I’ve learned my lesson: leftover Christmas fruitcake and Manischewitz do not a good bedtime snack make. Recent overindulgence in these caused me to sit bolt upright in the middle of the night with the question “Which direct marketing medium is God’s chosen channel?” knocking merrily at my brain.
The first pressing question is how we know that God is a direct marketer at all. This should be obvious — it is through his favoring of the tenet “test, test, test.” The proof of this is in the modifications He has made to delivering His message throughout the years.
Furthermore, I believe he has an affinity for paper-based marketing, specifically via direct-mail-style collateral. The first evidence of God as divine direct mailer comes from Exodus, in the story of the Ten Commandments. The two tablets of the Ten Commandments can be viewed as a stone precursor to the double postcard. They are simply worded, and contain a hard-offer proposition — respond or face flaming pitchforks in the hiney. (It is worth noting that throughout the evolution of God’s direct marketing plan, this basic offer has varied but little.)
The Commandments were delivered, of course, after God led the Hebrews out of Egypt — and may well represent the first practical application of Change of Address system. But the Commandments mailing was successful enough that God expanded the “basic 10” effort to the Hebrew Bible, which contains 613 righteous actions the devout can take. Much like stamps sheets would later affirm, prospects love to pore through lists.
Even this packaging has had its limits. Which is why, in the next iteration of His sales material, He used a technique later adapted with great effect by J. Peterman: He swathed his offering in layers of poetry and narrative designed to capture the prospect’s imagination, which trumped the more-standard catalog listings of shalts and shalt nots contained in Exodus and Leviticus.
I’m not privy to God’s marketing plan, but I do wonder if even He could have budgeted for how successful this revamped effort turned out to be. The New Testament’s impact was so widespread that God was compelled to introduce the concept of segmentation in order to keep up with the proliferation of denominations. Which He did masterfully. Within Christianity, the number of reworks of the Apostolic Writings is legion, (The Good News Bible? The Boomer Bible? The Ebonics Bible?) with each appealing to a different audience.
As best my early-morning explorations could reveal, God’s direct marketing activities seem to have trailed off during the last few centuries. Oh, He has played a bit with packaging — The Book of Mormon was apparently delivered inside of a hat, inscribed on a series of gold discs, which is one of the few bits of evidence of divine embracement of dimensional mailings.
But why bring up all of this now? Well, during the next two years our friends in the 109th Congress will be debating another Postal Rate Case, and barring ecumenical intervention it looks as though mailers are going to be taking it on the chin. Perhaps, as it deliberates, Congress should ask itself how high, exactly, it is comfortable recommending that rates be raised on the Chosen Channel?
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