Meditation Upon the Building of a Brand

Last updated on: September 4, 2018 at 7:56 am by Anne Kennedy

Meditation Upon the Building of a Brand 2018-09-04T07:56:13-04:00 Anne Kennedy

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

File this away under Extremely Depressing. It caught my eye because of the very relevant, to me, and probably to the whole world, sermon text from Sunday. We’re working our way slowly through the gospel of John and have got to the end of chapter three after wending our way through the strange Nicodemus saga. Nicodemus is left there in the dark and suddenly the reader is reminded of John the Baptist and his brand wrecking decision to move his work north from Judea, maybe even as far as Samaria, leaving Jesus to the main stage. It seems like a non-sequitur, as so much of the whole gospel does, especially whenever John the Baptist is mention, but the concluding line of that section ties up the whole chapter with a punch to the ego. Perhaps you’ve stumbled over it as I have. John, comforting his fame-frustrated disciples, announces, “He must increase and I must decrease.”

Ugh. First of all, I don’t wanna. The idea of decreasing anything, except for the amount of laundry that needs to be done every week, is vexatious to my already impoverished spirit. I don’t want the amount of money we have to decrease, nor the hours in the day, nor my energy, nor anything. I always feel like I’m working with a loathsome deficit anyway. I don’t want to decrease, I want to increase.

Second of all, it is probably impossible. I don’t even know how. If I had to do this with my personality it would be depressing and terrible. I like to think of myself as effervescent and charming. I don’t want to sit back along the wall while Jesus increases in every direction, and I am poor and boring and cast aside.

But most of all, as you can see if you clicked that link, it is an idea fundamentally contrary to the spirit of the age. If you want succeed in life you have to build your personal brand. Your brand needs to be bigger and better and louder and more obvious. You need to be yourself More, and take More risks in the public square, and you need to everMore craft a persona for yourself that is easily identifiable by others so that you can be hired.

Never mind that being yourself is hardly compatible with crafting an image—indeed, for the ordinary person they are basically contrary. I want to be known for real, but that will not really improve my brand, because the pictures I take look stupid without filters and if you knew what I was really thinking you would not be my friend. Therefore, I don’t actually want to be known for real. I want to be known for who I want to be. Who I want to be is marketable and delightful and shiny and lucrative. Emphasis on the lucrative. And on the being liked by everybody.

Incidentally, if you scroll down and read about the author of the piece, you can see that she runs a ghost writing business. Truly, the best way to build your brand is to have someone anonymously do it for you. I Heart Modernity.

Anyway, if you’ve been a Christian for any length of time you will hopefully have experienced the relief of getting to be yourself with Jesus—usually in the desperation of prayer—and waking up to the fact that he didn’t chuck you out in horror. He saw you, he knew you, and he didn’t walk away. Indeed, as he saw you, you were able to see yourself and, though humiliated, you were able to stand up and be forgiven. What decreases, strangely, is the ugliness of who you are, so that you slowly become nicer to be with, hopefully. But that doesn’t brand well.

And it has to be about the brand. So there have got to be some nice Christian-ish ways to get around this. Maybe you can create the illusion of decreasing, while actually increasing. The de-conversion narrative is a lovely way to accomplish this. I was horrid and narrow before but now I’m lit so please still buy my book. And there is always Instagram where you don’t photograph yourself, but instead take a nice picture of your bible and your coffee cup. It’s all about Jesus…and me reading about Jesus but really Jesus. And then there’s my favorite, marrying heresy with self-absorption so that everything else is drowned out by the glorious sound of my own re-defined gospel voice, expression, and personality shouting about the new and better Jesus who looks exactly like me.

Cynicism aside, I think this might be one of those areas where Christians have to eventually opt out. If you are in a profession where you are the thing being paid for, and not the work that you do (oops, forgot about Facebook, I guess what I’m saying is not true but I’ll carry on anyway) it may be that you should find something else to do. Obscurity, though uncomfortable, isn’t the worst thing. Being poorer and more cast aside isn’t going to kill off the Christian population of the west. I mean—there might be eventual actual undignified death, look at John after all—but before that there is the quiet unknown life where you show up and do your job and refuse for any of it to be about you, and all of it to be about the grace and mercy of God.

As I said, it’s an impossible, inhuman task. But it is the task of being a Christian, of being made alive in the image of Christ, of dying the death of the self day by day, however painfully.

And now I will arise and go pretend to be holier than I am on social media. Pip Pip.

culture watch

Work and the Christian

Culture Watch

vanity

Previous Post

September 3, 2018

God’s View of You Podcast and Links

Next Post

September 5, 2018 The Dark Night of the Pumpkin

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category books Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Children in Conversation culture watch Daily Devotions Demotivations with Anne faith alone for the grandparents GAFCON In conversation with children In the News Kitchen Notes Lambeth Learning Notes Life Going On Men are Human Notes from Home Pictures Reading the Bible Saturday Links Sermons Signs of the Apocalypse The Bad Word Association The Prayer of Jonah Travel Notes Uncategorized Witless Wednesdays Work and the Christian

Select a Month June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What city was the capital of Israel before Jerusalem?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Hebron Jericho Shechem Bethel

Books by This Author Books by Anne Kennedy

See All Titles »