Communicating the sacred in religious advertising in light of the mediatization of religion theory and research on digital religion

Abstract

The main research problem of the article is the communication of the sacred in the Catholic Church in light of the theory of mediatization of religion and research on religion in the era of digital media. Communicating the sacred takes place through various channels and in various ways. One of its carriers is religious advertising, a special type of visual communication used more and more often in the Catholic Church. It occupies an important place in the social processes taking place, such as secularization and desecularization, and in the religious practices of internet users. The text presents the results of the author’s research conducted using the method of focus group interviews on religious advertising, its definition, typology and goals as well as the elements of the sacred present in it. Religious advertising should be treated as a new, completely separate type of advertising, whose inherent part and sine qua non condition is the sacred. Religious advertising is a form of visibility of religion in public space and a way of communicating the sacred in public space.

Keywords:

• Communication of the sacred
• digital religion
• mediatization of religion
• religious advertising
• visibility of religion

1. Introduction

The Catholic Church faces many challenges brought on by the modern world; most recently problems caused by scandals, the decline in priestly and religious vocations, the pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and the war in Ukraine to name a few. One of the most important challenges for the Catholic Church today is communicating the faith or sacred in the context of ongoing changes in social and religious processes. The development of media over the past decades has made all areas of social life, including religion, subject to mediation (Lövheim 2011; Hjarvard 2011). The mediation of religious life, like other areas of human life, is part of two distinctive processes: secularization (and its opposite, i.e. desecularization or, as some claim, post-secularization) and mediatization. The process of mediatization of religion is different in Western European, Scandinavian, or Central and Eastern European countries (Herbert 2011; Guzek 2019; Bourdon and Balbi 2021).

As Giulia Evolvi and Marta Kołodziejska note, the first decades of the 21st century have brought a new challenge to religious institutions, including the Catholic Church. This challenge is the communication of the sacred in the Church community and the media (Evolvi 2019; Kołodziejska 2018), which includes changes in religious practices caused by lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic (Hall and Kołodziejska 2021; Campbell 2020). Communication of the sacred takes place through many channels and by any means. One of them is visual communication. One form of this is religious advertising, which is still underestimated and even marginalized. Using religious advertising as an example, I would like to present my position on one of the ways of communicating sacred in the Catholic Church, based on the theory of mediatization of religion, research on digital religion, and my own research on religious advertising.

At the outset, it should be noted that the Catholic Church lacks any official document regarding religious advertising. The authors of the document ‘Ethics in Advertising’ (Pontifical Council for Social Communications 1997) do not mention this type of advertising, although both John Paul II and his successors often spoke of it. This type of communication is increasingly present in public spaces and the media, including social media, which enjoys a large number of users. Religious advertising is used by the institutional Church, parish churches, and convents, as well as by priests and monks. It is the presence of religious advertising in the media and social space that is becoming an integral part of what in media studies is called the visibility of religion.

The content presented here is based on current academic literature, research on the mediatization of religion and digital religious studies (Campbell and Evolvi 2019; Evolvi 2022), including that of Central and Eastern Europe (Guzek 2019, 2021; Kołodziejska and Arat 2016; Hall and Kołodziejska 2021; Leśniczak 2022; Stępniak 2021), and my own research on the reception of religious advertising in Poland conducted in recent years (Stępniak 2017, 2021, 2022). Although these studies on religious advertising concerned only Poland and the Catholic Church in Poland, they can become a vital contribution and inspiration for further scientific and research studies. Besides, they provide an exemplification of the problem through analysis.

The process of mediatization of religion has been described and studied by various academic centres in Europe and around the world. Secularization and desecularization or post-secularization has been studied and described by media scholars such as Titus Hjelm (2012), Karel Dobbelaere (2002) and Andrew P. Lynch (2018). Mediatization has been studied by José Casanova (1994), Stig Hjarvard (2008a) and Andreas Hepp (2019). The main purpose of this paper is to present how religious advertising, as an element of the visibility of religion in public space, can be a carrier of the sacred, and thus an element of religious communication in the Catholic Church.

I have established the following main research hypothesis: One of the important carriers of the sacred in public space may be religious advertising used by the Church as an important element of visual communication. In light of the process of mediatization of religion, religious advertising also becomes an important element of the visibility of religion in the social space, including new media.

In order to achieve the stated research objective and verify the hypothesis, I posed the following research questions:

1. What challenges and opportunities does the process of mediatization of religion bring in the context of communicating the sacred and religious life of individuals or entire religious groups?

2. How can religious advertising be defined and its types specified in light of focus group interviews conducted in Poland with groups of experts, clergymen, believers and non-believers?

3. Can religious advertising – in light of the mediatization of religion and the visibility of religion – become a communication tool of the Catholic Church with wide audience (believers, non-believers, members of the church community, clergy, Church institutions)?

2. The mediatization of religion as a theory of research on digital religion

The development of media due to the digital revolution has brought with it social and cultural change and new challenges in the field of religion and media studies. Researchers have begun to move away from the linear and deterministic approach to social and cultural change that previously dominated the study of religion, media and communication (Hoover and Lundby 1997). According to Hoover and Lundby, religion and religiosity should be studied and understood in the context of the media as a site of religious presence, media productions, and communications.

