A word about faith from outside our religious bailiwick can be sobering. Take, for instance, these statements from Bob Jeffrey, chair and CEO of Worldwide JWT. These challenging statements are from an address the advertising guru gave in China. He was speaking about the influence of China and India – countries with the world’s two most massive populations – on the West, including the United States:
A word about faith from outside our religious
bailiwick can be sobering. Take, for instance, these statements from
Bob Jeffrey, chair and CEO of Worldwide JWT. These challenging
statements are from an address the advertising guru gave in China. He
was speaking about the influence of China and India – countries with
the world’s two most massive populations – on the West, including the
United States:
“It may sound strange to Chinese ears, but in the
West, the spiritual traditions of the East have an increasingly large
following,” Jeffrey noted. “Many of the people who rate themselves as
spiritual rather than religious feel closer to Buddhism than to
Christianity, Islam or Judaism.
“Those three monotheistic religions that have shaped
the history of the Middle East and the West now score pretty low on
cool factor. In much of Europe and certain parts of the United States,
people who profess any of these faiths outside their place of worship
are likely to be viewed with polite tolerance at best.
“Compare this with the response that someone gets if
they profess an active interest in Buddhism, tantra, yoga, feng shui,
t’ai chi, ayurvedic or Chinese medicine or any of the martial arts,”
Jeffrey added. “They’re not quite mainstream, but they’re interesting
in a cool way.
“Modern Chinese and Indian culture is cool, too.
Bollywood (slang for Indian popular film industry based in Bombay) of
course, Hong Kong action films and those beautifully-shot Chinese films
have a solid following among hip people in the West.”
Jeffrey’s comments are fascinating – and accurate to
a large degree. Notice again the sentence, “People who profess any of
these faiths outside their place of worship are likely to be viewed
with polite tolerance at best.”
How ironic. The Christian worldview and philosophy
have been the working hypotheses that have enabled western civilization
to deal with creation as “good,” dependable and orderly rather than as
something evil, random and to be avoided or minimized or neutralized.
These premises have nurtured the West in its
expansion into the ages of mechanism, industrialization and science
that has brought the West into the modern world far ahead of Eastern
cultures, including India and China.
Indian and Chinese driving philosophies and
theologies have, as Jeffrey put it, “discovered the knack of making the
clock stop” rather than moving forward.
So, Jeffrey, an expert on worldwide understanding of
why people desire certain ideas that lead to purchasing certain items,
believes that in “Christian” societies, Christianity is losing appeal
in the West while other world religions are gaining not just
acceptance, but favor.
This brings us to remember that in the New
Testament, Christianity never flourished as a “cool” religion. It was
usually despised and persecuted, but it “turned the world upside down.”
The Apostle Paul, writing under the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit, explained it this way: “For the word of the cross is to
those who are perishing foolishness.” And that may be increasingly true
in the West.
Should we, therefore, change our message? Should we
make our faith little more than exercises of meditation and escapism,
so Christianity can compete with the Eastern religions that are “cool?”
Should we appeal more to the basic selfishness of people?
Certainly, the Apostle Paul did not think so. He
said emphatically, “For indeed, Jews ask for signs, and Greeks
(original westerners) search for wisdom; but we preach Christ
crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness.” Paul
even echoes the words of Jesus by telling people they must be crucified
daily.
Why?
Because, Paul said, “To us who are being saved, it
(the message of the cross) is the power of God.” Christ did not urge
forsaking the cross for escapism or nihilism, but that people “take up
their cross … and follow him.”
The church will not compete with other religions, or
atheisms, by trying to outdo them on their own tenets, but by
presenting the transforming power of being crucified daily.
True Christianity never will gain strength by being
watered down and shaped into some other faith’s mold. Certainly, Jesus
illustrated this and understood that a faithful presentation of the
gospel may turn some people off. When he explained to the masses
gathered after they enjoyed a free meal that they must partake of the
crucified Christ, “As a result of this, many of his disciples withdrew
and were not walking with him any more.”
Jesus chose telling the truth over being cool, and that is the example we must follow.
Being cool does not save or transform; truth does.