During my time in Iraq with the US Army during the Second Gulf War, I worked (among various other jobs) as a propaganda analyst. Just as the allied forces did, the various local militias, large and small, produced propaganda in the form of radio broadcasts, newspaper articles, graffiti, and, most prominently, pamphlets and fliers. My team would often find propaganda ourselves while out on patrols and missions, and when other units found it, they brought it to us. I had been trained in propaganda analysis (among other things) at the US Army JFK Special Warfare Center and School in Fort Bragg, and used this training to write analytical reports on what we had found, which I then sent up the chain of command.

Earlier this week, my partner found a small religious pamphlet at the laundromat and brought it to me, and it reminded me of the work that I had done and got me thinking about the role that propaganda plays in religion. The definition I pulled up on Google for “propaganda” is “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.” Propaganda has been used in warfare and statecraft going back thousands of years at least. The Arthashastra, a Sanskrit manual on statecraft written in the 2nd and 3rd centuries BCE, includes a lengthy commentary on the use of propaganda. The pamphlet that my partner had brought to me, which I’ll be looking at in detail in this article, definitely qualifies.

Propaganda from evangelical Christian sources in the United States is especially prevalent. Many are aware of the famous Chick tracts, short comics intended to influence readers to become evangelical Christians themselves. They’re quite ridiculous and often outright hateful, but I’ve been able to find no indication that the intention behind them is not entirely sincere. And as well, pictures have been circulating the internet of printed piece of paper made to look, at first, like currency, but which on closer inspection are found to include a religious message. They sometimes used as “tips” left at restaurants, and, in keeping with that approach, state that reading the Bible and finding Jesus would be more valuable than money (though why anyone would think that stiffing someone out of a tip would be a good way of persuading them is beyond me).

From here, I’ll proceed with an analysis of this particular piece of Christian propaganda using the techniques I used in Iraq (skipping anything I think might not be interesting or relevant but which I would have included in a more formal report), and I’ll conclude with whatever counterargument I feel is necessary, though I think just an accurate description and analysis of the pamphlet will be subversive enough in itself.

The source of the pamphlet is clearly given on its front page: the Evangelical Wesleyan Mission in Spartanburg, South Carolina, in the United States. This organization does not appear to have a website, nor are any specific details about it available online aside from confirmation that it is a real organization and that its address matches the one given on the pamphlet. Some details can be inferred from the name of the organization. Evangelicalism is a Christian fundamentalist movement emphasizing a Christian conversion in which one is “born again” in Jesus Christ. Evangelical Christians comprise the largest religious group in the United States . This relates to Wesleyan theology, an 18th century British theological movement which likewise emphasized the “new birth” in Jesus Christ when one converts to Christianity. Wesleyan theology presently manifests in the Methodist denomination of Christianity. Both evangelical and Methodist Christianity are realist and exclusivist, meaning that they claim that the religious claims of Christianity are true statements about reality (as opposed to being metaphorical or otherwise subject to non-literal interpretation) and that Christianity, and evangelical or Methodist Christianity in particular, holds an exclusive claim to truth which is not shared by other religions. And finally, “mission” indicates that the organization is intent on outreach and conversion.

Authority is a central factor in the analysis of propaganda; every piece of propaganda must claim an authority which justifies the veracity of its message. This pamphlet does not rely on the authority of the Mission organization itself, and in fact no other information about the organization is given in the pamphlet, but rather invokes religious authority directly via the Bible. The Bible is used as a source of authority without any explanation of what the Bible actually is or why anyone should believe what it says. This indicates an assumption on the part of the author regarding the audience: the authors believe that those who end up reading this tract know what the Bible is and believe that it has at least some degree of authority over some matters. To a degree, I think that this can be safely assumed as something indoctrinated into Americans in particular, and this fits with the tract’s instrumental rationality.

The title of the pamphlet is “The Middle of the World,” and this title is presented above the address of the aforementioned organization, which is followed by 20 short paragraphs of text containing the core message of the pamphlet, an additional two paragraphs summarizing and concluding the message and calling for action, and a picture of a monument in Ecuador which is mentioned in the tract.

The text of the pamphlet begins by describing a location in Ecuador, Medio del Mundo, the Middle of the World, which crosses the Earth’s equator. The pamphlet describes the location as “the spot that moves the least as the Earth wobbles while it rotates and orbits.” The veracity of that claim isn’t quite so important as its use as a metaphor for understanding what follows.

The central point of all revealed truth is John 3:16 — “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” All else revolves around what we are told in this verse. Theologians and their teachings may wobble, wax and wane, but the wondrous realities so concisely expressed in these 25 words are indeed pivotal!

Following from here are paragraphs describing other religions and ideas in highly disparaging and even racist terms. Specifically mentioned are Hinduism (not by name, though the implication is clear), Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam, Judaism, Paganism (again, not by name), “humanism” (which is described, erroneously, as being inclusive of communism, socialism, and materialism), and “New Ageism.” As an example of the tenor of these paragraphs, take the following, which concerns Hinduism:

The world lacks not for gods. It has millions of them. India alone has one for every 100 of its myriad billion! The urine and excrement of animals deemed sacred is groveled in as a means to holiness.