Research in the new field of communication and media studies should begin with an understanding of the media as ‘the site of the synthesis and symbolism of culturally meaningful belief systems’ (Clark and Hoover 1997, 17) and with an understanding of religion as meaning-making in the everyday experience of people’s lives. This ‘mediation approach’ was inspired by the ‘cultural turn’ in media studies, as in most of the humanities and social sciences in the late 1980s (Hoover 2002). Today, in the third decade of the 21st century, many academic disciplines are facing new challenges from the mediatization theory, including the mediatization of religion and its visibility in media and social space. The theory of mediatization and mediatization of religion has been introduced over the past decade as a new perspective in understanding the role and significance of media in socio-political (mediatization) or religious change (mediatization of religion) (Lundby 2018b; Lövheim 2014). In media studies, the mediatization agenda grew out of the need to fully grasp the importance of the ubiquity of both mass media and newer forms of digital and interactive media for the implementation of a range of social and cultural activities and originated from Scandinavia and Germany (Livingstone 2009). Bourdon and Balbi (2021) argue that this concept is based entirely on Western ontology, which cannot be generalized to all cultures. However, mediatization as a process concerning social change in the context of the media runs – under globalism – similarly in most countries. Media is not just, as has been claimed over the years, a window to the world. Media, first and foremost, mediate perceptions of the world, conveying not only what audiences should think about, but how they should think, becoming a creator of media reality. This affects the meaning and symbolic content of ideas. Media are also a vehicle for change taking place in society.

Stig Hjarvard (2008a, 2011, 2013) should be considered a forerunner in the study of media, religion and culture, for using the mediatization theory to analyse religious change. Today, a strong centre of research in this area is Scandinavia (Hjarvard and Lövheim 2012; Lövheim 2014; Lundby 2018a; Moberg 2018). However, research on the mediatization of religion has already gone beyond Northwest Europe and the US, becoming increasingly popular in Poland and Central and Eastern Europe (Kołodziejska 2014, 2018; Guzek 2019, 2021; Leśniczak 2020; Stępniak 2021, 2022).

Hjarvard focuses his theory on the concepts of religion, institutional and social change, and religious power. Without going into the details of his theoretical and research concept, it can be said that he applies the mediatization theory in the study of religion to the processes ‘through which religious beliefs, agency, and symbols are becoming influenced by the workings of various media’ (Hjarvard 2016, 8). The mediatization of religion as a theory aims to analyse how changes in religion occur both at the structural level, i.e. the relationship between media and religion as institutional domains in society, and at the level of social interaction, as expressed within individual organizations and the practices of individuals. The mediatization theory as an empirical approach to examining the relationship between media and social change and the authority of broader ‘power’ also faces criticism (Morgan 2011; Deacon and Stanyer 2014).

Undoubtedly, digital media and its development in recent years have affected social life, including the religious life of both church institutions and individuals. The media have become a place for the circulation of religious symbols and have contributed to a wider flow of popular and individualized elements of religion. This ‘change’ in itself is studied in the theory of mediatization. The media has also influenced what this theory calls the authority of power.

Mediatization is regarded and described by some authors as a metaprocess resulting from changes in both the media itself and social and cultural changes (Krotz 2017), which consists of four processes, these being extension, substitution, amalgamation and accommodation (Schulz 2004).

It is worth noting that the processes of mediatization of religion that have been studied and described take place in different ways, and are not uniform in all European countries. Hjarvard describes three different forms in his concept of the mediatization of religion: religious media, journalism and religion and banal religion (2012). Damian Guzek (2019, 2021), referring to Hjarvard’s proposed forms of the mediatization of religion, rightly notes, as do Herbert (2011) and other researchers, that they do not take the same shape or course in all countries of the world. Examining the relationship between media and religion, Guzek strongly emphasizes that some Central and Eastern European countries are culturally split between the East and the West, while others maintain a culture which is typical for the East. Central and Eastern Europe relies on systems with failing democracies and soft authoritarian regimes. It also partly uses Western Europe and the United States as a political and economic point of reference and partly orientates itself to the East with Russian solutions. Finally, CEE is an area of religiosity that has broken communist regimes and risen from ruins after a period of state atheism (Guzek 2021).

The first form of mediatized religion pertains to religious media. Hjarvard refers to organizations and practices used and controlled by ‘religious actors’, which include both religious institutions and individuals. Hjarvard assumes that religious institutions oversee religious media. However, they must adapt to the logic of the media. Religious media, like all other media, strive for professional journalism and professionalism on the technological side. Religious media create favourable conditions for the dissemination of religious content. This applies to both traditional mass media (press, radio, television) and the internet, along with religious portals and social media profiles (Hjarvard 2013, 83).

The second form of mediatized religion, defined by Hjarvard as journalism on religion, affects the visibility of religion in the public sphere. Journalism on religion informs about and presents religious events, but these activities take into account the logic of the media and the workshop of journalists, rather than the perspective and motivations of religion. The latter form of the mediatization of religion has taken a different course in countries such as Poland, where there have always been religious media dependent on the Catholic Church, and differently in Central or South America. As Guzek notes, the dominant Catholic and Orthodox denominations in Central and Eastern Europe clearly do not allow all religious forms, especially the sacraments, to be combined with the media world. Even if the Eucharist, as during Covid-19, was mediated by the media, religious institutions emphasize community life and traditional liturgy as the centre of community life (Guzek 2021; see also Grube 2003; O’Collins 2008).

