Jack Cahill, an advertising executive from Kansas City, Missouri, has suggested new marketing techniques which can help to tap the appeal to popular blessings. Beginning with the Roman Catholic Church (24 percent of the U.S. market), he suggests a strategy of market segmentation, a clear positioning of the church identifying specific subgroups within the brand name. For the contemporary branch of the Roman Catholic Church, "the one that features hip priests, guitar playing, hand shaking, hugging, and other manifestations of universal niceness," he offers "R.C. Light"; for the conservative tradition, "R.C. Classic"; for the group most interested in liberation theology, "R.C. Free." As for the Protestants, he says, "Many of the Protestant churches (PC's) have maintained a standback style since the Reformation and have been watching their market share shrink for about 400 years. After the big RC push, we can expect to see some of the more marginal, undifferentiated PC's go belly up."
To right the situation he suggests the individual churches will have to understand that there is just so much theological shelf space, that product differentiation is not viable for go- as-you-please Protestants. Currently, none of the mainstream Protestants -- your Lutherans, your Episcopalians, your Southern Baptists, your Methodists -- can really claim more than a ten percent market share. He says, "My strategy is to consolidate the various brand names, even the strong flagship brands like Southern Baptist, into one identifiable Exxon-like entry. The target audience here is Mom, Dad, Butch, and Sis -- solid suburban Americans who want a little God in their life and a place to go before brunch. "And after test-marketing various possibilities, I have decided upon the name Middle American Christian Church, or 'MacChurch' for ad purposes. I will not be certain of MacChurch's theology until the focus groups are run, but I plan on following the promotional path blazed so successfully by Holiday Inn. In other words, this will be your basic 'no- surprise' church. When Dad brings the family here, he can be sure that they will not be asked to speak in tongues, handle snakes, or give money to the Sandinistas."
"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake." So said Jesus, but popular wisdom is quite different. Neil Postman, a Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at New York University, wrote a book titled Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. In it, Professor Postman quotes the executive director of the National Religious Broadcasters Association, as he summed up what he calls the unwritten law of all television preachers: "You can get your share of the audience only by offering people what they want." In response, Professor Postman wrote, "... This is an unusual religious credo. There is no great religious leader -- from the Buddha to Moses to Jesus to Mohammed to Luther -- who offered people what they wanted. Only what they needed. But television is not well suited to offering people what they need. "It is user friendly. It is too easy to turn off. It is at its most alluring when it speaks the language of dynamic visual imagery. It does not accommodate complex language or stringent demands. As a consequence, what is preached on television is not anything like the Sermon on the Mount. Religious programs are filled with good cheer. "They celebrate affluence. Their players become celebrities. Though their messages are trivial, the shows have high ratings, or rather because their messages are trivial, the shows have high ratings ... Christianity is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether."1
"Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account." We are often willing to do so until it becomes inconvenient. Charles Allen tells of a friend of his who went to a large church to preach at a special Good Friday service. The weather was extremely bad and only a few people came. Apologetically, the host pastor said to the visiting pastor, "If it had not been for the bad weather, we would have had a large crowd to hear you tonight." At first, it angered the visiting preacher, but quickly his anger turned to pity and contempt. Looking at his host, he said, "Do you realize what you have just said? If the weather had not been bad, a larger crowd would have come to this Good Friday service. Jesus died on Good Friday, but His followers did not come to the service because the weather was bad."2
Why don't Christians in our nation experience being reviled and persecuted, having all kinds of evil uttered against us falsely on Jesus' account? Is it because we are such a moral nation? No, we are not a terribly moral nation, if statistics about crime, violence, sexual behavior, drugs, environmental activity and the like is any measure. Perhaps Christians in America are not persecuted as they are in other places because we tend to be fairly lukewarm about what we believe. We do not usually take very big risks. And that itself is a big risk, because in the last book of the Bible, God speaks, saying, "I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth" (Revelation 3:15-16).
The Beatitudes end with the sure and certain promise that the result of keeping these Beatitudes will be persecution. It has been from the beginning. Tacitus, in his account of Nero's persecution about 65 A.D., tells of some of the things the first Christians faced: "Besides being put to death, they were made to serve as objects of amusement: they were clad in the hides of beasts and torn to death by dogs; others were crucified, others set on fire to serve to illuminate the darkness of the night." The book The Martyrdom of Polycarp records that in 155 A.D., when Christian leader Polycarp was brought to the stadium, the Proconsul urged the old man to curse Christ, but Polycarp answered, "Eighty and six years have I served him, and he has done me no wrong; how then can I blaspheme my king, who saved me?" The Proconsul threatened him with wild beasts and then with fire. Polycarp answered, "You threaten with the fire that burns for an hour and in a little while is quenched; for you do not know of the fire of the judgment to come, the fire of the eternal punishment, reserved for the ungodly. But why delay? Bring what you will."
