The Bastard Child of Linguistics and Mathematics

I need your help. While writing Pentecostal Boys, it occurred to me that there is a possibility that we can determine how many possible variations there are on the gospel presentation, in English of course. This will require Leighton's input, obviously, since I know shit-all about math. But before we ask Leighton to crunch the numbers, we need to figure out what sorts of category statements we have to work with. I'm thinking categories like in a sales pitch, and let's be honest, that's sort of what the gospel presentation is. We need to think of all the phrases we use to describe the process, including the oldies but goodies like "washed in the blood" and "delivered from darkness to light" as well as the new ones like "moving toward god", and we need to figure out what parts of the presentation fit into what categories. Cheek, you're the best choice, I think, for making up the categories. Words like introduction, justification, closing lines, hook, and carrot all come to mind, but some of you in sales will have better descriptors. After we've assembled all the possibilities we can think of, we'll deliver the list to Leighton, who obviously has nothing better to do than put his gigantic brain to work for my amusement. Who is in?

Comments

[Leighton]

Counting combinations like that is something I used to assign my students to do. (Not with religious examples, since I liked being employed, but the techniques are the same.) The real trick is going to be dividing the categories and figuring out how many elements are in each. It would be less complicated if we excluded body language, but maybe less useful--"Jesus loves you" spoken earnestly and "Jesus loves you" in a passive-aggressive needling tone are two distinct messages from a pragmatics standpoint. Maybe a sociologist or a cultural anthropologist would have some insight into a taxonomy of basic persuasive techniques, but that's out of my area.

[Dave Rattigan]

In my Pentecostal adolescence, the main themes of the gospel appeal were:

Make Jesus Lord of your life
Invite Jesus into your heart
Ask Jesus to be your Lord and Saviour
Have a personal relationship with Jesus
Make sure of your destiny (ie get to heaven, get out of hell)

The full message could include all of these, plus the many theological ways of describing Jesus' death (blood of the Lamb etc), but the actual invitation at the altar call would usually be a variation on one of these.

[cheek]

Sorry I'm coming late. Reading Plato is a breeze, but reading Plato scholarship takes for-fucking-ever. At some point we're going to need to compare the humanist approach to scholarship in the classics with pop Biblical scholarship because there are far more affinities than either side would like to admit.

The categories that present themselves at my first glance are:

1. The Programatic Pitch. This category is characterized by presenting the gospel as a set of steps the heathen must follow to achieve salvation. The odd thing about how these actually work is that the salesman...ahem...evangelist often appeals to the gospel's efficiency as a virtue. Kind of like a Billy Mays infomercial, "Just three easy steps and your done!" The paradigm case is the ABC (1. Ask, 2. Believe, 3. Commit) Pitch.

2. The In-Crowd Gambit. This one works by praying on the innate human desire to belong. It's most common among youth and college groups and gets amped up during camps and retreats where loners are first isolated and then offered membership in the group (at least for the duration of the summer). This one is probably harder to map out since many of its components are not linguistic.

3. The Life Saver Throw. This one's been discussed a bit around here lately. It involves finding isolated and desperate folks and claiming that Jesus can rescue them from whatever their problems happen to be.

4. The Bible Scavenger Hunt. Takes the sinner through the Roman Road, Four Spiritual Laws, etc. (This one may be a subset of #1; I'm not sure.)

5. The Get God Quick Scheme. Works just like a pyramid or work-from-home scheme. It offers (un)godly rewards for virtually no price at all. This could include both prosperity gospel pitches as well as the best life stuff from feel-good preachers like Joel Osteen.

These are just a few off the top of my head. I could get a bit more specified on the relative components of each category with a little discussion of specific approaches others have encountered.

[Jessica Campbell]

Adding to Cheek:

1. Insurance -- scare them in- phrase most heard in this category - "if you are driving home tonight and get hit by a car - can you say you would go to heaven? Do you want to spend eternity in hell?" Belief in Christianity presented as Insurance from eternal hell fire.

2. Christianity presented like taking your first hit/drink/smoke etc: "Jesus is knocking at the door of your heart- won't you let him in?" "It is right here for you- won't just do it?"

3. Destinal Occasion - used for predation of 1st timers - while everyone is praying - "You're here tonight- this may be your first time- yet you feel something within yourself- something you may be missing- and now it makes sense, it's Jesus. Your friend brought you here because they love you and they want you to feel God's love (( friend inevitably starts crying )). This is what you've been missing- take this moment and fill that void. You are here tonight for a reason- you accepted the invitation to come to church tonight- now accept the invitation to let Jesus into your heart."

4. pushy car salesman- don;t think about it just do it

[Zossima]

A few items:

One type of evangelism: The servant evangelist. He puts quarters in the meter or runs a free car wash to save your soul from hell.

The Left Behind play: Like you, I grew up in the Hal Lindsey 70s. I remember watching some movie called "A Thief In The Night" at the little Baptist church we attended. You don't want to wake up and your grandma / wife / friends are gone. You don't want to wake up and find that Russia / China or whomever is the Beast and Obama is the antichrist.

The self-help model: Jesus wants to help you. Originally a therapeutic model--Jesus can help you kick alcohol, drugs, deal with your divorce, etc. It now has the "Jesus is The Secret" aspect to it--Jesus wants to help you get that yacht you've been dreaming about.

[Zossima]

Here's a new one: MMA evangelism. Cuz Jesus woulda knocked you on your ass.

[Zossima]

Here's a new one: Fight Club evangelism. Cuz Jesus woulda knocked you on yo ass.

[Zossima]

So I'm thinking there is some dimensionality to these that we can identify for categorization: The "hook", which is the "pain" the salesperson is trying to address. This can be your eternal security, your emotional suffering, your addiction, your need to fight like Jesus Durden did, your attachment to culture/relativism.

There is the awareness of the receiver: Are they aware of the pain, or is the salesperson trying to sell them on that, too?

There is the medium: sermon, conversation with a stranger, debate over religious/biblical/cultural issues, car wash, note left on my windscreen after person saves me from a parking ticket.

There is the offer: personal relationship, eternal security, cool shit from your wish list... Closely connected with the pain, I guess.

There is the appeal to authority: The Bible says, the Church says, John Piper says, my own experience is. And maybe within that there is the religious tradition. Not everyone needs Genesis to be true, for example.

[bookpublishers]

id...

Counting combinations like that is something I used to assign my students to do. (Not with religious examples, since I liked being employed, but the techniques are the same.) The real trick is going to be dividing the categories and figuring out how many elements are in each. It would be less complicated if we excluded body language, but maybe less useful--"Jesus loves you" spoken earnestly and "Jesus loves you" in a passive-aggressive needling tone are two distinct messages from a pragmatics standpoint or book publishers