Pope Benedict removal and Pope Francis ascension to Saint Peter’s throne might respond to many things orchestrating inside the Church. In my case, as marketer, I’m puzzled by questioning this as a marketing move to increase—or recover—adepts. So I wonder if Pope’s Publicist and PR may have shared dormitory with the publicist of Lady Gaga, Miley Cirrus or the Kardashian’s gang in one of the Ivy League Schools.
Why I’m saying this? Because the recent declarations of the Pope may win the young adepts but as most of the public relations, pre-written statements are subject to contradictions. Should Church be worried? I think in fact, yes, because jeopardizes faith dogmas in which their entire religion is built upon.
Quoting Pope Francis: “When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so.” A phrase that acknowledge the Big Bang and Evolutionism.
The problem here is that the God that Church have sold so fiercely for the last two thousand and fourteen years is a creationist God. With that statement, in the blink of an eye, God fell down a few levels in the “all religion’s Pantheon,” because a God that can create from spontaneous generation has a bigger power than one that needs evolution and the creation was due a Big Bang, right? In other words Zeus is above Jehovah? Right?
Well, besides the pun mentioned previously, the true problem in this subject is that the Church granted the rank of God to Jesus Christ because of the miracles he did… like turning water into wine, multiplying the fish and bread and resurrecting dead people… with his magic wand, right? Clearly, this image of Jesus truly resembles more to Harry Potter than a Prophet.
I know that there are brilliant scientist within the Vatican, an example of the contribution of men of faith into science can be tracked through the time with figures like Gregor Mendel. But then I ask: Where are those scientific counselors to review Pope’s speeches? Haven’t they told him that Big Bang Theory explains creation without the aid of a God and the most similar thing to it is a tiny sub-atomic particle and the field that exerts to other particles in order to gain mass?
Haven’t they told him that at the level of the Big Bang the miracle of life is just a matter of probability by an infinite try and error? That in that scenario: sin, heaven or hell is irrelevant and astronomic phenomena can wipe out our entire race—and the Church along it—and don’t give a f*ck? That people doesn’t need to have faith in order to survive? (And less to donate money to sustain complex spiritual infrastructure.)
Certainly they didn’t, because he also stated: “The big bang, which is today posited as the origin of the world, does not contradict the divine act of creation; rather, it requires it.”
Sadly I see no other thing that contradiction. That is fine if you want to make people think and break the religious paradigms… but that only will signify the end of their business model. This puzzles me even more, because comes from an institution devoted to obscure the truth for the past millennia. The other option, is that they consider people stupid enough to no question that, and find it just a publicity stunt—reason why this falls in the category of marketing instead of religion.
If one thing the Christian Church has proved right it’s their adaptation capabilities—someone thought in evolution? Weird isn’t?—that allowed it to survive the Roman Empire persecution, the Barbarian invasion, the fell of monarchy, the revolution of thinking and the digital era. So, maybe at the end it will stand, despite any religious belief. Are we witnessing another chapter in the adaptation of Church?
The business model in religions works gaining customers and then establishing an strategy to retain them captive (repetitive purchase). But speaking in marketing terms nothing disappoints more a customer that unfulfilled expectations and more important unfulfilled promises.
Will this new ideological venture gestating inside Vatican fulfill expectations and promises of their customers?
M. Ch. Landa