpected consequences we may still live to regret.