Communication - spamming versus filtering - what would Jesus do?

Yesterday the good bishop of Buckingham linked to a blog he wrote last November entitled Spam vs Evangelism. And this morning it so happened that I was reading in the gospel of Matthew the parable of the Sower and the back story namely that the parable was told by Christ explicitly to filter and misdirect. So I thought I would reflect on these two methods. Spamming is basically the attempt to cover as much of an audience as possible using indiscriminate communication using frequency to increase coverage. Even if the absence of targeting decreases the value of that communication from the vast majority who are not interested. And especially if the progressive repetition undermines the validity of the whole medium.

In this regard I am afraid that spamming has a lot in common with conventional advertising. We try to target as best we can. But there is a lot of collateral. Arguably one of the reasons for having entertaining advertising is not only that it engages those we want to respond but it mitigates the wear and tear on the medium by those who aren't the target but receive the communication anyway. And the popular cliche of evangelism or proselytism to give its more accurate name is the indiscriminate carpet bombing of everybody in the hope that the faithful will stand up and be counted. Collateral damage is immaterial to the would be converter: if you disagree with me you don't count.

This contrasts markedly with Christ's own approach which was unexpected to put it mildly. For the healings which were public and great for word of mouth - he seemed to operate a mixed policy. Often he told people to keep quiet about them - largely it seems because it restricted his freedom of movement - tough to keep moving if you're having to run clinics continually.. but hardly the behavoiur of an natural publicist.

Then we come on to the parables he told. Of which the parable of the sower is one of the best known and most relevant from our point of view because it is a parable about communication. Some of the seed is picked up by the birds, some falls into shallow soil and germinates but withers because the roots don't have enough depth. Some gets choked by the thorns which outgrow it. And some falls into good soil and replicates 100, 60 or 20 fold.  When asked why he is speaking in riddles Christ says straight out that his communication method is designed to give more to those who have and to leave those without with nothing.  This is positive AND negative filtering. Ensuring that those who want to listen self select and those who don't, give up and move on. Startlingly Jesus claims that his strategy is not a new one and is recorded in the prophet Isaiah from 700 years before. The purpose of the communications strategy is to generate a depth of response from a few instead of a breadth of response from many. You can read all this in Matthew 13 if you want to follow it up. Where there are a whole collection of parables grouped. Some with interpretations for the chosen but many without. And most people would not have had access to the key.

Conclusions from this - that Christ's techniques are worth considering as we retreat from an era of mass communication to something rather more personal. The problem with spam style evangelism is that it is a product of mass communication. It is indiscriminate.  Embedding messages in parables is an interesting way to ensure the stability and integrity of a message which cannot be separated from its container. And the communication form is limited by the engagement and tolerance of the audience. There is a real chance you'll miss it because you don't have the time or the inclination. And Christ doesn't seem overly bothered about that.  I don't expect nervous clients to adopt a strategy like this any time soon. All I would suggest is that these stories have generated extraordinary engagement and they are still in circulation 2000 years on. So is this worthy of consideration - deep comms versus broad comms?

Comments

[barak]

interesting post! There are many, many people - some of whom hold the highest offices in the American government - who say this, and then go on to live lives that, by any account, are not at all Christ-like.

[Debra Rincon Lopez]

I wished their were alot more people living a Christlike lifestyle. The one's that do are the one's that are still trustworthy and have valid things to say. I like your reference to scripture here putting into our realm of society needs to see in black & white.