Deeper understandings Truth in advertising
God does satisfy our deepest longings in and through material things Editor’s note: This series is intended
to be a public conversation among teach- ing theologians of the ELCA on various themes of our faith and the challenging issues of our day. It invites readers to engage in dialogue by posting comments online at the end of each article at www.
thelutheran.org. The series is edited by Philip D.W.
Krey, president of the Lutheran Theologi- cal Seminary at Philadelphia, on behalf of the presidents of the eight ELCA seminaries.
By John F. Hoffmeyer A
ttention is a spiritual issue. Many time-honored spiritual disciplines focus on developing
habits of attention. Particular forms of prayer, of reading sacred Scrip- tures, of singing God’s praises all serve to develop habits of attention. These spiritual disciplines train their practitioners not to let their attention be so easily distracted by every anxi- ety, regret or wish that enters their mind. In her celebrated article on “Mak-
ing Good Use of Schoolwork in View of the Love of God,” the French writer Simone Weil proposed that attention
Author bio: Hoffmeyer is
associate professor of systematic theology at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.
oriented toward God is “the very sub- stance of prayer.” Prayer is about God occupying our attention, rather than our attention turning this way and that in search of substitutes for God. Prayer is about God’s love dawning upon our attention, sparing us the need to go “looking for love in all the wrong places,” as the song puts it. In our culture one of the strongest
forces shaping our attention is adver- tising. The word advertising comes from Latin roots meaning “turning toward.” Advertising seeks to turn our attention toward something. For example, ads for certain breakfast foods turn our attention toward the cheerful family scene that we will apparently enjoy each morning if only we buy their product. If advertising is a powerful way of
shaping our attention, and if atten- tion is fundamentally a spiritual issue, then advertising itself is not separable from spiritual life. In 1926, President Calvin Coolidge told the American Association of Advertising Agencies that advertising “ministers to the spiritual side of trade.” As a spiritual ministry, Coolidge contin- ued, advertising is part of the “regen- eration and redemption of mankind.” Advertising encourages us to
think that the products and services we buy will satisfy deep-seated long- ings. Typically these longings are for meaning, belonging or identity. Why buy jeans just to have a pair
of pants to wear when you could buy jeans from the brand 7 For All Man- kind? The name suggests that buying this particular brand will contribute to global harmony. As an alternative, you could buy
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jeans from Citizens of Humanity. Again this suggests that buying a pair of jeans will contribute to overcom- ing discord between peoples and nations. In this case there is the addi- tional benefit that these jeans don’t treat women as second-class citizens. If the longing for global harmony
is not already sufficiently spiritual, you can buy True Religion jeans, whose spiritual appeal is explicit. The marketing strategy of all
these brands is to turn our attention far beyond mere items of clothing. The brands draw our attention to some of our deepest human long- ings: for peace and harmony, even on a global scale; for religion that won’t just be wish-fulfillment or the cause of enmity, but instead will be true. Advertisers exercise great artistic creativity to this end because money follows attention. If marketing can successfully capture our attention, it is more likely to capture our wallet.
According to Paul ... In his letter to the church at Rome, Paul encourages them: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). Paul wants his hearers’ attention to be directed in a new way. In our society, part of the existing
order of the world is that market- ing encourages us to use consumer products to satisfy spiritual longings for meaning, belonging and identity. In one of the most famous ads of all time, Coke connected its carbonated sugar water with buying the world a home furnished with love and teach- ing “the world to sing in perfect har-
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