"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." It still happens to Christians in our time. Dr. Turner was the pastor of the American Church in Berlin before World War II. Once he visited Pastor and Mrs. Heinrich Niemoeller, the aged parents of Pastor Martin Niemoeller. Martin Niemoeller was a pastor who defied Hitler and spent many months in a concentration camp. When the visit to Martin Niemoeller's parents was over, they stood at the door, talking. Dr. Turner said, "Grandmother Niemoeller held my left hand in her two hands. The grandfather of Martin's seven children patted my right hand and then put one hand on my shoulder. He said slowly, 'When you get back to America, do not let anyone pity the father and mother of Martin Niemoeller. Only pity any follower of Christ who does not know the joy that is set before those who endure the cross despising the shame. Yes, it is a terrible thing to have a son in a concentration camp. Paula here and I know that. But there would be something more terrible for us: if God had needed a faithful martyr, and our (son) Martin had been unwilling.' "3
Most of us would like to go through life loving and being loved. But of that goal, Jesus said, "Woe to you, when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets" (Luke 6:26). And so Jesus made the peculiar observation that being harassed for the sake of your faith is a sign of God's favor. People are not openly persecuted in this country for being Christian. It is more subtle. For example, in an academic setting, we can be free to discuss Sigmund Freud or Karl Marx, but try to have an open discussion of Christ and his teachings in a classroom in America and the discomfort will rise along with controversy.
The "persecution" is subtle, and so we can drift away from our willingness to witness to what we believe. Seated in a restaurant, no one will say you cannot bow your head to offer grace, but when was the last time you sat in a restaurant and bowed to offer grace before a meal? When I say a grace before a meal in a restaurant, I usually do it with my eyes open and my hands unfolded. Could we suffer from what we warn youth about -- peer pressure?
Many of us work places where we have to show financial profit for our work. Seldom will someone say you cannot ask questions of ethics about how the money is made, but questions of Christian ethics usually remain in our mind without passing over our lips.
"Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account." But the threat of scorn from colleagues and reviling looks of peers hardly feels blessed. Not only that, simply to suffer is not enough. As Augustine said, "The cause, not the pain, makes the martyr." Being injured for its own sake is not a virtue. There were times when Jesus was physically threatened but left to avoid being injured (Mark 8:27). When Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane knowing he faced the cross, he asked to be delivered from physical suffering: "Father, if it be possible, let this cup (of suffering) pass from me" (Matthew 26:39). Jesus accepted suffering when it was forced upon him, but he never sought or desired it.
When we try to be the best Christians we can, but find ourselves being reviled and persecuted, having all kinds of evil uttered against us falsely, we can say it is not fair, which it is not. If our concern is our immediate reward, we will pity ourselves for the injustice done us. However, if our concern is to do what we do for Jesus' sake, then the things that happen to us are seen in the larger context of these Beatitudes. In fact, the normal and healthy response to being reviled and persecuted and having all kinds of evil spoken against us falsely is not gladness and joy.
It is like the conversation between a parent and child at the checkout line at the grocery store. As the child considers the immediate delight of the candy displayed before him, the parent talks about how fortunate they are to have fresh spinach in their garden at home. We can hardly expect the child to be overjoyed at the long-term health benefits of spinach while looking at the pleasure immediately available on the candy rack. That is why parents will spend time explaining this benefit and explaining it again and explaining it all over again. It would be strange for a child to rush past the candy and potato chips to get to the health food section, though it would be wonderful.
In the same way, it would be a strange and wonderful thing for people to find joy and gladness in the midst of persecution for the sake of their faith. But that has long been a unique characteristic of Christians. We are able to look through the words of this beatitude and understand the persecution in the light of God's will, and way through eternity, and the final promise that God's kingdom will come. One night after the porch of his home was bombed, Martin Luther King wrote, "To our most bitter opponents we say ... 'Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you ... throw us in jail, and we shall still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you ... one day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your hearts and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.' "4
The Beatitudes end with the sure and certain promise that we will receive the kingdom of heaven. We may have only a glimmer of it here and now, but most certainly we will see it fully hereafter. These beatitudes conclude by returning to the promise of the first beatitude, the promise that those who faithfully cling to these beatitudes will receive the kingdom of God.
"They who have endured much for what's right are God's people: they are citizens of His new Order. You all are God's people when others call you names, and harass you and tell all kinds of false tales on you just because you follow me. Be cheerful and good-humored, because your spiritual advantage is great. For that's the way they treated men of conscience in the past." (Jordon)
"Happy are those who are ridiculed for living their lives on a high spiritual plane. They are approved by God. Happy are those who are criticized and ridiculed and the subject of gossip because of their attempt to be Christlike. That ridicule has been heaped on others. Do not be disturbed about it, because God will give you a great reward." (The Pulpit 12/54)
"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you." (RSV)
1. Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.
2. God's Psychiatry, p. 157.
3. E.T. Thompson, The Sermon On The Mount.
4. Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength To Love (Harper and Row).