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Extra Credit #2:
Biblical Values Versus Advertisement Values
Robert Harris
Version Date: July 19, 2000
Background Information
Many of the claims, values, and recommended behaviors made by advertisers
are in conflict with Biblical truth. For example, some advertisements encourage
the reader to be selfish, lustful, irresponsible, or promise "heaven on
earth" or even spiritual knowledge through the use of a product. Many advertisements
promote self indulgence, offer happiness through consumption, and proclaim
a life without rules, all for the sake of selling something.
Assignment
For this assignment, find fourteen advertisements that are in clear conflict
with some Biblical truth, and for each advertisement, find one or more
verses that reveal this. Create a notebook or presentation folder which
presents the advertisement on the right side and a page with the verse
or verses on the left side. Add a sentence or two of commentary to explain
the conflict in each case, if necessary.
(maximum extra credit: 15 points)
Example
Advertisement: seated on a brightly colored couch in a dark room
is a sleazy-looking woman in a short skirt staring at the viewer. The woman
is smoking a cigarette and holding a martini glass.
Caption: "What you're looking for."
Product: Camel cigarettes.
Biblical verses:
Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands.
Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the
day of the Lord's anger. --Zephaniah 2:3
For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the
city that is to come. --Hebrews 13:14
Comments:
"What we are looking for" as Christians is not meaningless sex with
drunken women, nor even the mind-altering effects of alcohol or the "pleasure"
of smoking. (It seems to me a self-condemnation of this product that it
is advertised this way.) What we are looking for, as revealed in the texts
above, is something of higher value, both in our personal lives (humility,
righteousness) and our spiritual beings (the enduring city of God).
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About the author:
Robert Harris is a writer
and educator with more than 25 years of teaching experience at the college
and university level. RHarris at virtualsalt.com