Church in a spin

PR - what's a church to do?

Church in a spin. Catchy ‘eh, but so far not much about spin, I hear you (both) say. So here are some questions and I need the answers asap. I was asked to come up with a practical theology session for church communication officers to get their teeth into at a meeting next Thursday (27th) in London. So I came up with the following questions (for one section of a much more detailed plan I hasten to add):


Should the church be involved in spin? –Ethical issues for Christians using the tools of PR
- Devising ‘media friendly’ events. Is there a danger of hijacking God’s priorities or riding roughshod over prayerful, quiet witness, for the sake of getting the church in the local paper?
- An advertising campaign for the church. Is there a danger of using inappropriate tools which give the wrong impression – the ‘media is the message’?
- Emphasising the positive and hiding the negative. We all do it but is it ethical?
- The cult of celebrity. Is there a danger in using ‘personalities’ (or even purple shirts with no personality)- to get better coverage?
- Which tools of PR can be tools for God- and which can be ‘tools of the devil’?!

By way of practical examples of PR which could backfire we might discuss David Mellor with his family eating beef burgers, George W Bush landing on an aircraft carrier, or my own Sheep at Ripon Cathedral debacle, which made it onto Have I got News for You. But how about closer to now and the pro’s and con’s of the PR efforts being currently made by Winchester Cathedral - as reported in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph:

Bishop accused of cashing in on the 'Da Vinci heresy'

“ …. The Da Vinci Code has now found sanctuary - glorification even - within the walls of one of England's oldest Anglican cathedrals and today Winchester Cathedral will shun the controversy surrounding the novel and begin a three-month programme of events taking advantage of its huge commercial success. Cracking The Code, The Holy Mystery Beyond The Da Vinci Code will utilise cathedral premises and draw upon the talents of some of the diocese's leading figures, including the Rt Rev Michael Scott-Joynt, the Bishop of Winchester. …… One leaflet states: "Visit Winchester Cathedral's Summer exhibition to discover more about Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, part of which was filmed in the cathedral, and about the holy mystery beyond this story for our time.

"We want to offer the opportunity to make your own mind up on The Da Vinci Code, to learn about some of the mistakes in the novel as well as some of the Church's actions down the ages, and to understand more about the great spiritual mystery lying at the heart of Christian belief."
The cathedral, which is using some of the £20,000 earned from the film to pay for the exhibition, hopes to attract tens of thousands of visitors who would not normally enter a church. Visitors who pay the standard £4 admission fee will be able to enjoy a special exhibition, in addition to a selection of themed tours, one of which will highlight symbols and treasures in the cathedral that also appear in the book. The cathedral has also organised a special Da Vinci Code treasure hunt for children.”

It’s either brilliant or brilliantly flawed! Maybe we'll need to wait for the film. Answers on a postcard please.

posted by John Carter @ 5:20 pm 0 comments

Keep it in the open

Quick thoughts on some memorable Easter images ... and some we might want to forget. Radio 4 kicked off with Easter worship from St Michael le Belfrey in York at 8.15am with Archbishop, Dr John Sentamu, baptising a group of new Christians on the forecourt in the shadow of York Minster. Made for great radio- and would have made for even better television. We needn't have worried - what the radio 4 service didn't show were the cameras and reporters who were there in abundance - pictures in most of the Monday dailies, and clips throughout the day on News 24, showed a motley collection of hacks and photographers who had elbowed their way to the front, completely surrounding the heated paddling pool, and blocking the view for families and friends who were there to support the candidates. They should have pushed them in. A colleague once said you need just two things to be a good press photographer - F7 and brass neck. Well, sometimes you can overdo the brass neck, lads.

Italy has better weather than England but that didn't explain the huge disparity between our own Dr Williams's foray into the open air and that of the new Pope. Whilst the latter made his way through the thousands of pilgrims in St Peter's Square, the former was seen on TV standing windswept and alone waiting to enter Canterbury Cathedral, with just the company of our old friend Martin Short, fresh out of Church House and apparently a little uncomfortable with his new royal blue costume which billowed around him as he almost hit the cross he was carrying on the lintel of the west door. Very Anglican and Trollopian. Cut to the sermon in which Rowan apparently talked about conspiracy theories - I say apparently, because the sentence in which he presumably mentioned the Da Vinci code was deemed too long for a soundbite and was rudely cut off in the middle of a compound adjective.

BBC TV's worship came from Spring Harvest at Minehead which had the advantage of Steve Chalke (MBE) but the disadvantage of being indoors - and not looking a bit like a church. Why is it that there's always a high cringe factor when Christian worship takes place in a tent? It could be that some of the worshippers looked like they could do with a wash and a change of clothes. It could be that the lights, and performance element seem to sit uncomfortably with the idea of 'corporate' worship. Or maybe it was the fact that we were forced, well before the 9 o'clock watershed, to watch people engaged in intimate acts which involved their bodies and their passions. Worshipping their maker with body, mind and spirit, seeingly unaware that their every movement wass being scrutinised by the audience in their living rooms. Its the age old conundrum which Colin Morris, a former head of religious broadcasting, tried to dissect in Wrestling with an Angel. For some it might be refreshing and convicting - let's hope. It doesn't work for me, but maybe I'm just an old cynic. Answers on a postcard please!

posted by John Carter @ 10:27 pm 0 comments

Passion in Manchester

Easter weekend TV is always peppered by religious programmes. (The BBC Press Office calls it an Easter parade of programmes - hmmm). Forgot to watch the first Private life of an Easter Masterpiece - on the Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci, but the second, on Salvador Dali and his Christ of St John of the Cross was v. interesting (particularly as I'm hoping to drive from here to the tiny seaside town of Portligat where he painted the background this summer.) Interesting how Christians, well everyone really, is divided by this picture. I think its fab, and deserves the title of Masterpiece, but clearly some don't. Can a piece of art - or indeed music - be Christian, if the artist purportedly isn't - as some were keen to claim of Dali?

