Religion and Advertising

I encountered this ad while in the subway, making my way to the downtown 1 train a few weeks ago. Immediately I stopped and read it, just because I was a little surprised that an ad like this would be in such a public place. The more I reflect on it, however, I realize that it is not so odd. It reminded me of the scene from James Baldwin's Go Tell It On the Mountain when John is in the movie theater. The difference between the two films is obvious, whereas one is about a money hungry woman and this is a television event about after Jesus. The contrast of how media is portrayed in Baldwin's book and how our society views it now is vastly different. I think this ad can speak to how religion and media encompass the same territory as well. In Material Religion - How Things Matter religion is seen a fluid and states, "Religion, in this understanding, mobilizes a sense of a 'beyond' that is impossible to capture fully via any concept or definition - a sphere of possibilities, rather than a fixed subject matter" (Houtman 4), which leads me to believe that media and religion touch on the same bases but in different ways. 

Media today is essential to our culture and with that, ideas of how religion is distributed to the public has changed. It is no longer simply going to church every Sunday to receive a sermon, it can be televised in one's home, it can be researched and watched on the internet. There is more room for the expansion of one's beliefs since we are bombarded by the media daily. A simple item such as an advertisement for a religious television special, if placed in the right densely populate area, can leave a huge impression. For example, if a child were to encounter such an ad, because of its placement, that child can assume that this is something popular like the Smurfs movies or Paddington Bear. Of course, this is undeniably an adult show, but that child can still file it away in their minds that this is something big. 

With the advertisement being in such a densely populated place such as the subway, it could also be controversial. To assume that everyone in that space is some form of Christian is a vastly big mistake. Because America is seen as a 'Christian nation' it does not seem odd for an ad such as this to appear. But if this space were occupied instead by a Muslim ad or even a Jewish one, I somehow get the feeling that the public would not perceive it so well. I believe it speaks volumes about how filtered religion through media is, and how filtered our perception of it is as well. 

Works Cited 

Baldwin, James. Go Tell It On the Mountain. New York: Vintage International, 2013. Print. 

Houtman, D., Meyer, B., “Introduction: Material Religion—How Things Matter” in Things:   

     Religion and the Question of Materiality. (2012)