Jesus Junk – I don’t care if it’s illegal

11 Jan 2010

An article I read in the USA Today last month reminded me of a topic I’ve wanted to write about for some time – the thriving business of spoofing corporate logos in the name of Christ. According to the article,

American retailers sell about $4.6 billion worth of Christian products annually, and some are spoofs or spinoffs of commercial logos or brand names. Many such goods are illegal, trademark attorneys say, but companies often are unaware their names are being copied or don’t put up a fight for fear of being labeled anti-faith.

The piece focuses mostly on the legal and ethical questions mentioned in that paragraph and these are legitimate concerns. I don’t think most of these products qualify as parody. They are almost certainly infringements of copyright and/or trademarks, but that is not what bothers me most about this stuff.

My biggest concern is with the larger industry which some have labeled “Jesus Junk.” This is a huge industry, and if you ask me, Christians should rethink participation in it. I found a sampling of these products online here, here, and here. There are a few products featured that are made up to emphasize the point, but most of them are (or were at one time) available for purchase. I’m not kidding.

There are several reasons I don’t like Jesus Junk. Certainly, not all of my concerns apply to all products marketed in the name of Christ but together they make me wary of participating in this industry at all.

Jesus Junk Trivializes Christ and Christianity

In my opinion this is the biggest problem. Our faith should mean more to us than these products portray.

Take a look at these three

Seriously? These represent your faith?

Jesus Junk Lacks Creativity and Originallity

Another big problem with Jesus Junk is that it’s just plain junk. I have no doubt is is possible to modify a corporate or media logo and do it creatively, but most of this stuff is not creative at all. Take a look at two examples.

That second one is especially awful. Wouldn’t it make more sense to copy the logo from The Amazing Race? I don’t get it.

Jesus Junk is Unscriptural and Preys On the Foolish

Stop making the house of my Father a house of merchandise!
John 2:13-17

I combined both of these points because Jesus threw the moneychangers out of the temple, at least in part, because their operation took advantage of people.** In that case, the money changers were taking advantage of the poor. In this case, these products tend to take advantage of the foolish.

I’m not saying that everyone who buys one of these products is foolish, but there are clearly products on the market that are designed to entice the foolish to buy. I’m only going to highlight one because A) I’d really like to avoid offending too many people (like anyone reads my blog, right?), and B) many of the remaining products I’ll highlight in this post may qualify for this point – but I’m not telling you which ones.

This one may be a joke but the point is that someone must buy these and some of those that do are probably actualy hoping this will help them quit smoking.

Jesus Junk Supports Bad Theology

A great example of bad theology is the personalized Bible. Is it just me, or will changing all (most?) the pronouns in the Bible lead to some very, very awful interpretations of Scripture?  One could argue that only certain Scriptures will be changed when the meaning isn’t changed. This is no justification at all. The Bible was meant to be read “without note or commnet.” If you read one of these personalized Bibles, you are reading someone’s interpretation of scripture at the very best.

Which brings me to my last point.

Jesus Junk Represents Christians Poorly

I know many of you may misunderstand me on this point and think all I care about is how this makes “me” look when I tell others I’m a Christian. Don’t make that mistake. Of course I’m concerned about that, but more importantly I think these items misrepresent “our” faith as a whole because they support the notion that one Christian speaks for all of the others. I’ll have more to say below, but let’s look at some products first.

Okay, maybe that second one is not marketed this way and I can’t find that third one for sale online but don’t kid yourself – there are other products like it. You can even purchase the End-Times Survival Handbook if you’d like.

Despite the popularity of Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series, not every Chrsitan believes in the rapture, tribulation, millenium, or any of the other nonsense depicted in those books and in many other places in Christian pop culture.

These stereotypes do a tremendous disservice to our faith and to any chance we have of doing good for others.

Now take a look at a couple of my favorites.

The ChurchGirl website says that church girls should be sassy, savvy, and saved. Take a look at the models below. Is that the way church girls should dress?

Finally,

I couldn’t find this one online today either but I’m sure it was a real product at one time and I’m almost certain you can still find similar designs.

I certainly hope this one was designed by a non-believer for purchase by non-believers. I still find it inappropriate because it trivializes one of the critical tenets of Christianity – redemption, but I’d be even more disappointed to learn that Christians wear shirts like this.

Another reason I wanted to highlight it was so I could ask – would Jesus shop at Wal-Mart?

** See this sermon by Sarah Knoll-Williams for what I think is a good interpretation of this account from Scripture.