The Business of Religion
January 30, 2007

When I first got into the direct-mail business more than 25 years ago, my mentor introduced me to Reverend Ike. Reverend Ike was a South Florida-based direct-marketing pro whose ministry was focused on helping people cure disease and gain wealth - often at the same time - through the power of prayer.

My mentor loved Reverend Ike's promotions, because of how ingeniously he evoked sympathy. One that I remember in particular arrived with blotches on the envelope. The lead sentence of the sales letter explained: "Please excuse the blotched ink on the envelope," Reverend Ike said. "I was praying for you and crying. Those are tears of sympathy."

For a while, my mentor and I dabbled in the occult. We once sold a product based on "ancient Celtic money rituals." It sold very well, but it made me uncomfortable.

"Do you have to believe in something to sell it?" my mentor asked me.

"I think I do," I said.

"So, if we found some religious thing that you believe in, you'd have no trouble selling it."

"Right."

"Don't you think that's a little arrogant?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"How do you know your religious beliefs are better than the next guy's?"

"Well, I don't."

"Then why do you object? Ninety percent of what we sell - and what anyone sells in America - are products that people don't really need. They just want them. People buy those products to satisfy that desire - believing they will get something from them that 'things' really can't provide. Do you agree with that?"

"I suppose so, in some existential way."

"Then you can see that most everything is sold on faith. And as far as faith is concerned, I try to take a neutral stand. As long as it doesn't do any harm, my position is this: If they want to buy it, I'm happy to sell it to them."

His arguments kept me on the fence for a while, but finally I couldn't take it anymore. I told him that I didn't want to sell anything I didn't believe in. To my surprise, he agreed ... and never put pressure on me again.

But that experience piqued my interest in religious marketing. Whether it is a letter selling holy water from Lourdes or Buddhist prayers, it fascinates me.

Years ago, I may have made a distinction between "legitimate" solicitations from the major faiths and the ancient Celtic money rituals that I once sold. But as I became more sophisticated as a marketer, I could see that they were all pretty much the same. The belief systems may be different - but not the offers: Send us money and we will pray for you and you will be healed and enjoy eternal salvation.

Scanning The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal last week, I came across two stories:

When you see stuff like this, you have a choice. You can hate it or you can love it.

You can hate it because you see it as duplicitous - as the smart preying on the stupid, the sophisticated taking advantage of the naive.

You can love it because you actually believe in the promises or because you see it as part of the Divine Comedy. Life is a great big, universal joke, laughing at itself, and this is another example of how foolish we are.

But however you feel about it, you have to admit: Religion is and always has been the best business in the world because of the arithmetic of its promise:

Is it duplicitous? Well, that's a matter of opinion. Or faith.

posted by M. Masterson @ 1:49 PM,

3 Comments:

At 9:56 AM, Anonymous Alice Flanders said...

As for Religion and Science, I'd make a distinction between "religion" and church institutions. The latter are subject to the Willy Sutton principle that "money attracts crooks." So does power, and the more power an institution has, the greater the temptation on the part of its leaders to hang on to it at all costs. Crimes like those against Copernicus, Hypatia, and Galileo aren't committed by "religion" any more than the atomic bomb was dropped by "science."


One thing Swedenborg insists on is the love of truth for its own sake, and to my mind the church loses sight of that message when it claims to have the whole truth and sets itself to defend it. This is something we have in common with Unitarians, even though we seem to differ in a great many other respects.


George

 
At 1:17 PM, Blogger BlankHeart said...

I can't sell something I don't believe is good for someone in the long run, either. I believe that it's a long term sales policy that will give great long-term advantages, even if beaten by some short term pressure marketing schemes.

I believe your old mentor will deeply regret his sales decisions one day.

There are still great religions that have no paid clergy and sell nothing.

 
At 8:05 PM, Anonymous Larry Dagna said...

organized religion, i.e. the church has made a place for itself by giving the public the things that it already had, much the same as the Wizard did in Oz for the Lion, the Tin Man and the Scarecrow. It's hard to be wrong in your predictions when you use what is already in place, leading one to P.T. Barnum's observation about the birthrate of the gullible!
For many, the church provides an ongoing guilt complex, reminding them repeatedly that despite whatever they have done or given to others, it's never quite enough. To assuage that guilt they then line the coffers of every prayer book-thumping "minister" that populates the airwaves and pulpits of this world.

 

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