Christianity Does Not Impact Today’s Culture Says Christian Media Consultant Phil Cooke, Who Looks to Scientology for Media Education

Despite the growing popularity of Protestantism among young people, Phil Cooke, Christian media consultant, states in his blog that small churches and mega churches don’t make much of an impact because they have no media driven strategy in a world that is driven by media.

Christianity Does Not Impact Today’s Culture Says Christian Media Consultant Phil Cooke, Who Looks to Scientology for Media Education

Despite the growing popularity of Protestantism among young people, Phil Cooke, Christian media consultant, states in his blog that small churches and mega churches don’t make much of an impact because they have no media driven strategy in a world that is driven by media.

Scientology has been undergoing a recent facelift in an attempt to create a friendlier, less cultish approach to the public with their nationwide advertising campaign.   Cooke states because of their centralized organization, they can afford to use mass media, and that Protestant churches both large and small need to do the same.   When media does go out from churches, Cooke asserts that the wrong message is being sent—that churches need to focus more on changing people’s attitudes about God than about why people should join that denomination.

The realization that churches should be using mass media to forward their agendas is an interesting one considering how much religion is impacting American culture, particularly right wing conservative Protestantism.   Thinking of a church as if it were a corporation that needs to advertise itself is a very American idea.  The question becomes then, would mass media advertising such as Cooke is suggesting fuel the culture wars even more?

Dakota O'Leary

Dakota O'Leary is a freethinker, and often sassy, scholar of theology and literature. She got her Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Theology from the State University of New York College at Buffalo, and her Master of Arts degree in Theology and Literature from Antioch University-Midwest. She is a contributing writer focusing on eschatology, biblical prophecy, and general religious news. Dakota is a co-host of the God Discussion radio show, offering insight to the news stories of the week. We like to call her "our in-house Biblical prophecy expert" as her articles on eschatology have received over 200,000 views on God Discussion.

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  • themanofearth

    The answer to the question is yes. And the trick to this not fueling the culture wars would be to have an organization that is NOT dedicated to converting people. A secular organization. Unfortunately most of the so called "secular" organizations (like American Atheist and FFRF) are seen by many people as evangelical atheist organizations and not secular ones.

  • http://www.goddiscussion.com admin

    As far as technology is concerned, I am seeing more and more Apple applications for religious causes, improved IT, and the religious right conferences are all having workshops for the Internet. But as far as traditional advertising is concerned, the article makes a good point with respect to church advertising and its impact on culture. However, I think that Christianity makes a huge impact because of its political activism.

    I think the Mormons are doing the same thing as the Scientologists with their Google advertising campaign to create a friendly, "we are normal" kind of image.

    Man of Earth is right about secular organizations being perceived as evangelical. I am not sure how that can be remedied.