The third form of mediatized religion concerns so-called banal religion. Hjarvard points to numerous banal religious presentations and experiences that have no or limited connection to institutional religions. They retain their religious dimension but lose their connection to religion and their original symbolism. Hjarvard calls them banal precisely because of their lack of affiliation with institutional religions. Banal religion is the fruit of the process of secularization. When religious institutions lose their monopoly on the worship of symbols and signs, elements of banal religion replace the imagination created by these institutions (Hjarvard 2008b). Banal religion is a religion inspired by the tenets of Michael Billig’s banal nationalism (Billig 1995; Hjarvard 2013, 90–91), filled with eclecticism and detached from the traditional rituals and practices of religious institutions. For several years, mediatization researchers have been using the term ‘deep mediatization’. This is due to the development of information technology and increased media use. In this article, we will use the terms mediatization and the mediatization of religion.

Several decades after the introduction of the theory of the mediatization of religion into media studies, research on digital religion has developed (Campbell and Evolvi 2019; Kołodziejska 2014; Guzek 2019, 2021). Areas such as the involvement of religious groups in contemporary media culture, and the ways in which emerging technologies are shaping public understandings of religion and spirituality in digital contexts have now been addressed. Religious websites and online forums, the first manifestations of online religious communities, have been partially replaced by and coexist with new forms of religious engagement through social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Mobile phones have evolved into smartphones that allow users to develop online identities and perform traditional and new religious rituals through apps, digital games, and chat groups such as WhatsApp (Campbell and Evolvi 2019). In addition, over the past decade, advances in artificial intelligence have created new opportunities to reflect on how algorithms and bots make new types of authority figures emerge and help create new characters for religious leaders in digital culture. Over the past three decades, these innovations and the way they have been adopted and adapted to by different groups of religious users, coupled with the development of internet technologies and internet studies, have led to the explosive growth of digital religion studies. Growing at an impressive pace, the research addresses various spheres of spirituality, the sacred and religious life, both online and offline.

3. Religious advertising in media studies

Until recently, researchers still emphasized what was called the invisibility of religion, that is, its absence from the media and social space. Today, the notion of the visibility of religion is becoming more common (Hjelm 2015; Herbert 2015; Francis 2016; Stępniak 2021, 2022). The world of the internet has popularized religion and all that pertains to it. One form of the visibility of religion is religious advertising, most often found in digital media. It is used not only by the institutional Church, but also by religious orders, parishes and individual clergy, who are increasingly active as media users.

Religious advertising is present not only on carriers such as mass media, or billboards, city lights, diapasons, LCD screens, but also on the internet. We are finding more and more of these kinds of messages in social media, services and websites.

Published in 2017, my pioneering study on religious advertising contains not only the definition of religious advertising and its typology, but also the findings of qualitative research – which in social sciences allows for understanding the essence of a certain phenomenon – conducted using the Focus Group Interview (FGI) technique in four focus groups: advertising experts, clergy, non-believers and lay Catholics.

In media studies methodology, focus groups, as a qualitative research method, play an important role in studying certain phenomena occurring in society (Morgan 1988, 2019; Barbour 2007; Silverman 2004; Wimmer and Dominick 2011; Flick 2013). Focus groups are one of the few methods that allow us to understand the process of shaping views among those participating in the study. As Morgan points out, ‘Focus groups are useful when it comes to investigating what participants think, but they excel at uncovering why participants think as they do’ (1988, 25). The choice of participants in my research groups was based on the purpose of the research, i.e. learning what people know about religious advertising and how it is perceived (perception) and received (reception) by advertising specialists (advertisers, employees of advertising agencies, scientists), clergymen, believers (those belonging to the Catholic Church) and non-believers (declared atheists, agnostics).

In investigating the phenomenon of religious advertising, I focused on the Catholic Church environment in Poland, where the percentage of adults self-identifying believers is 84%.

In addition, in my opinion, the Catholic Church’s religious advertising appearing on streets, buses, billboards, spots in electronic media, etc., increases the visibility of religion in public space, and at the same time clashes with commercial advertising, atheist advertising, with advertisements by Pentecostals and other Protestant denominations. It becomes an element of evangelistic campaigns conducted on the model of social campaigns (e.g. the campaign in Singapore in 2001 organized on behalf of 150 Christian communities by Ogilvy-Mather), taking over their methods (e.g. teaser campaigns). It is a tool for a kind of public dialogue, multi-directional communication, and a carrier for arguments for and against religion or the Church in the struggle for people’s souls.

4. Definition and purposes of religious advertising

In the book The Phenomenon of Religious Advertising, presenting my research on religious advertising and the resulting conclusions, I define religious advertising as follows:

A persuasive message of a religious nature, containing some elements of the sacred, the purpose of which is to convey information and promote faith, values, ideas, and ministries of a religious nature, as well as to form attitudes and views in accordance with the teaching of the Catholic Church. (Stępniak 2017, 212)

Religious advertising is characterized and distinguished from other types of advertising by the element of the sacred as a sine qua non condition. In terms of the sender, religious advertising is a type of church advertising. It is advertising commissioned or prepared by the Church and covers a wide range of content, such as religious advertising, commercial advertising about goods (books, liturgical paraments) or services (Catholic pilgrimage agencies), which must be distinguished from priestly services. Commercial advertising does not necessarily have anything to do with the spiritual needs of the audience, and the element of the sacred is not necessary in it.

