What applies to an individual country applies,



probably with even greater force, to individual

corporations and firms.

The latter have always been, but today are even

more locked in fierce battles with rivals. In the

end those battles are for victory over YOUR mind.

You are the ultimate objective of all their

wheelings and dealings. Why ? Because you are the

one who BUYS. And whether you buy from them or not

is what determines their economic viability.

Mammon Or Messiah?

None of this would really matter were it not that

manufacturers, services providers and the like who

hire and pay advertisers are propagators of Mammon

(using that term as Jesus would have used it). In

other words, they have scant concern for Jesus as

Messiah. Rather, theirs are values of the world.

As John 15. 18, 19f tells us, God and the world are

at enmity. The reason? Worldly values are almost

always not on God's list of things that will benefit

us. Rather, they are on his list of values that

will take us from him.

Enticement

At the extremes, advertising can be completely

informative or entirely persuasive. There are

decreasing examples of the former and increasing

examples of the latter.

Moreover, the content of persuasive advertising

is more and more characterised by two outstanding

features. The first is sex; the second is that,

especially on TV, the actual content is increasingly

irrelevant to the product actually being sold.

Indeed, the relationship between the two becomes

more and more obtuse.

This, in fact, seems to emphasise that advertisers

and advertising agencies have only one real objective:

to sell the product regardless of any other principles.

This is the reason for the observed higher role of

sex in advertising. Advertising professionals have

found that sex can be used to promote almost

anything.

The Language Advertisers Understand.

Every time we, as consumers, respond to adverts by

buying the product, we are in fact rewarding

advertising agencies and the manufacturers who

pay them and keep them in (very often) a highly

lucrative business.

These people understand only one language. That

language is the correlation between advertising

expenditure and sales. This is the only

thing they understand. It is the only relationship

which speaks to them.

The Implications For Christians

Whenever we buy a product or service (such as

insurance, a holiday, travel or credit card)

through advertising we are doing two things.

First, we are voting for more of the same

advertising. It does not matter whether we wanted

to or intended to. The inescapable fact is that

this is what we have done.

Secondly, regardless of how immoral or objectionable

the advertising, we have supported it with the

only kind of support it can appreciate: our money.

It does not matter whether we wanted to or intended

to. The inescapable fact is that this is what we

have done.

The Consequences For Christians

The consequences are clear and obvious. No

Christian can in conscience buy products or services

which are being marketed through objectionable and

morally questionable methods. No Christian can

justify the purchase of goods and services which,

however good in themselves, are subject to marketing

techniques which offend against and undermine the

values and principles which Jesus, the Bible and the

Christian Church have set for us.

Each of us has the unavoidable responsibility of

first examining the pattern of our purchases in the

light of the methods by which they are marketed.

Lollipops or cars, it makes no difference; and

secondly, to write to the producers and tell them

that we are refusing to buy and why.

Where retailers are concerned, the implication

relative to one product may result in a boycott

of that retailer.

For example, in the UK Boots the Chemists have

chosen to sell French Connection products which

all carry their offensive set of initials.

The language in which we speak to stores like this

has to be not only clear but also carry the kind

of weight and consequence which will communicate

our objections.

In a society increasingly dominated by sex, secularism

and the destruction of Christian values, these are

the only effective responses available to us.

If, that is, we are to follow Jesus rather than

the advertisers.