In an effort to influence the transportation choices of their congregations, the Pennsylvania-based Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN) launched a campaign in November called “What Would Jesus Drive.”
They have partnered with the National Council of Churches and the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life to encourage the development of fuel-efficient cars by the automobile industry and to urge faithful members to buy cars that pollute less and are environmentally friendly.
Jim Ball, Executive Director of the EEN, came up with the campaign.
“We have been around since 1993 and transportation pollution has been a concern since then,” Ball said. “A year ago we began asking what can we do to help the community think about transportation as a moral issue.”
According to local Youth Minister for the Christ Evangelical Church Tobin Huebner, the environment is a genuine concern for followers of the Evangelical faith.
“Our stewardship of God’s creation can reveal our heart attitude about God,” Huebner said. “While we are commanded not to worship creation, we can worship God through good stewardship of it.”
However, Huebner said that the campaign is a marketing ploy more than a relevant question, and that using Jesus’ name in marketing risks blurring the nature of who He is.
“By speaking frivolously about God, being flippant about how we use the name of Jesus, and going so far as to assume that we can guess what kind of car he would drive, we undermine His holiness, His reverence, and our fear of Him,” Huebner said.
But Ball argues that within the Evangelical faith, it is not uncommon for religious leaders to advise congregation members on a variety of subjects, including political issues and candidates.
Ball said the adage “what would Jesus do?” really means, “what would Jesus have his followers do in any given situation?”
Ball said the question transcends religious issues and permeates into the secular realm as well, and that within the Evangelical tradition, advising members to drive a fuel-efficient vehicle is not overstepping the church’s scope.
“We don’t pitch anyone’s vehicle or say Jesus says you should drive this,” Ball said. “We are just posing the question, ‘how is Jesus Lord of our transportation choices?'”
Ball said the threats of global warming and the U.S.’s dependency on foreign oil from unstable regions of the world are both serious concerns in the United States.
“We are just trying to help folks understand transportation is a moral issue,” Ball said. “We believe in caring for all of God’s creations, and pollution hurts people and violates Jesus’ teaching that we do not hurt our neighbor.”
Since the campaign’s launch on Nov. 20, Ball said he has received a tremendous amount of press coverage.
“At the beginning we got a lot of negative e-mails,” Ball said, but noted that he feel people are evenly split on the issue.
According to Ball, some of the negative response came from Evangelical church leaders who do not like what he is doing.
“I cannot presume how a Buddhist would react to Buddha promoting e-bikes, or how a member of the Islamic faith would react to Mohammed selling hybrid light trucks, but as a Christian man, I do find the use of Jesus in marketing to be irreverent,” Huebner said. “This kind of marketing does detract from my faith, because it detracts the character and qualities of Jesus Christ.”
Ball said some opponents to his campaign were initially offended because they felt they were being personally attacked for their vehicle choices.
“We are just asking people to do the best they can, we don’t want to make people feel guilty,” Ball said. “People should be motivated by love, not guilt, this is just a new way to love your neighbor.”
Ball said his campaign is not against Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs), but about driving fuel-efficient cars that give off as little pollution as possible while still meeting the needs of the individual.
“Our aim is to reduce transportation pollution by carpooling, walking, and using public transportation,” Ball said. “The next time you go to buy a new vehicle, our advice is to buy the most fuel-efficient, least-polluting vehicle, that meets your needs.”
Ball said the current car market does not afford much selection for consumers concerned about the environment.
“We wish auto makers would make fuel-efficient SUVs,” Ball said. “We don’t want them to develop just one little fuel-efficient SUV, we want auto manufacturers to make fuel-efficient cars across their fleets.”
Ball and twenty other Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish leaders met with representatives from General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and the United Auto Workers recently to open up dialogue about environmentally friendly vehicles.
“He (a motor company official) spoke back to us in an honest and forthright way and said he would get back to us,” Ball said.
Ball lives his religion by commuting an hour and forty-five minutes twice a day using the commuter train, metro system and his own two feet to get him from home to work.
Ball and his wife just bought the least polluting vehicle currently on the market, the Toyota Prius, a hybrid electric car that gets 50 miles to the gallon.
Ball said every economic choice is a moral choice, from the car one drives to the cereal they buy.
“My wife and I buy free-range chickens and organic products. We try to live out our values in terms of our economic choices,” Ball said. “I struggle with these kinds of decisions when we live in the world market.”