It must be emphasized that religious advertising will appeal to the most ‘spiritual’ needs of the viewer, hence the element of the sacred, which reinforces or emphasizes its spiritual character. Religious advertising should therefore be a tool in the Church’s communication with the world, i.e. the broader public. Such advertising should go out with a proposal to meet people’s spiritual needs. As with any advertising, a scheme based on ‘need’ and ‘promise’ appears. The recipient can lose, confuse or drown out these spiritual needs in himself. The Church with a religious message informs about these spiritual needs, and reminds and urges the public, using a variety of means of persuasion, to a specific religious choice, or action, while accepting the recipient’s decision. As Robert L. Moore (1994, 214) wrote: if the Church has the most unique or special ‘product’ to offer – Salvation – then she should advertise it, that is, inform people about it and persuade them to want it.

Of course, the Church has many ways and means of communicating the truth about Salvation. Advertising is just one of the tools that can intrigue, remind, and encourage people to use the proposal, the offer communicated by the Church.

Going back to the definition of religious advertising, it is noteworthy that it is difficult to find other definitions of religious advertising in the literature. Most authors consider this type of communication as social advertising or church advertising, or advertising with religious elements, without defining such terms. An attempt to systematize religious advertising, without defining it, was made by Martyn Percy, referring to the practice of British religious communities of Catholic provenance. He distinguishes such types of religious advertising as:

• literalistic – without illustrations, based on the proclamation of the texts of the Bible or the truths of the faith, focusing on the text;

• evangelistic – phrases or texts with a sacred theme aimed at influencing the viewer;

• modern – campaigns calling for specific, coming from advertising, ethical actions of a universal nature;

• postmodern – comical but at the same time characteristic of the time with certain elements of religion;

• ironic – conveying content with a bit of irony but focusing on spirituality and community values (Percy 2000, 104).

In Percy’s typology, each of these advertisements is intended to reach a specific target group. Literal and evangelistic advertisements are aimed at believers, while the others are aimed at addressees outside the Catholic community. It is difficult to agree with the division proposed by Percy, especially since he does not give a definition of religious advertising. His division concerns not the content of the advertisement (including communication of the sacred), but the target group, i.e. the audience. Why can’t believers be targeted by ironic or modern advertising as Percy claims? This seems completely incomprehensible.

Polish researchers also have divided opinions on the definition of religious advertising. In her reflections on marketing, Magdalena Szpunar defines religious advertising as follows:

I propose to define religious advertising as information messages of a persuasive nature aimed at presenting God/deity, ideas, and values related to it, promoting the Church and spiritual values. Thus, religious advertising is not about getting the buyer to buy a specific product (unless we treat a specific religious offering as a product), but rather about drawing attention to spiritual issues, the sphere of the sacred, but also promoting the Church as an institution. (Szpunar 2010, 231)

This definition seems vague, because what does the author mean when she writes that the purpose of religious advertising is to ‘present God’ or ‘values related to God’? After all, religious advertising is not and cannot be an advertisement of God or His presentation, for how can we advertise God? Is it to advertise the nature, qualities, or essence of God, which are the subject of theological considerations?

Damian Guzek, writing about religious advertising, uses the term ‘advertising for religious services’. According to this researcher, the factor that distinguishes advertising for religious services from other advertising is the relationship to the sacred. Making this premise, Guzek proposes a division of advertising commissioned by religious institutions into religious and secular advertising. According to Guzek, advertising by religious institutions can contain religious content or secular content. However, it is difficult to accept such a division with regard to religious advertising, the definition of which I proposed in my research. For it is not the sender (religious institution), but the content, the content of the message and the sacred element present in it that constitutes the essence of religious advertising as a separate type of advertising, which is also clear from my research.

In the English-language literature, authors such as Charles Stelzle (1908), Robert L. Moore (1994) and Aubley Malphurs (2004) have dealt with religious or church marketing but without defining religious advertising. Only Moore (1994, 215) points to methods and ways of advertising Christianity or the Church on billboards, advertising posters or in the form of newspaper advertising.

Based on Philip Kotler’s (2005, 601) findings on the criteria for dividing the goals of advertising according to whether they are to inform, persuade, remind or reinforce, and the different levels of the hierarchy of effects, I propose to identify the following goals of religious advertising:

• Making the audience aware of their spiritual needs and arousing in them the desire to satisfy them.

Modern man often focuses on his needs, usually purely material or physical. He becomes a perpetual consumer of the goods that he produces and that are supposed to or should serve him. In doing so, he often fails to realize, in the midst of all the turmoil of daily life, that there are certain spiritual needs within him, a certain hunger of the soul that also demands satisfaction.

• Showing apetibilitas, or the attractiveness of a particular religion.

In a world full of multiculturalism and religious eclecticism, it is easy for people to lose their original religiosity and what the Catechism of the Catholic Church calls capax Dei, or openness to God. In the whole kaleidoscope of churches, denominations and religions, religious advertising aims to show the attractiveness of Christianity, the universality of Christ’s teaching, which reveals God to man, and which the Church has been teaching uninterruptedly since the first centuries of Christianity.

• Creating preferences and providing reasoned arguments for choosing a particular religion or church.

The faith and the teachings of Jesus that the Church proclaims, using advertising as a tool of communication or promotion, is something that does not contradict reason as some would argue. Reasoned arguments, not just emotional ones, are found in advertising messages. One must be able to include them in advertising and also read them.

• Forming a positive image of the advertising source.

The source of religious advertising is the Church, understood as a certain and concrete institution. The whole history of the Church with great figures of saints, charismatic personalities, which also appear in advertising, shapes the audience’s idea of the source of the advertising message.

• Encourage a specific action in line with the purpose of the advertising message.

Advertising should, in its persuasive layer, urge a specific action that is in line with the intentions of the creators of the advertisement.

• Use of ministries.

