“I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life…” (De 30:19).
One of our dear missionaries, recently returned from Africa’s bush, anticipates with some dread her first visit to the Mall of America. She is accustomed, you see, to camels, dust storms, and the earthy rhythms of tribal life; the mall is a world of Buicks, pitched sales, and the frenetic rhythms of consumerism. “I will need someone to hold my hand,” our missionary confessed.
The most intimidating part of the experience, perhaps, is the absolutely enormous array of choices arrayed for our consumption at the mall. Perhaps you need shoes; there are tens of thousands of shoes at the Mall of America. Perhaps you are needing a radio; again, there are thousands of possibilities. Are you hungry for an ice-cream cone? How about “banana-cinnamon-bubblegum-fudge”? The combinations are positively endless.
I was recently introduced to a study by a pair of researchers at Colombia and Stanford universities, cited in The New York Times (January 22, 2004, p.A25). Their research has shown that “as the number of flavors of jam or varieties of chocolate available to shoppers is increased, the likelihood that they will leave the store without buying either jam or chocolate goes up.” “Shoppers are 10 times more likely to buy jam when six varieties are on display as when 24 are on the shelf.” I want to buy a pound of coffee; but how am I to choose between a hundred varieties? I choose instead, often enough, to have a glass of milk.
Something like this is working in the mall of spiritual values and allegiances as well. There are so many varieties! One can choose from an entire spectrum of eastern or western, active or quietest, communitarian or individualistic, etc. One can choose many approximations of Christianinty, or flavors of Buddhism, or a Mall-of-America salad-bar approach. So many varieties! The result is an unfortunate slop of relativity – and in face of it, we are likely to make no commitments at all. We walk out of the store without a purchase.
In the world of spiritual values and allegiances, of course, such variety is only apparent. There are fundamentally two alternatives only before every human being. Life or death. Salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ…or the abyss. This makes Christian “marketing” something different altogether than marketing, let’s say, a particular variety of jam. If our hearers are interested in salvation, there is no alternative to the Gospel. It is not as though the path of Christ is the most satisfying among many – not that it is “less filling” or “tastes great”. It is, simply, the only path to God. The work of Christian mission is to make this decision radically clear. It is already radically simple.
George Macdonald once said, “There are many angles at which one may fall, but only one angle at which to stand aright.” You can search the world over – even the Mall of America – and you will not find an alternative. Standing aright requires just such an angle. Standing before God requires Jesus.