Corporate Designing Religion

Design professionalism interwoven with strategic marketing skills and advances in the technologies of digital communication are changing the interface and conceivably the future image of religious institutions. How and to what extent does corporate design influence the identity of religious institutions in the digital era? Six denominational case studies, including multifaith, in Europe were investigated. The concluding hypotheses outline principal response indicators, supplemented by a Religious Branding Compass, to assist in identifying the religious institutions' visual identity projections.

Graphic Design and Religion by Daniel Kantor challenges the way we look at the role of graphic design within a religious context. The beautiful and abundant illustrations coupled with the passionately written text transcend the mere visual aspect of symbols and graphic design, elevating them to a spiritual way of seeing. It is an ideal resource for design students, teachers, photographers, illustrators, copywriters, clergy, worship and environment planners, and sacred art enthusiasts! This vital work can help designers discover their role in the creation of sacred art. One way in which Kantor accomplishes this is to draw a comparison between the illuminators of the Middle Ages with modern day graphic designers who serve religion today. Kantor stresses the need for a heightened awareness of graphic design within religion and demonstrates how good design must be seen as an essential component of authentic religious hospitality. --

A new history explores the commercial heart of evangelical Christianity. American evangelicalism is big business. For decades, the world’s largest media conglomerates have sought out evangelical consumers, and evangelical books have regularly become international best sellers. In the early 2000s, Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life spent ninety weeks on the New York Times Best Sellers list and sold more than thirty million copies. But why have evangelicals achieved such remarkable commercial success? According to Daniel Vaca, evangelicalism depends upon commercialism. Tracing the once-humble evangelical book industry’s emergence as a lucrative center of the US book trade, Vaca argues that evangelical Christianity became religiously and politically prominent through business activity. Through areas of commerce such as branding, retailing, marketing, and finance, for-profit media companies have capitalized on the expansive potential of evangelicalism for more than a century. Rather than treat evangelicalism as a type of conservative Protestantism that market forces have commodified and corrupted, Vaca argues that evangelicalism is an expressly commercial religion. Although religious traditions seem to incorporate people who embrace distinct theological ideas and beliefs, Vaca shows, members of contemporary consumer society often participate in religious cultures by engaging commercial products and corporations. By examining the history of companies and corporate conglomerates that have produced and distributed best-selling religious books, bibles, and more, Vaca not only illustrates how evangelical ideas, identities, and alliances have developed through commercial activity but also reveals how the production of evangelical identity became a component of modern capitalism.

On a flight across the Pacific Ocean, I suddenly heard the Lord say, "I want to talk with you about the armor of God." What I heard next from Holy Spirit was something I had never thought or heard before. "Since the letter to the Ephesians is a corporate book to the church in Ephesus, why is the armor always taught as for individuals? Should it not be understood for the corporate body as well?" Now that got my attention! For the last several years, I have meditated, prayed, studied, researched, inquired, pondered and waited to get clear direction and confirmation that this was a valid and needful revelation. The first time I taught this in our local kingdom center, something amazing happened. The corporate armor was activated and we moved into a new place of enjoying the corporate protection of the Lord as a body and as individuals. Let me share this with you!

Through a series of fascinating case studies of faith brands, marketing insider Mara Einstein has produced a lively account of the book in the commercialization of religion.

On t.p.: Being the Gifford lectures on natural religion delivered at Edinburgh in 1901-1902.