this idea stolen from becky. 
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Hmmmm. It does seem like we have taken a revolutionary message and turned it into a product.
we’ve turned a revolutionary person and turned him into a product.
first turned should be taken.
Awww – thanks — though I do think these kind of logos make the baby Jesus cry.
can i get a t-shirt? i think it would really help spread the love of Christ if we all had this on a t-shirt. then people would be able to see the “real” Christians are…
uhhhh…just kidding?
Oh yeah, I’ve got shares in him, wonder if credit crunch will affect their value??!!
Are there any franchise opportunities?
hey, hang on guys…
when you’ve got as good a brand as this you’ve got to protect it
so we’ve got make sure that we’re all on message here
and that we keep close to the brand immage and that all our actions and talk are brand compliant
so, remember the key brand values that we’re talking about here:
Jesus meets your every need
Jesus will reward your giving with prosperity
Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever: a free market, zenophobic right winger
Jesus is dead interested in you being comfortable and entertained in your entertain-o-worship
Jesus is all about more more more
oh, umm
Lord have mercy
Where to start on this one….
“My saviour and my friend”*
*Now in the back of my mind I suspect you may be judging me. I suspect that you are thinking something terrible like this little ditty. However, in my head it goes like this!!
Sorry Jesus.
Becky, you know the baby Jesus doesn’t cry!! (Did you learn nothing from the Christmas hymns of nursery school?)
The trademark of our lives might be love, joy and peace but you can’t put Jesus in a cage. He’s way too powerful.
good to realise I belong somewhere
your brand values are in good hands caroline too, if ‘so-called’ christian tv is anything to go by. i was looking for a documentary to watch last night and found myself at the god channel. once again they were talking about money… these guys seem to love money… (sorry, i mean ‘blessings’… er, um, ‘gifts’)… anyway, these days they talking about seed sewing and tree planting as a money metaphor. they’ve even removed the £/$ sign for a nice tree graphic. when i first saw it i thought they were talking environmental issues and planting trees. i was wrong.
the real danger of the ‘brand values’ is that they’re almost ok, but…
man robb, your clips took me back plenty of years. church parade and the muppet show… that was a full weekend in our family.
that’s exactly it caroline too.
Jon – Glad to be of service
Ahhh, the God channel:
“Why do we always come here? I guess we’ll never know. It’s like a kind of torture to have to watch the show….”
hahaha! you’re not kiddin’!
Statler: What would you do if you we’re a rich man?
Waldorf: I would buy the network and cancel this show.
Robb – I agree with jon that it took me back years. Mind you, what’s with the sailor in his uniform in church in the first clip???? (not that I have a problem with me in uniform….thats a whole different cartoon and discussion…but I thought it was quite random!
I’m sorry Jon. We’ll have to inform our lawyers. Jesus is ours. We had him before you. You don’t have permission from the authorities to use our brand. You may use it incorrectly or in inappropriate situations (with poor people and other undesirables). Could you please refrain from all further use until you submit your material for theological examination by a committee of experts.
sorry stewart.
maybe remembrance day dadube?
robb.
I wish the name was Trade Marked!
Think we could sue all the false Jesus products and people out there.
JW’s, Mormons etc
Brilliant! Although there would be no end to the sueing…
So sad that we are having to fight against that sort of rubbish – is really sad that apparent Christians have given Jesus such a bad name. There’s now a whole genre of books out there trying to reclaim him from the God channel loons and others – (sorry to return to the book theme!)
I’m sure I represent him badly at times too. Whoever said Lord have mercy earlier was right I think. Lets keep on keepin on.
10. Hate to burst your bubble but the baby Jesus was fully human – that means he cried, pooped, peed, farted, etc. And when he became a teen, he went through puberty and all that entails – and like most men, I’m sure he got excited more than once.
I put this link in the emerging cartoon section but at 127 posts, not sure who’s still reading it but this really applies to this cartoon as well …
http://tallskinnykiwi.typepad.com/tallskinnykiwi/2008/11/recession-proof.html
I’m not sure I can pretend to give Jesus better representation than anyone else really.
I was thinking recently if anyone can see the ‘godness’ in me. I’ve always been taught that us christians should be different somehow to everyone else. I really don’t know if/how that’s the case.
Really though, the them and us mentality gets me down, as if somehow christians are better than other people. And the idea that we should only get involved in peace and justice issues in order to convert people really does my nut.
I’ve been reading Re-enchanting Christianity by Dave Tomlinson recently (another book, I know), and there is the idea in there that we should be extending the Kingdom – that the Kingdom of God is anywhere where there is love, justice, peace, forgiveness, joy, hope, etc as opposed to somewhere where there are more christians!
