If you’ve checked at all lately, you’ll notice that the pace of my posting has slowed way down. Way down. Here’s the thing: In the process of finishing my project, I’ve decided to move toward another blog that is fully devoted to the topic of commercial media communication and the church. There’s a lot to look at and discuss in this arena, and I think I’m better off separating this from my lighter personal and tech fare. In addition, I’m finding less time available to post personal and tech writing—and I feel strongly about redirecting my writing energies (now that the academic project is near complete) toward a new, more focused site.

That said, there is much to do in going to a new blog—and I’m hoping to up the ante by changing software platforms. That, in itself, may take a few months of work. In the mean time, the TSAWWT will stay live right here in case anyone is interested in archived posts, and I may post sporadically if needed—if anything to keep folks abreast of the progress toward the new site. As a parting shot that will be featured here for a few months, I will close out with a post on a concept that I think needs increased attention: Externality. I've had this in my head for a while, so it's nice to get it posted.

I came to this idea last year in the midst of my grad-level organizational communication class. However, I’ve only recently begun to apply it to church communication. The purpose of this post is to walk through this line of thinking more thoroughly.

But first, I have to define the first phrase in this post’s title: “the commercial church.” This phrase was coined to identify churches that have embraced an advertising and marketing approach to their mediated, public communication.

It helps to identify this specifically in order to avoid generalizing churches that fall into other descriptive categories because of size or organizational structure (for example, megachurches, mainline churches, etc.). In short, any church could be considered a commercial church if its mediated communication appeals to people as consumers and the message is centered on the church and/or God as a competing life solution for individuals in a crowded marketplace of commercial culture. Certain churches may be more prone to commercial communication methods than others, but this has more to do with the people communicating than it does size or affiliation.

That brings us to the idea of “externality” as it pertains to the mediated, public communication of the church. To properly define this in the church context, the linked clip below provides the classic definition from Nobel laureate Milton Freedman.



“An externality is the effect of a transaction between two individuals on a third party who has not consented to or played any role in the carrying out of that transaction.”
- Milton Friedman.

At first blush, using this line of reasoning to evaluate church communication might seem like a stretch. But It’s appropriate to apply the concept of externality to the church because the very idea of embracing an advertising and marketing approach to evangelism and church growth is borrowed from the business world. Therefore, such communication can be critically evaluated on the same basis. What is the externality of how the church is communicating? What are the externalities of commercial communication when the message is the Gospel and the communicators represent The Church?

It’s all too easy to view all media as neutral conduits for our messages. But as has been posted here before, media are far from neutral conduits. Advertising in particular has a specific ideology that thoroughly contextualizes messages. And externalities are often where the effects of this ideological show up.

Externality, in the sense I am using the word, is the effect of this type of communication on those whom don’t respond as customers/converts. Apart from the ones who are won over, who are the ones who are disillusioned, confused, offended, or driven further away? Communicators must assume a certain amount of ownership and responsibility for these outcomes.

To take the business analogy a little further, the church tends to only report new sales, while it avoids dwelling too much on attrition and doesn’t even think to measure campaigns in terms of lost prospects. Externality is all about those lost prospects.

While we know not everyone will choose to believe the message of the Kingdom and become followers of Jesus, this truth is not a blanket exemption from being responsible for the externalities of how we choose to communicate.

Exxon, for example, cannot morally ignore the tragic externality of environmental pollution after an oil spill like the Valdez just because it is achieving record profits for its shareholders.

While the truth of scripture is eternal, how we choose to communicate can be fallible and corruptible (read: counterproductive). If commercial methods of communication serve to further pollute the social environment we inhabit, it is appropriate to consider whether we’ve moved two steps forward and three steps backward in advancing the Kingdom.
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I had issues with this whole event in terms of the church context and politics. Those (major) issues aside, I was completely disappointed by the questions that Rick Warren asked Sunday. This Washington Post commentary by David Waters really sums that all up for me. Since TSAWWT is going on hiatus, I’ll depart from my usual policy of not doing political posts. Follow the link and read the piece to understand what follows:

If David Waters’ set of questions seem to have a certain bias, congratulate yourself for recognizing the obvious. The fact is, both Warren’s and Waters’ questions reek of bias. But Warren’s claim to provide a fair and equal forum on faith issues ignores this reality.

What was asked and how the questions were played off of by the candidates provides a clear example of a profound bias in question selection. If McCain had been asked to write his own “faith-based” questions, they would have been the same ones that were asked. I doubt the same could be said for Obama. And it is question bias that serves as the subtext for the inflated controversy over the “cone of silence.” McCain didn’t need to listen in beforehand. These were the questions he and his staff knew (hoped) were coming because they had done their homework. They shouldn’t be faulted for that.

So, what is the bias in Warren’s case? He asked the questions that he thought most evangelicals would want to hear answers to. He didn’t necessarily ask questions that all evangelicals need to hear answers to. There’s a difference.

Do I show my own bias by really wanting to hear both candidates' answers to David Waters’ questions too—important questions of faith that will now go unanswered?
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“…the way the gospel is known is by one person being for another person the story of Jesus.”
- Stanley Hauerwas

Want to know when a past pop/entertainment culture is so old that it’s new again? Here’s a hint: The new X-Files movie should have waited until 2018 to debut. Charting the right time to dust off an old cultural icon in order to cash in on the latent nostalgia is serious business if you’re from Hollywood. Everything from board games to The Smurf’s are headed to the big screen, for better or worse.

This tongue-in-cheek article from Wired explores the mathematical formulae of cultural nostalgia. In all seriousness, this works out pretty well to help explain the popularity of the new Doctor Who (BBC) and BattleStar Galactica (SciFi), which saw their highest ratings a generation ago in the 70s. At this rate, we should see a new version of Firefly in about 20 years.

As for the new X-Files, does anyone care?
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