The purpose of religious advertising, like commercial advertising, is so that people can enjoy what it offers. Whether it is an encouragement to consume or use services, it is always a concrete action HERE and NOW. Religious advertising urges the recipient to take certain actions; among them is the use of priestly services, sacraments, retreats, etc., that is, a certain ‘consumption’ of the spirit.

5. Typology of religious advertising

Based on the content conveyed in the Catholic Church’s religious advertising and its audience, four types can be distinguished:

• Kerygmatic/evangelistic advertising – its content is the kerygma, i.e. the truth about Salvation, which has been accomplished in the Person of Jesus Christ. The recipients are those who do not yet know this revelation, or the Gospel and its teaching addressed to those who belong to the Church or are seeking their way in it. The clear distinction between kerygmatic and evangelistic advertising is difficult for the average viewer of such advertising to grasp (Figure 1).

• Pastoral advertising – its content is all pastoral initiatives. The recipients are the faithful belonging to a particular community, although not exclusively. Pastoral advertising advertises a particular church or community and what it offers, such as retreats, pastoral ministries, and services (Figure 2).

Figure 1. Example of Polish kerygmatic/evangelistic advertising (author unknown). [Bóg Cię kocha → God loves you] Source: “Rozważania niedzielne. Bóg Cię kocha – ndz 11.03.2018.” 2018. Accessed 11 February 2023. www.franciszkaniejaslo.pl/artykul,bog_cie_kocha_ndz_11.03.2018,2689

Figure 2. Pastoral advertising poster inviting students to a retreat. Photo credit: Teobańkologia/facebook. [rekolekcje dla studentów → retreat for students]. [Przyjdź! → Come!]. [Prowadzi ks. Teodor → Led by Father Teodor]. Source: “Rekolekcje akademickie „Pamiętaj, kim jesteś.” 2022. Accessed 11 February, 2023. https://tygodnikbydgoski.pl/religia/rekolekcje-akademickie-pamietaj-kim-jestes

• Vocation (recruitment) advertising – encouraging people to choose the priestly, religious or missionary path. It is an advertisement encouraging and urging a positive response to God’s call to the priesthood or religious life. It is an advertisement for a particular seminary, religious congregation or community. In times of a vocation crisis, it can be of particular importance, hence diocesan seminaries and religious communities often turn to this form of communication (Figure 3).

• Fundraising (charity) advertising – raising funds for the activities of the Church, aimed at everyone. In the case of believers, fundraising (charity) advertising is advertising that appeals to the works of mercy that every believer should provide to those in need or those affected by suffering, natural disaster, war or persecution. It calls for specific works and deeds, appealing to the religious intentions and motives of donors or purely humanitarian considerations (Figure 4) (Stępniak 2014, 439–440).

Figure 3. Vocation poster of the franciscans (author unknown). [Nie zawsze skaczemy z radości, ale zawsze jesteśmy razem → We do not always jump for joy, but we are always together]. [Franciszkanie → The Franciscans]. Source: “Plakaty powołaniowe.” 2022. Accessed 11 February 2023. https://koden.com.pl/2022/10/19/rekolekcje-powolaniowe-u-oblatow/

Figure 4. Charity poster of the archdiocese of gniezno appealing for fundraising for Ukrainian refugees (author unknown). [Pomoc dla Ukrainy → Help for Ukraine]. [Niedziela, 27 lutego → Sunday, 27th February]. [Środa popielcowa, 2 marca → Ash Wednesday, 2nd March]. [Zbiórka w kościołach → Collection in churches]. Source: “Zbiórka na pomoc uchodźcom wojennym z Ukrainy.” 2023. Accessed 11 February 2023. https://archidiecezja.pl/zbiorka-na-pomoc-uchodzcom-wojennym-z-ukrainy/

The criteria for the division presented, distinguishing four types of religious advertising, are both the content of the advertisement and its audience. A common feature of all types of religious advertising, whether evangelistic/kerygmatic, pastoral, vocational, or charitable, is the element of the sacred contained in the message, distinguishing religious advertising from the main types of communication messages used in political, social, or commercial advertising. The sources of religious advertising are ecclesiastical entities. This type of advertising is becoming more and more common in Poland. Associations, foundations, or private entities from business spheres appear among them.

6. Communicating in religious advertising vs. the ‘secular sacred’ in research on digital religion

According to scholars of religion, the sacred is a concept that cannot be defined. It is something intuitively perceived as a certain sacredness, a transcendence, something that transcends and fascinates men as representatives of the phenomenological school on religion Rudolf Otto (1968), Mircea Eliade (1966), and Gerard van der Leeuw (1978) have written. The concept of the sacred in the study of religious advertising has been taken from their phenomenology of religion. The identity of the sacred is revealed most fully in contrast to what constitutes a certain profanity and although for a long time, the reality surrounding man has mixed both the sacred and the profane, he can almost instinctively distinguish one from the other.

