I’ve always wondered about some questionable Christian groups, they seem to announce and package their messages in the finest branding.
Or haven’t you seen the multi-colored poster announcing the “Prophet” soon coming to town? Or the cutest logo that belongs to a group that claims “all Christians are little gods”? Rarely does anyone beat the false teacher at organizing elements and illustrations, but well, that is a subject for another day!
Such is innovation.
When I first sat in my journalism class in the late 2000s for example, no one ever imagined that everybody in the world (thanks to social media) would suddenly turn into a journalist. What that has produced today is a world where it’s no longer accountable institutions using mass media, but all of us from all corners, saying something, every second.
As a result, the urgency to posture, to put yourself forward, to signal, has come ahead of the need to verify, test, examine, to be real.
Branding is technically defined as “the promotion of a particular product or company by means of advertising and distinctive design.” How it now came to define people in the image of God is another question.
Yet that said, it appears from this dictionary definition, that Branding is helpful to your faith, in as far as it helps you serve others with your gifts, and dangerous, in as far as it promises to give you an identity apart from who you are in Christ.
When the New Testament writers addressed their audience on the background of having been justified by faith through Christ alone, they also reminded them of the duty of justified people to not “walk by sight.”
Because that may have been the nearest temptation for those formerly spiritually blind, who now believed without sight. (Makes me think of doubting Thomas in John 20.)
Speaking of doubting Thomas, don’t we all find a sight-obsessed “doubting Thomas” in ourselves?” We want to see the scars before we believe, those should be enough Jesus! (The numbers should be proof of God’s anointing, everyone seems to go to that Pastor, he’s genuine. Seen their stage? lights, production, sound, smoke machines, the building, the guitarist? God must be at work)
But away from the abstract, doesn’t social media force us all into unhealthy platforming habits that enhance a “living by sight” mentality? Don’t edit buttons help us re-create an image for the public, far removed from the person we really are?
Tony Reinke, in his digital age-defining book, Competing Spectacles, digs up Paul’s argument for calling the Galatians “foolish” when he asked, “Wasn’t Christ crucified before your very eyes?”
Tony insightfully argues from that text that because the Galatians, (even though physically absent from the crucifixion scene), are encouraged to see Christ again with spiritual eyes, the obvious conclusion from this text is that the eyes of faith are fed by seeing Christ, and carnal eyes by beholding alternatives. The exact opposite of what the Galatians did, they ignored the eyes of faith, and instead beheld a spectacle of legalism.
I agree with Tony, that said, I am learning to be very skeptical and cautious of what I am beholding and portraying online.
Because more often than not, I use these neutral, and good branding platforms God gives me, to promote myself rather than help serve others,.
So help me God!
