Religion is on my mind while reading Ryan Burge’s new book on religious trends. It’s a well-written book and an easy read, including some material and context that isn’t in his columns.
This morning I skimmed the daily load of email spam as usual. Skimming is needed because an occasional real message with a no-reply or contact prefix ends up in the spam pile. My elderly eyes, tuned for religion, saw one of the subject lines as
“Are you a candidate for Heaven?”
Of course it was some kind of weight-loss drug, not Heaven.
The misread led to a Burgian statistic: Exactly ZERO PERCENT of all spam is religious. No email EVER comes from a church or religion-themed organization. I’ve never seen an online ad for a church.
Evangelizing online only happens in a few clearly church-based websites. And most of it is DEvangelizing, driving needy seekers away with disdain and contempt, spending vast amounts of energy on the same infinitely detailed catfights that Ockham tried to stop 700 fucking years ago.
Spam is a lot cheaper than running a full-fledged website. Previous evangelizers, from Paul to Amy Semple MacPherson, weren’t afraid to use their contemporary versions of spam.
Polistra's Mill 