The aforementioned authors view the sacred as a transcendent reality, quite different from the reality in which man lives – the profane. Their view is a deepening reflection on the concept of the sacred by the French sociological school. Otto, as a forerunner of the phenomenological description of the reality of the sacred, claimed that deep within every human being there is a real premonition of the existence of a higher being. It can be more or less explicit and irrational, and its essence is man’s a priori premonition of sacred reality (Otto 1968, 95). In his view, defining the sacred is impossible. Man in his religious experience is aware of a certain mystery or mysterium. Otto focused his research on the religious experiences that man’s experience of the sacred reality evokes. Among these experiences, the most characteristic ones, namely mysterium tremendum, fascinosum and augustum, deserve special attention. Mysterium tremendum means that man, experiencing the sacred, undergoes feelings of horror and fear, resulting from the mystery, majesty, and power of the sacred. In the face of the sacred, man realizes his nothingness and feels fear (Schütte 1969). The experience of mysterium tremendum combines and enters into a special, peculiarly direct contact with the mysterium fascinosum. It is the experience of the sacred as a reality which man wants to unite with and be embraced by. This is because it is an extremely happy reality, causing a feeling of religious longing, the goal of which is to achieve Salvation as a state of supreme happiness (Otto 1968, 64). The mysterium tremendum and fascinosum that man experiences make the reality of the sacred frighten and fill him with fear on the one hand, while on the other hand, it attracts and fascinates him, and thus obligates his conscience to act in accordance with the moral principles that result from this experience. The term augustum refers to a system of values. The experience of the sacred is the deepest source of all morality, allowing us to distinguish good from evil and discover such values as beauty, goodness, and justice. The sacred is an intrinsic, objective, infinite value, which is the irrational basis and source of all values, not the sum of goodness, beauty, and other values (Markowski 2010, 74–75).

In contrast to Otto’s description of the sacred is that of van der Leeuw, who, in his Phenomenology of Religion, notes that man by his very nature seeks to understand the meaning of life, and calls this desire the ‘will to power’. It aims to discover the power that would give human life a deeper meaning. Man does not accept the life given to him but desires a richer life, full of meaning and understanding. This search makes him order and organize life into a meaningful whole, thus creating a culture. His search for power and meaning continues and finally man comes to the question of the ultimate meaning of his life and the world around him. He then discovers the religious dimension of reality, which gives everything its deepest, holistic, ultimate meaning (Leeuw 1978, 720 et seq.). The concept of power implies a sacred reality of an absolute nature, which is the source of phenomena such as religion.

Eliade’s description of the sacred is completely different. By defining it in opposition to or against the profane, he attempts to establish the scope of meaning of the two categories: the sacred and the profane. In his Treatise on the History of Religions, we read that the sacred is completely different from the profane and constitutes a different kind of reality. Eliade identifies the sacred with what is real, actual and supra-historical, while the profane denotes the realm of the unreal, accidental, and is closely related to the changing history of the world. Thus, the sacred points to the real and unchanging entity, the profane – to the adventitious, existing in a secondary way. At the same time, these so diametrically opposed realities are indispensable to each other. There is a peculiar dialectic and dependence between them. The sacred, or that which is infinite and ahistorical, always manifests its presence through the profane, or that which is finite and historical (Eliade 1966).

According to Otto, the concept of the sacred contains a certain mystery that fascinates and repels man at the same time. Van der Leeuw highlights the power that helps man transcend the limits of life. Eliade, on the other hand, emphasizes the notion of the sacred as a reality that really exists, through which man participates in the absolute and eternal sphere of life. In today’s digital religion research however, a completely different concept of the sacred is emerging – the ‘secular sacred’ – a concept used to explain media discourses on religion, religious conflicts, or religion-based terrorist acts.

7. The sacred in religious advertising

In the aforementioned research on religious advertising, participants in all focus groups indicated several categories of the sacred. It should be emphasized here that the sacred appears only in religious advertising. If in other types of advertising there are elements associated with the sacred or religion or taken from it, they should be called just ‘elements’ or ‘religious motifs’ (Stępniak 2018). This is because the sacred in religious advertising has a different function than the religious elements used in commercial advertising. In my opinion, the sacred in religious advertising enhances the persuasiveness of the message by appealing to transcendental experiences, the spiritual experiences of the recipient. In commercial advertising, usually religious elements are used, paraphrasing well-known religious quotes such as symbols, signs or people, in order to increase the effectiveness of the profit-oriented message, to evoke interest in the consumer product offered, to attract the perception of the recipient, or sometimes to shock. Examples – banned in some countries – include Antonio Federici’s famous advertisements for Italian ice cream that depict clergymen in ambiguous poses, or Oliviero Toscani’s advertisements prepared for Benetton.

In commercial advertising, there is a lack of coherence and cohesion between the religious element and the sacred. The effectiveness of such advertising is due to several reasons: (1) it appeals to the world of values, (2) it allows for communicating in a simpler way (symbols, signs), activating magical thinking and enhancing positive emotions, (3) it is based on the habit of receiving religious content that is already familiar, (4) it emphasizes the uniqueness of the ‘product’, its ‘sacredness’, (5) it arouses religious associations, ‘lofty’ feelings, often causing scandal (shockvertising), (6) advertised items acquire a symbolic dimension, (7) the universality of the Catholic religion in Poland and many European countries provides a guarantee that symbols associated with Christianity will be legible and easily reach all recipients of advertising messages, even the non-religious ones.

The juxtaposition of the two types of advertising – religious and commercial – best demonstrates the difference between them, especially in the realm of depicting the sacred. Figure 5 is a religious billboard advertisement for the Centre for the Thought of John Paul II, recalling the figure of the Polish Pope on the 2nd anniversary of his death. The poster is accompanied by the caption: ‘Stop, it’s the passing that makes sense’ taken from the Roman Triptych by the Polish Pope. Figure 6, on the other hand, depicts one of the adverts promoting the Virginity collection of House brand clothing. In 2008, billboards in many Polish cities displayed pictures of a girl and a boy in prayerful poses, with rosaries in hand and the caption: ‘Guard me, Father’. They stirred controversy among viewers, and the Council of Advertising Ethics ruled that they contained content that discriminated against religious beliefs, and as a result the advertisements were withdrawn from public space.

