A new communication tool emerges that can spread information to large groups of people more rapidly than ever before in history. People use this communication tool for good and bad – to spread truth and promote falsehood. It sounds like social media today, doesn’t it? Over 500 years ago, the church discovered the power of popular pamphlets. Gutenberg invented the printing press around 1436 to print books, but in the 1500s, reformers like Martin Luther discovered the power of pamphlets to spread their message directly to the people, bypassing the control of the church. Pamphlets could be printed in two days and sold for next to nothing on the streets. Pamphlets became the Twitter (X) of the 1500s![1]
If the eight-page pamphlet was the Twitter of the day, wood carvings were the Facebook of the 1500s. Woodcuts were engraved pamphlets used to spread ideas in a visual format. The Roman Catholic Church used woodcuts to fight back against the Reformation in what became known as the “propaganda wars.” Hans Brosamer produced woodcuts picturing Martin Luther as the seven-headed dragon of the Apocalypse. The reformers responded. Lucas Cranach created woodcuts that caricatured the Pope as the Antichrist standing over an altar of money with Satan as the driving force.[2]
Much earlier in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the church developed model sermons promoting the Crusades. Preachers launched each Crusade with propaganda preaching. They wrapped the cross in the soldier’s armor, making the cross the tip of the spear in the battle against the infidels. The church waged crusades against Muslims in the Holy Land, Mongols in the East, non-Christians in the Baltics, heretics across Europe, and Orthodox Christians in Greece. Clergy preached sermons to recruit soldiers, raise money and encourage warriors in the battles to coerce national righteousness and to stand against all who opposed the established church.[3]
We propagandize the gospel whenever we use it to coerce or manipulate people to follow religious agendas or pursue human goals. Propaganda wraps the cross around the spears of moralism, politics, nationalism, and war.
What is propaganda?
Pope Gregory XV was the first to use the term in 1622 when he founded a religious organization to propagate the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. It was initially a neutral term referring to spreading information to help an institution or cause. However, it soon developed a negative connotation because the message was used to manipulate people, usually through mass media, in deceptive ways and intended to achieve the goals of the propagandist. Propaganda uses information selectively to influence people through half-truths and emotional appeals using one-sided methods of persuasion.[4] Here is my description of propaganda:
Propaganda restricts a listener’s freedom of choice by intentionally avoiding a fair presentation of all the facts necessary for an informed decision using methods like name-calling, slogans, misleading generalizations, straw man arguments, bullying, labeling, and red flag words to trigger emotional responses from listeners.
Preaching, sadly, can devolve into propaganda whenever we forget certain biblical and ethical principles. The Apostle Paul warned us not to become propagandizers.
For we are not like many peddling for profit the Word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God (2 Cor. 2:17).
Brothers, we are not to become hucksters who manipulate and coerce people to carry out our human agendas. We can make those agendas sound so heavenly when they are worldly, so spiritual yet carnal. Few religious movements are more deadly than preachers who have a “zeal for God, but not according to knowledge” (Rom. 10:2).
How do we avoid propagandizing the cross?
- Remember that changing lives is a supernatural work of God’s Spirit, not a result of our persuasive skills (1 Cor. 2:4-5). God’s work does not depend on our efforts, so we can back off and trust God.
- Focus on what matters eternally instead of what matters temporally. Personal prosperity, political influence, material success, national security, religious rights, and freedom from persecution are temporal, not eternal values (2 Cor. 4:16-18).
- Make sure we are preaching what the text says and not what we want it to say. Expository preaching is vital because it is too easy to twist Scripture to our own ends. God’s Word, not our words, achieves God’s goals (Isaiah 55:11; Heb. 4:12).
- Know the Bible well and encourage others to examine it carefully for themselves. We should present our teaching fairly and accurately and be open to discussion and disagreement in pursuing spiritual growth for both preacher and listener. Be Bereans! (2 Tim. 3:16-17; Acts 17:11).
- Exert a level of influence proportional to the degree of certainty that we possess regarding the truth of our claims. We often become more dogmatic about the minor and debatable doctrines of our faith than we do about the major and essential doctrines. (2 Tim. 2:20-26; 4:1-5).
- Finally, remember that Christ’s kingdom is not of this world, and our weapons are for spiritual warfare. Don’t get caught up in fights about earthly kingdoms and forget the values of Christ’s kingdom. (John 18:36; 2 Cor. 10:4)
Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, my kingdom is not of this realm.” (John 18:36)
[1] https://www.utoronto.ca/news/500-years-later-what-reformation-can-teach-us-about-fake-news-today
[2] https://www.thereformationroom.com/single-post/2017/01/28/propaganda-wars-in-the-reformation
[3] Christoph Maier, Crusade Propaganda and Ideology: Model Sermons for the Preaching of the Cross, Cambridge University Press, 2004, 3.
[4] Christensen, The Persuasive Preacher: Pastoral Influence in a Marketing World, Wipf and Stock, 2020, 99.
