Brand Christian

I recall being surprised one day towards the end of my tenure at the University of Cape Town when I was told by some bureaucrat in the administration that one of my proposals for the Graduate School in Humanities did not fit the UCT brand! That was the first time I had heard the word used at UCT. But evidently according to the PRO people at the university there was a new policy that required everything that was done should reflect its image or brand. It all had to do with the way in which the university was meant to be perceived in public which was important for marketing the university to prospective students and donors. Branding is partly a new way of talking about advertising, but it is more all-embracing because everything from logo and stationary to the actual product itself is meant to be coordinated.

Both before and after the World Cup there has been a great deal of discussion about “Brand South Africa” on radio and TV, and how this is changing the way people look at our own country. But branding can be very controversial as is the case with the Rooibos tea, Champagne, and Port, and more recently the branding of FIFA and the Football World Cup jerseys, flags and other paraphernalia. Even the name of our football team Bafana Bafana is a problem. Evidently some businessman in 1993 decided that Bafana Bafana was such a good brand name for his merchandise that he bought the property rights. As a result he made a fortune during the World Cup. Imagine if Bafana Bafana had won! But there is very little that either the South African Football Association or the government can do to get the brand label back from him. The simple truth is that owning a brand that becomes popular is a very lucrative business many people spend a lot of money on buying cars, clothes and other goods according to their brand name. So it is no wonder that brands are legally protected by copyright law.

Branding is all about image, and image is bound up with perceived quality that gives a product a good reputation. I say perceived quality because that is how advertising works. A successful advertisement gets people to accept that a certain brand is good quality and worth the money we pay for it whether it is or not. But in the long run if a brand does not live up to its reputation then it ceases to attract buyers. Mrs Balls’ Chutney, Koo Jam, and Sunlight washing powder, were some of my mother’s favourite brands presumably because she could trust the label to deliver the goods. I am not sure what she would have done with Pick and Pay’s “no name brand” which is, of course, a very clever brand name designed to fool us all!

But branding has a more sinister meaning. In days past slaves were branded with numbers as were the victims of Nazi concentration camps, just like cattle on a ranch. So, too, metaphorically we brand people as criminals just as we stereotype enemies. Branding in this sense is a way of dehumanizing and controlling others, or launching xenophobic attacks. St. Paul described himself as the “slave of Christ,” and declared that he carried “the marks of Jesus branded” on his body (Gal. 6:17). He said this in the context of showing his indifference to whether people were circumcised or not, that is branded as Jews or Gentiles. What mattered for him was whether someone had the marks of Jesus, the mark of the cross which came, for him as a result of the suffering he endured on his missionary journeys. It is from this that the idea of stigmata arose, something which marked out a saint in Catholic tradition as it did in the case of St. Francis of Assisi. From this, too, came the practice of making a sign of the cross on a person who was being baptized -- baptism was a form of branding. By being baptized in the name of Jesus Christ we become branded as Christians.

Over the centuries there has been much controversy about who owns the brand “Christian.” Fortunately it is not a label that is copyright in law. Nonetheless, many claim that their version of Christianity is the right and true one, and they market it as such. How often we have heard the question: “is he or she a true Christian?” Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant and Pentecostal all lay claim to the brand name Christian, and some believe and act as if they own the name. But none of us own the name or have sole right to its use, nor have we any control over the quality of the brand amongst others. In fact we all have our reservations about certain uses of the brand that seem to us to undermine its real meaning and make us squirm a little. In fact many people reject Christianity either because the brand does not live up to their expectations, or because those who claim to be its agents turn them off. They are simply bad advertisements for the faith.

The brand name “Christian” was first given to the followers of Jesus in Antioch. So to begin with it was not a name that they claimed for themselves, but a nickname given to them because they were identified with Jesus of Nazareth who they claimed was the Messiah or Christ. But the name Christian stuck and the followers of Jesus have lived with it ever since even though they have debated about who is truly a Christian and who is not. But the Christian brand name is important because it has to do with how we represent Jesus in the world around us. The name is part of our mission, the way in which we advertise the good news about Jesus. If the quality of the brand is good, if it truly reflects who Jesus is, then we are faithful witnesses to the good news. But if the quality is bad, if for good reason people groan and mutter when they hear us claiming to be Christian, then that is obviously harmful to the cause of Christ in the world. So the question we have to ask ourselves is whether we bring honour to our brand name, the name into which we are baptized and which we use to describe ourselves. The same is true about the brand Volmoed! Is Volmoed truly a place of forgiveness, reconciliation and wholeness, a place of courage and hope for those who live, work and visit here, in short, is it all that we say it is on our web site? It does not matter whether we own the name, but it does matter whether the name conveys an image of hospitality, grace and compassion to all who hear it. We can have the best web page in the world, the best church brand name, but in the end everything depends on whether who and what we are matches our words. Whether, as Jesus said, we are salt to the earth and light to the world.

(John W. de Gruchy is Emeritus Professor of Christian Studies, University of Cape Town and Extraordinary Professor at the University of Stellenbosch. This is a weekly meditation given at the Eucharist service at Volmoed Christian Community Centre, Hermanus.)