Figure 5. Religious advertising with elements of the sacred (author unknown). [Zatrzymaj się. To przemijanie ma sens → Stop, it’s the passing that makes sense]. Source: Jureczko-Wilk (2007).

Figure 6. Commercial advertising with religious elements (by agency koledzy strategia & kreacja). [Strzeż mnie, Ojcze → Guard me, Father]. Source: "Czarna lista. Te reklamy zbulwersowały nas najbardziej!.” 2013. Accessed 13 February 2023. https://finanse.wp.pl/czarna-lista-te-reklamy-zbulwersowaly-nas-najbardziej-6115776611350657g/6

How does religious advertising today communicate the sacred today? How can it be classified and described? Through what stylistic means, symbols, music and aesthetics is it expressed? The study presents various religious advertisements extracted through an expert sample used in the focus research methodology. As a result, 5 groups of sacred elements were identified in the religious advertising analyzed in the focus groups:

1. Basic categories – rituals celebrated by a priest during the liturgy or outside the liturgy, references to Scripture and doctrine, Church teaching, Apocrypha and Church legends, lives of saints, religious symbols, the saints, the blessed (religious heroes), clergymen, quotations and references to the history of the Church as the history of a certain institution;

2. Religious aesthetics – iconography, music that is not part of a religious ritual, costumes, architecture, and crafts;

3. Ethics and values, i.e. morality coming from the Bible but also universal values or historical examples of actions in line with Christian values;

4. Lifestyle, i.e. the religious practices and life witness of those who belong to the Church community and the lifestyle of the clergy;

5. Social aspects of religious rituals, i.e. such elements as personal rituals (an element of identity construction of individuals) and rituals that build group identity or constitute some kind of community.

Based on the focus research undertaken, it was determined that religious advertising is constituted not by the source, but by the content. An element of the sacred is necessary for the content. The sacred has a close reference connection with the religion which the advertising message belongs to. In the Catholic Church, the sacred is understood as something that transcends man and evokes associations with transcendence, God. Something that is mysterious, that can frighten, make people anxious, and at the same time fascinates, as Otto wanted. That is the feeling of divinity (numinous), a complex category of a priori values.

8. The secular sacred

The process of secularization of the Western world and the widespread migration of people from poorer or war-affected countries has meant that Catholicism today thrives in the southern hemisphere. In northern countries, it is forced to emphasize its identity in increasingly multicultural and multi-religious societies. Although Andrew P. Lynch (2018) writes about ‘global Catholicism’, he rightly notes that the Catholic Church has found itself in a post-secular revival of religion, characterized by a higher level of religious pluralism, the emergence of new religious movements and the growth of competing Christian denominations and other religions in parts of the world where the Catholic Church once enjoyed a strong presence. All of this results in new concepts of the sacred and attempts to communicate it, sometimes even through acts of violence or terror by representatives of religions such as Islam.

Religious scholars – sociologists, religion experts, cultural scientists – are increasingly accusing Catholicism of appropriating the sacred and limiting the concept to its own needs. One example of this is the appearance of the ‘secular sacred’ in studies by such researchers as Veikko Anttonen (2000), Kim Knott (2013), and Matthew D.M. Francis (2016). Therefore, as already mentioned, the Church today faces the important challenge of communicating the sacred, and religious advertising visible in social space can become an important vehicle for this. This is because the sacred in religious advertising retains its original identity. Increasingly prevalent in outdoor messages, church spaces, and the internet, religious advertising is part of religious communication in a global, multireligious world and profane world, which attempts to reduce the sacred to an experience devoid of mysticism, a purely physical experience or one that serves various groups or ideologies.

Kim Knott separates religion and the sacred, arguing that the sacred is not exclusively a religious category. She points out that for the last half century, the terms ‘religion’ and ‘the sacred’ have generally been used interchangeably in science. The sacred in secular contexts has been unnoticed and misunderstood. The researcher recognizes the commonly accepted dichotomy between the religious and the secular. However, she argues that in popular discourses that assume the inseparability of the sacred and religion, there is a misconception that secular societies disregard or are even hostile to the sacred. In addition, secularism implies profaning the sacred. Knott reconceptualizes the ‘sacred’ in the context of the ongoing process of secularization and desecularization and the reconfiguration of the empirical landscape that shapes social identity. What is more, Knott believes that even anti-religious philosophers must use the ‘sacred’, to distinguish things of higher significance from those of lower value. The sacred also has its place in non-religious ethics and can be freed from religious association (Knott 2013).

Other scholars, like Francis (2016), stripping the sacred of its strict connotation with religion, use the term ‘non-negotiable beliefs and values’ interchangeably with the ‘sacred’. The term ‘non-negotiable beliefs and values’ applies to secular non-religious ideologies and refers to non-religious people. Moreover, Francis defines the hitherto undefined term sacred:

I define the sacred as a thing, place, time, or concept that is special and non-negotiable, and that is separated or protected from everyday ideas. It is directly and indirectly expressed in ideas and values that are seen to be core or essential to identities and beliefs. (Francis 2016, 913)

