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Tag: Evangelicalism

Evangelical Mega-Churches Using Face Recognition Software to Keep Track of Parishioners

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churchix face recognition
Churchix Face Recognition Software

Excerpt from Why Are Churches Using Creepy Face Recognition Technology? by Valerie Tarico:

Churches just got a new way to figure out who is sleeping in on Sunday morning: facial recognition software that scans the congregation and records who showed up. Churchix is a product of Skakash LLC, which sells Face-Six for law enforcement, border control, and commercial applications. According to CEO Moshe Greenshpan, in the 4 months since the technology launched, 30 churches have already deployed the software and service, which could be used to target members who need a nudge or to identify potential major donors among those who attend faithfully.

Make Disciples of Every Creature

Evangelical churches often center their theology on a New Testament verse called the Great Commission: Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel every creature. They do so with good reason. Almost 40 years ago, with the publication of Richard Dawkins’s book The Selfish Gene, the broad public realized that ideas can be viral self-replicators, just like genes are. A “copy-me command” is a powerful thing, whether it prompts its host to replicate a computer virus, chain mail, species or a set of religious beliefs.

Churches that grow fastest and biggest are those that put the “copy me” directive at the center of their priorities. They actively invest in recruiting, whether that means designing high quality print materials and websites, training “friendship missionaries,” launching social media campaigns, or conducting professional market analysis. By contrast with Europe, where religion often exists as a fading church-state monopoly, American churches are particularly entrepreneurial and many keep eyes open for business tools that can be applied to the business of expanding membership, offerings, and market share.

In churches that are on top of their growth game, greeters stand in the lobby to make sure everyone feels welcome. Guests are asked to fill out contact cards for follow up. High-production-value materials promote both theological benefits like salvation and concrete perks like childcare. Websites and social media advertise programs for young people. As in any business, good marketing is critical to sales and fiscal health, and that means keeping up with the state of the art.

High Touch, Soft Sell

Since the time of Billy Graham’s fire-and-brimstone tent revivals, many churches have moved tactically toward a more soft-sell social marketing approach. A form of evangelism called “relational apologetics” trains Christians to win converts via a slow cultivation process rather than the more traditional door-to-door witnessing or Sunday morning altar call.

One 2014 training for pastors in Seattle included a handout, “30 Ways to Create a High Touch Environment,” that included tips more commonly given to fundraising professionals or sales teams:

  • Put energy into being likeable.
  • Smile a lot.
  • Make all the friends you can.
  • Focus on their interests. Ask them questions.
  • Follow the 101% Principle. Find the 1% that you agree on and give it 100% of your effort. Find common ground.
  • Walk slowly through the crowd.
  • Return all emails and phone calls within 24 hours.
  • Remember names.

For churches investing in this kind of courtship, technology tools including customer relations management software (like Salesforce), and social media are common practice. Software that scans attendee faces during the Sunday morning service and enters them in a database is just one in a long line of innovations that churches have adopted from the sales, marketing, and fundraising sectors.Powerful Persuasion, Questionable ProductBut will it backfire? Facial recognition software is creepy, even when it’s just a matter of Facebook tagging us in pictures; and if early web response is any indication, Churchix strikes some people as particularly creepy. Why? Because the whole goal of Churchix is to help power-seeking, member-seeking, communities manipulate people more effectively…

Sacrilegious Humor: Religion is Bullshit by George Carlin

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This is the sixth installment in the Sacrilegious Humor series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a comedy bit that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please email me the name of the bit or a link to it.

Today’s bit is Religion is Bullshit by George Carlin.

Warning, many of the comedy bits in this series will contain profanity. You have been warned.

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Sacrilegious Humor: Noah’s Ark by Ricky Gervais

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This is the fifth installment in the Sacrilegious Humor series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a comedy bit that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please email me the name of the bit or a link to it.

Today’s bit is Noah’s Ark by Ricky Gervais.

Warning, many of the comedy bits in this series will contain profanity. You have been warned.

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Local Christian Takes Courageous Stand for Jesus 

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Snark ahead!

As you know, here in rural NW Ohio, religious persecution is quite severe.  Never mind that there is a Christian church on every street corner and the overwhelmingly majority of local residents profess faith in Jesus Christ. In the mind of God’s chosen ones, being forced to even think about two people of the same-sex being married in a ceremony performed by the notorious atheist Bruce Gerencser is enough for them to think they are being persecuted nigh unto death.