Kim Brown owns her own advertising agency in Utah and said she tries to keep religion out of marketing campaigns for Brent Brown Toyota in Provo.
“It’s delicate because Utah County is predominantly Mormon, but we don’t like to appear we are commercializing religion,” Brown said. “We try to stay away from religious messages, if there are any, they are only implied.”
Brown said at Brent Brown Toyota they sell the Echo, an environmentally friendly hydroelectric car that gets fifty miles to the gallon, but that she has not noticed any kind of a religious movement to buy environmentally responsible cars in Utah.
Brown said she thinks the What Would Jesus Drive campaign is just a fad and will not be successful.
“I don’t think people are buying off on it,” Brown said. “You have to be really careful because once people no longer think you are credible, you lose out in the long run.”
But not everyone in Utah agrees religion and marketing do not mix.
Two local businesses, Brighton Ski Resort and Wasatch Brew and Pub, have played the religious card in their advertising campaigns and won big in Utah.
Brighton’s most recent ad campaign said, “We think it is pretty clear God likes us best,” referring to the 500 inches of snow the resort had received by Thanksgiving. Other campaigns include “Bringem’ Young” promoting free skiing for children under 10, “Wife, Wife, Wife. Husband,” to promote the resorts high-speed quad ski lift and, “This is Utah, why be wedded to one resort.”
Dan Mulstrom, Marketing and Sales Director of Brighton Ski Resort, said that sometimes people are offended because they think the references to polygamy are a shot at Mormon culture.
But Mulstom said since the Mormon Church has not advocated polygamy in over 100 years, and the intent is to poke fun at a historical rather than a religious practice.
Mulstrom said they have never gotten complaints from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or any group, only individuals who found the campaign offensive.
“I could count the number of complaints on one hand,” Mulstrom said. “And most of the people with that viewpoint don’t ski or snowboard.”
Mulstrom said the witty ads have more than paid for themselves, gaining the resort national recognition and CNN coverage during the Utah Winter Olympics.
Mulstrom said Brighton’s advertising campaign, “lightens everyone up around a pretty conservative state.”
Greg Schirf, founder of Wasatch Brew and Pub in Park City, creates his own ad campaigns and said using humor is good for business.
“If we can’t laugh at ourselves, we can’t laugh at anyone,” Schirf said. “We poke fun at Utah’s history and stereotypes, but it is all done without being hurtful or spiteful. I think we have been really successful.”
Schirf’s ads include a radio ad for his Polygamy Porter beer asking, “Why have just one?” and a billboard with a man surrounded by women and the slogan, “Take some home for the wives.”
“Out-of-state people find it interesting so they pick up the beer for the name and it makes them grin,” Schirf said. “After that they buy it for the taste.”
The Reagan billboard company refused to carry the Wasatch ads, which created censorship media frenzy and gave Schirf more publicity than the campaign would have ever generated on its own.
“It was serendipitous, we couldn’t have planned it any better,” Schirf said. “Because I own a small brewery I have to be more creative in my ad campaigns because I have a lot less money to work with than big companies like Budweiser.”
Schirf said his advertising campaigns do not poke fun at the predominant Mormon religion in the state, but the controversial institution of polygamy formerly practiced in Utah.
“We try to exercise good taste,” Schirf said. “There have been ideas we didn’t think we were appropriate, so we didn’t use them”
Schirf said his edgy marketing campaign is generating profit and that sales are up 50 percent from a year ago.
“People have accepted our shenanigans with a great sense of humor,” Schirf said. “I could count the number of complaints on one hand.”
Schirf said he doesn’t see anything wrong with Ball’s campaign but said he thinks that if He were on the earth today, “Jesus would probably be walking.”
Despite the vocal opposition, Ball said he plans to continue the campaign into the foreseeable future.
The initial launch of the “What Would Jesus Drive?” campaign was in Iowa, Missouri, Indiana and North Carolina. Ball said it will extend into 35 states early this spring with flyers supporting the campaign being mailed out to an estimated 20,000 congregation members.
When asked, Ball said he did not know what car Jesus would drive if he were on the earth today.
“When I think on the question I think Jesus wants me to help my neighbor, reduce fuel pollution, and use less gas,” Ball said. “I think if he were here, Jesus would say ‘Jim, you are on the right road.'”