That's a question that leads to the Manchester Passion. Before the TV critics lay into it, let me say I thought it was a moving programme, part passion play, part rock opera, part community event -with some of the those in the cross clearly Christians, but many others not, by their own admission - a Muslim who was there because Jesus was a great prophet, and a woman who had a Muslim background but 'no religion' were both interviewed. The performers were a mixed bunch too. 'Hardman' Keith Allen, 55 degrees north star, Darren Morfitt who played Jesus, and the Batman Begins star Tim Booth who played a brilliant Judas, I thought. All Christians? It didn't actually matter - well not for the impact of the event, at least. For me, having so many different people with different beliefs and backgrounds added to the sense of an event with global and not just individual importance.

I didn't used to like Manchester. As a child we went there once or twice from the Wirral, and were unimpressed by the drive in through grey depressing housing estates and Victorian slums and the centre wasn't much better. Two visits in twenty years seemed about right!

Then came the IRA bombing and Manchester started again. Two years ago we held our church communications annual conference in the heart of the city, based at the Cathedral, Deansgate and the Urbis centre - and experienced something of the transformation. We, thirty or so of us, were all impressed by the place - and the pride in the city expressed by people like Tony Wilson, one time TV presenter and Hacienda impressario for the Manchester music 'scene'.

He, Anthony Wilson, appeared again in the Manchester Passion. Blink and you missed him - he was leaning against the hotdog stand outside the Cathedral with Peter. A little later, the stallholder was seen reading the Da Vinci Code. Why? We may never know. Surely everyone's read it by now?! (More on this when the film comes out!) More seriously this was a moving piece of TV, first broadcast at 9pm live on BBC 3 - which added to the sense of an event. Some of the Manchester music worked brilliantly, some didn't- Mary singing Oasis's Cast no Shadow didn't work for me either theologically (surely they didn't 'take his soul') or musically - a sixteen piece string orchestra is always going to struggle to make a dirge sound interesting. It's not an anti-Oasis thing -I thought Allen's Pilate singing Wonderwall with Jesus was great, just about avoiding the cringe factor.

Respect to the BBC (their religious department is just down the road so that must have helped) for pulling off a logistical nightmare, and all credit to the security people for managing to keep any drunks and ne'er-do-wells off camera!

And here's a pic I took of Cadaquez, just round the corner from Portligat-see above. HappyEaster!

posted by John Carter @ 7:00 am 2 comments

A hidden message for Easter?

It's Easter! A time for new things, and prompted by the latest Media Guardian podcast, a time for someone in communications, albeit church communications, to try blogging. Apparently we've all got to do it, otherwise we are being 'lazy'! That's a challenge I simply can't duck.

So here goes. Just a brief biog first ... John Carter, eight years in BBC radio, ten years a parish priest and nine years almost as a fullfime press officer for, of all things, the Church of England, which, let's be honest, get's more than it's fair share of bad press. If you've done the maths let me also say I think I look young for my years.

Church in a spin, is intended to be provocative, and attract people idly searching through google for words like 'church', 'spin' - and, I suppose, 'in a'. I'm going to stray from the party line frequently, get critical and sometimes angry. And I'm going to post about once a week I suppose unless demand increases..

Behind the bishops

Today, Good Friday, I'm feeling a little bit annoyed with some of my fellow church 'spin doctors'. Most dioceses (and the Church of England is divided into 43 of them) have one - a communications officer or press officer. We all get on like a house on fire (erm hem) and have online discussions every day. But this week, we've been having an online spat about Bishop's easter sermons of all things. Would you like to know what the Bishop of - lets say Riponshire- is going to say this Sunday? Would you be interested if he was going to support Dan Brown, or proclaim the Gospel of Judas as a new revelation, or defect to Rome? I know I would-- though of course they won't say any of these things and will stick to the core two thousand year old message of resurrection hope and new life. Despite this, the Sunday Times among other organs, is still interested, and seeking to get a clue about what some of our bishops will say - and then make it sound interesting. Yet, suddenly there's the sound of drawbridges being raised, phones left off the hook and evasive humming and harring.

Now call me naive and old fashioned, but we have a gospel to proclaim, don't we? I wish Christopher Morgan would ring me. I mean, I don't actually know what my own diocesan bishop will be preaching - and he will be doing it thousands of miles away in Sri Lanka - but you'd have thought if the Sunday Times really was looking for something controversial, it would come to the bishop who is allegedly one of the more liberal in the CofE. And I could make something up. (No, you didn't hear me say that). Yet, as I sit here, the phone steadfastly refuses to ring. I'm very disappointed.

I did get a call from the Sunday programme on radio 4, earlier this week, but that was it. Maybe there's a religious journalist's email list where they say things like, 'don't bother with that one, its just the usual 'easter is more than just bunnies and eggs' children's talk - nothing there on the Da Vinci Code, or even Judas.' Come to think of it, there probably is. But more than that, I'm a bit disappointed that, when you've got a chance to talk to a wider audience about the most important day in the Christian calendar, you get all coy about it. Has the church lost the plot? Have we taken our eye off the ball? Answers on a postcard please!

posted by John Carter @ 8:00 am 1 comments