According to Francis, this operational definition of the sacred refers to the groups’ values in themselves and has nothing to do with the external label. Furthermore, it is applicable to both secular and religious ideologies. This view of the sacred, or in fact the idea of the sacred, is grounded in the concept of Emile Durkheim and can refer to both the Cross or an image of the Madonna and a secular flag or emblem. Thus ‘sacred’ is used to refer to both religion and national or ideological belief systems and values and – I would add – religion without God. This idea of the sacred was adopted by Knott and Francis from a Finnish researcher Veikko Anttonen, who defines the sacred as:

a special quality in individual and collective systems of meaning […]. Sacrality is employed as a category-boundary to set things with nonnegotiable value apart from things whose value is based on continuous transactions […]. People participate in sacred-making activities and processes of signification according to paradigms given by the belief systems to which they are committed, whether they be religious, national or ideological. (Anttonen 2000, 280–281)

The different approach to the idea of the sacred from that associated with religion, indicated in the text, shows the importance within the theory of the mediatization of religion of communicating the sacred in the Catholic Church. There is an ongoing debate among scholars about the appropriation of the sacred by the realm of religion (Knott 2013; Francis 2016; Anttonen 2000). They argue that religious elements are a common good of modern Western culture, and are not just reserved for Christianity. They belong to cultural, not to denominational Christianity (Lugrin and Molla 1995; Cottin and Walbaum 1997; Kubiak 1995). But there are those who emphasize the right of exclusivity in the disposition of religious symbols, signs or images by religious entities or their representatives. Many studies explicitly defend the sacred against ‘new symbolism and new languages’, stressing that problems with the sacred arise from the omission of the context of time (Kubański 2003, 28). Others believe that in religious advertising, ‘the sacred connotation as intended by the authors remains unchanged, while in commercial advertising it is only mapped’ (Guzek 2013, 314).

In the context of social and media changes, the Catholic Church will increasingly face new problems and challenges. The discussion of the sacred is probably just an example of one of them.

9. Conclusions

The Catholic Church has long been aware that social processes such as secularism, desecularism, and postsecularism have affected individuals’ perceptions of religion and religious practices. It is also aware that it shares a religious market with many other religions and Christian denominations, as well as new religious movements and grassroots forms of spirituality and DIY (Do It Yourself) belief systems (Pace 2013; Fahy and Bock 2019). However, the ability to live and coexist with other religions or denominations does not mean moving away from what is essential and important in the Church. Mediatization, along with the mediatization of the religious sphere or religion in general, has brought new possibilities in the field of religious practice, community building and the creation of religious authorities. It has also provided new opportunities to communicate the sacred as mysterium tremendum et fascinosum through various channels of information and means, which are not fully utilized by the Church, such as religious advertising.

According to my research, religious advertising as a type of visual communication can be a carrier of spiritual values and of the sacred, increasingly noticed by audiences and discussed in social media.

If not yet threatened, the concept of the sacred, firmly rooted in religion, has alongside it the increasingly dangerous and growing concept of the ‘secular sacred’. The sacred that can permeate audiences and media users seeking religion online, moving away from religious institutions and formal churches or religious associations, away from religious authorities and the hierarchical Church – which still has image problems that it cannot cope with – towards media religious authorities and new religious/political actors.

The fact that the Catholic Church is taking the synodal path – so variously perceived and understood – as well as the paths of new evangelization or re-evangelization followed by the Church in Poland and other countries, requires taking definite steps in communicating the sacred. Undoubtedly, religious communication, especially visual communication, should be permeated with the sacred in the sense of mystery, transcendence, and what man longs for in the spiritual realm, although he is often unaware of it. One way or means of communicating the sacred in public space, in the media, and on the web is or can be religious advertising.

Religious advertising also poses new challenges to the creators and broadcasters of religious advertisements. More and more cartoon ads and teaser ads using internet themes are being created. Sometimes such advertisements become a contribution to discussion in the media, an inspiration for anti-church or atheistic movements that create their own advertisements in the public space. Religious advertising stimulates universal ethical and moral reflection, to reflect on one’s own faith, to engage in the life of the Church, to use the sacraments, to participate in actions conducted by the Church. It encourages people to act, to join a specific pastoral action, and it can even be a source of personal contact with God (Stępniak 2017, 196). Thanks to its presence in traditional media, social media and public space, religious advertising reaches a wide group of recipients.

However, it requires both financial investment and thoughtful form and content. Moreover, it becomes a challenge for the institutional church, which often equates advertising activities with propaganda and manipulation. The article has not tackled a reflection on how to create such advertising messages in the Church. How can advertising, which is seen today as a kind of art, be better used to communicate the sacred? Why are there still no religious/church advertising agencies? Why are great artists not involved in advertising as in the days of Michelangelo or Bernini? Why has the Church lost its role as a patron of artists? Why is there more and more poor art in the Church?

The research on religious advertising in Poland presented in the book The Phenomenon of Religious Advertising addresses some of these issues, such as the weaknesses and strengths of this type of advertising. However, it should also be remembered that advertising – just like any art – has both its fans and critics.

The refugee crisis caused by the war in Ukraine has shown that religious advertising is also effective in crisis situations that require social mobilization via a positive message, showing the Church as a socially engaged institution/community and contributing to changing its weakened image. Religious advertising has become another form of visibility of religion in public space and a carrier of the sacred.

Acknowledgements

The idea for this article was born during my research stay as a visiting scholar in summer 2022 at the School of Church Communications of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. Special thanks go to prof. Daniel Arasa, Dean the School of Church Communications of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, who invited me to Rome during his visit in Warsaw. I would also like to thank prof. Enrique Fuster and prof. Jorge Milán Fitera with whom I had the opportunity to talk about my research and scientific interests which presents this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.