Sorry I think that’s a bit of a tangent.
Sorry, it was the jolly ditty hymn that I was pointing at really not service…
I connect with God through books, art, music, theater and other creative expressions that cost money to make – the difference as I’ve noted elsewhere is does the person feel called to be a writer or to get published.
Someone I know asked a known speaker/writer for advice about writing a book. (If I already told this my apologies – I’m on book deadline and my brain is a bit filled with stuff). He had been approached by a publisher and wanted to know how he could publish a book without selling out his ministry. The advice he was given was something along the lines of … the mere act of writing/speaking is selling out. So if you’re going to become a whore, you might as well find yourself the biggest pimp. When I heard that, I about cried.
“the Kingdom of God is anywhere where there is love, justice, peace, forgiveness, joy, hope, etc”
dead right sophie.
not sure about suing… i like the osmonds, they’re mormons… they seem quite nice.
funnily enough becky, my next cartoon is on that very theme.
I assume that ‘TM’ stands for ‘The Messiah’ or am I missing something…?
(TM) means trademark.
Have you seen that brand of escatology called transmillennial®?
sophie (#26) and Jon (#29)
the kingdom of God is wherever their is justice, forgiveness… etc.
yes, but
that runs the danger of packaging and branding Jesus every bit as much God-Channel or systematic-theology types in universities…
Jesus is not, as CS Lewis implied, a tame lion…
and whilst the pietistic “Jesus-in-my-heart” brand is inadequate to capture Jesus’ kingdom, so are earthly expressions of His character as we find them in society…
I wonder, what are the non-tame ways that we have encountered Jesus? Telling those stories to each other might help us avoid ‘selling’ the brand.
Caroline Too – but it may scare the pants out of me too!!
ooh… nice use of lewis there caroline too.
robb… i don’t remember the phrase ‘scare the pants’ ever being used by cs lewis.
Caroline Too: This is completely cliched but last year, when coming out of one pub to go to the next (!), my friends and I walked outside into a massive thunderstorm which we hadn’t realised was happened. It was just immensely powerful, and also incredibly funny because we were all standing there in dresses and heels trying desperately to hail a cab while getting absolutely soaked. Made me realise a) the awesome power and beauty of creation b) how much I loved my friends and how blessed I am here at uni. Cliched like I said, but it was good times!
Jon – You should read the screwtape letters
Becky, are you sure it means ‘trademark’? Wouldn’t that be Tm? I suppose TM could also stand for ‘The Master’ or ‘The Mediator’ – let me know as I see you are a writer so no doubt clued up on these matters of copyright and tradmarks. On reflection, when it ccomes to copyright I am all in favour as long as Jesus in central – in which case it becomes “copy Jesus right?”
Useless crapola that I wish I didn’t have to know …
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/doc/basic/register.htm
I like trademark better than copyright (c) because (c) is what’s used to opyright our work on blogs, etc. Somehow Emergent Church ™ just stands out more.
hi richard… yup, it’s trademark.
robb.
Theseoldshades (#38)
what I loved about your story was that the storm was going one and you didn’t realise…
I wonder what God’s up to that we don’t realise?
Nice. Some friends of mine and I have been using Evangelicalism™ for a couple of years now to express how it’s morphed from a religious tradition to a product and fiercely guarded brand. I guess it was only a matter of time until someone thought to apply it to Jesus. Ironically, this is a tee-shirt I’d wear – but I don’t think anyone would get it.
I know what you mean, it’d make a great T.
I find something de-humanising in our Trade Marked and Branded culture. We’ve moved away from our source and roots, debunked or lost extended families. And then think we can make the tiny unit of our immediate family, into thriving homes. We can build our image ourselves, within our little bubble, slavishly excluding things that might nurture us. How come so much of our experiencing is discounted, as ‘not cool’?
Because it doesn’t make them any money.
Sas x
I was at Creation Festival (a big Christian music gathering in the US) last year and this fellow told us that we’d all been branded by the world and that we should be branded by Jesus instead. Then he proceeded to tell us to go to his tent and BUY a JesusBrand T-shirt. I laughed… I cried… I vomited… and then I bought a T-shirt. (except I didn’t actually buy a t-shirt)
“(except I didn’t actually buy a t-shirt)”
That is how Timbo talks!!
(and me…… quite a bit……)
Hi Jon, thanks for the correction (and so much for my attempt at humour!). Did you receive my email(s) Jon? I have sent two to ********* but had no reply.
Yeah we should be branded by the Lord but it’s a HEART thing.
Richard – I thought it was funny. Wish it was true.
richard… that must be cos you spelt my surname wrong.