Following this section are several paragraphs explicating the Bible verse cited earlier, John 3:16. These match the overall message presented in the first paragraph: the message of this verse is the spiritual “middle of the world” and the God that it describes “should be the object of our most fervent love and devotion” and “should galvanize and focus our total energy.”

The final two paragraphs are a call to action. The paragraphs request that the reader ask Jesus to forgive them of all of their sins and to “come into [their] heart and live,” and further, to read the Bible daily and to “tell others about God’s Love for the world as revealed in John 3:16.”

Given the source of this pamphlet, the intended message is clear: abandon false religion and adopt what is herein claimed to be the one true religion via their established methodology, which involves a petition to Jesus. The specific request for Jesus to come into the petitioner’s heart “and live” is telling of the underlying evangelical message regarding the doctrine of New Birth, which derives from John 3:3: in responding to the Pharisee Nicodemus, Jesus says, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above” (NRSV), and the notes to that passage state that “from above” can also be translated as “anew.”

The overall strategy of the pamphlet is to cast evangelical Christianity in an especially good light by casting other religions in an extremely bad light. No sources are cited regarding any of the claims about the other religions mentioned. They are universally inaccurate and often, as seen above, disgustingly bigoted, but also play in to certain religious stereotypes which the authors must have assumed that the audience holds. For example: “Islam is distilled lies and lust. The reward of the ‘faithful’ is endless lecherous license.” This plays into the famous and erroneous notion that Muslims believe they will be rewarded in Heaven by 72 virgins, ostensibly sex slaves.

Some of the paragraphs amount to succinct (and entirely groundless and invalid) theological arguments, but the main objective is to present the underlying religious notions in such a way as to make their ridiculousness self-evident.

This pamphlet, and other evangelical Christian propaganda, speak to the prevalence of a religiosity that is unequivocally toxic. I was initially impressed with the analogical reasoning used to relate the location in Ecuador to the Bible verse; it seemed like such reasoning might have been the result of some religious experience on the part of the author, and I think it’s a sensible comparison. The verse John 3:16 is indeed a pivotal verse in Christian religion, and I could understand how a devout Christian might feel that their entire world revolves around it. But analogical reasoning must be explored and justified in order to form an effective and persuasive argument (and indeed, the analogy isn’t even relevant to much of the pamphlet’s message), and the subsequent ignorance and bigotry are inexcusable.

I try to imagine myself in the place of the tract’s intended audience. As stated earlier, no mention is made in the pamphlet of what the Bible is or why it might be considered authoritative, so the presumed audience is those who are familiar with Christianity but on the fence about it, or not aware of arguments for why Christianity might be considered superior to any other religion. Such a person would likely not have spent much time exploring various religions, and anyone with even a modicum of cultural education would know that the arguments presented against the other religions are dubious at best and bigoted at worst. As well, the pamphlet was disseminated to a laundromat, which tend to be frequented by those in lower income brackets, who may lack a more rigorous education, so it seems most likely that it was intended for an audience with a less-than-thorough education, especially with regard to religion. To such a degree as this pamphlet can be said to represent evangelical Christian religion in general, it’s quite telling that the clear intent is to capitalize on ignorance rather than rectify it. And as well, there’s a character of ad hominem bullying in the message that I hope most audiences would find distasteful and unconvincing. If the best that one can do to support their own position is to paint opposing positions in preposterous terms, then that position comes off as especially weak, insecure, and implausible.

I wonder as well whether this degree of exclusivism in religion is even separable from bigotry. After all, if the message of Christianity (or whatever other religion) is indeed so obviously and thoroughly true as is claimed, then those of other faiths must not merely be those who have come to different conclusions on a reasonable basis (as might happen in certain political discussions) or those who might prefer one system of thought to another for personal reasons, but must rather be inherently foolish or ignorant people. While a plurality of people are Christian, they do not constitute a majority, and this very fact is a weakness in Christian exclusivism. If Christianity is indeed the truth, why haven’t people converged on it as they have certain scientific and ethical truths? Presuming the exclusive truth of Christianity, the only plausible answer is that there is something wrong with the people themselves. In this light, the message of the tract is no longer at all about the veracity of the claims, but rather becomes something more sinister: better to be a Christian than some primitive savage.

Propaganda is most prominently used in warfare, and so the use of propaganda in religion creates the picture of religion as a battle for beliefs. In this, I am reminded of the quote attributed to Hiram Johnson: “The first casualty when war comes is truth.” In orthodox Christian belief, there is indeed a war for souls. Its exclusive nature finds most of the world deluded into beliefs that are not only false but profoundly dangerous in that they could condemn one to an eternity of torture and torment. Given this, if the only prerequisite for salvation is a petition to God via the person of Jesus, it would be sensible to make whatever argument at all regardless of veracity so long as it might convince someone to sincerely make that petition. This kind of instrumental rationality is sophistry, the strategic use of debate to accomplish some other aim rather than to find the truth of things. What does truth matter if you’ve saved someone’s soul?

I’d like to do more work on this topic in the future, and to that end I’d like to start collecting religious propaganda. If you come across any, send it my way at asatanistreadsthebible@gmail.com, or you can even mail it to me:

A Satanist Reads the Bible

PO Box 17154

Boulder, CO 80308

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