Godvertising

I live in the southern United States. It’s a different place down here, so I’ve been led to believe. The people here are mightily religious. We have the largest concentration of churches in the whole country. It seems like every region down here considers itself (for better or worse) to be “The Bible Belt”.

I started collecting Godvertising about four years ago. I’ve seen it all my life, but it’s always been in the form of “leader boards” or marquees.

When I travelled to St. Louis I saw Godvertising in the form of giant billboards that said simply “Jesus”. Others were more detailed, but the interesting part of this campaign is that they weren’t advertising for a church or a site. They were pure Godvertisements. We don’t see that much in the south. Here, most Godvertisements are designed to get people into the church — a particular church.


When I went to California I saw a professional-looking, organized campaign all over San Diego for AmericaBlessGod.com.


I traveled to India and God was everywhere, but not so much in the form of Godvertising. The religious symbols (Hindu, Christian and Muslim) were everywhere, but there was no direct messages like there are here. Or maybe there were. Maybe it’s just because I can’t read Tamil, or because a significant portion of the population can’t read at all. Maybe the symbols were the Godvertising (though the Hindu symbols are there to help the gods, as I understand it).


I’ve been to many states where I didn’t see Godvertising. I’ve been to many countries where I didn’t see it either. I don’t remember any in France, Norway, Belgium, Argentina or England. But I was glad to find this site of one pastor’s attempts at humorous prodding in the UK.


Whether it’s Saddam pretending to be Muslim, or the Soviets pretending churches don’t exist, Godvertising is practically everywhere.

No Godvertising where you live? Different Godvertising where you live? Leave a comment…