While their paranoid delusions have no basis in fact, I do think many Christian zealots have a persecution complex. Why, just the other day I drove though Pulaski, a spot along US HWY 127 noted for Bruce Gerencser having attended third grade there, and noticed the following:

believer lives here

This sign is akin to having a sign that says White Person Lives Here or Republican Lives Here.

Everyone in rural NW Ohio is a Christian. Yet, I am sure this bold as Daniel in the lion’s den Christian thinks that they are making a courageous statement of faith. They should expect persecution to befall them. In fact it already has. An atheist and his agnostic wife drove by this believer’s house and snickered. Such persecution has not been seen since the days the Romans slaughtered Christians in the Coliseum. How will this believer survive the withering persecution of a snickering atheist and his wife?

Stay tuned for updated reports.

Note:

Now, if I put a sign up in my yard that says, God is a Fiction, an Atheist Lives Here, I doubt the sign would survive the night. I know of only three or four out of the closet atheists in this area. I am sure there are more, but most local atheists stay in the closet lest they face social condemnation and economic harm.

 

Songs of Sacrilege: The Easy Confidence (What I Would Say to You Now) by Quiet Company

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This is the twenty-eighth installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.

Today’s Song of Sacrilege is The Easy Confidence (What I Would Say to You Now) by Quiet Company, an American rock band from Austin, Texas.

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Lyrics

I was screaming out your name. I guess you never heard me, but I was screaming it for years, and I think I deserve a reason for why you’ve been so elusive. Now I’ve been thinking about my life and I can’t believe that I have wasted so much time trying to be what everyone loves, the prodigal son returning. Oh, what a sight, the prodigal son returning.

If Jesus Christ ever reached down and touched my life, he certainly left no sign to let me know he had. And I wouldn’t mind that he couldn’t find the time, it’s just that now my heart longs for things that probably don’t exist. But now I think I see this for what it is.

Oh my soul! Oh, my soul is tired, but I’ve got an itch to scratch, I’ve got a stone to throw, and I want to sink my teeth into your hollow bones. I’ve got a bone to pick, and I want to pick it clean! Oh, the prodigal son and his shameful disbelief.

I want something better. I want something real. And this is the part where my exit starts, because I caught a glimpse of the father’s heart. Do we want something we can’t have? So come on, friends, count up your sins: one for being human, two for being born like this. This isn’t love. We’re not in love. If you wanted love, you just should’ve spoken up.

Sacrilegious Humor: We Are Most Amused by Rowan Atkinson

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This is the fourth installment in the Sacrilegious Humor series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a comedy bit that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please email me the name of the bit or a link to it.

Today’s bit is We Are Most Amused by Rowan Atkinson.

Warning, many of the comedy bits in this series will contain profanity. You have been warned.

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Sacrilegious Humor: Christian Shoes by Patton Oswalt

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This is the third installment in the Sacrilegious Humor series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a comedy bit that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please email me the name of the bit or a link to it.

Today’s bit is Christian Shoes by Patton Oswalt.

Warning, many of the comedy bits in this series will contain profanity. You have been warned.

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Sacrilegious Humor: Jibbers Crabst by Matt Inman

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This is the second installment in the Sacrilegious Humor series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a comedy bit that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please email me the name of the bit or a link to it.

Today’s bit is Jibbers Crabst by Matt Inman, a cartoonist and creator of The Oatmeal.

Warning! Many of the comedy bits in this series will contain profanity and/or adult humor. You have been warned.

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Songs of Sacrilege: Jerry Falwell’s God by Roy Zimmerman

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This is the twenty-sixth installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.

Today’s Song of Sacrilege is Jerry Falwell’s God by Roy Zimmerman, an American satirical singer-songwriter and guitarist.

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Lyrics

Jerry Falwell’s god was standing by the elevator while we were talking about the party, so we had to invite him.

Secretly, we were all wishing that he wouldn’t come, because he’s vengeful and jealous and he tends to smite people.

And, of course, he knew we were thinking that, so it made him all the more determined to show up and punish us.

And I wanted to invite my god, but I couldn’t find him.

But, Jerry Falwell’s god is hard to miss… the gossamer robe and the beard down to here, and the button that says, “What would Jesus do?”

And sure enough, day of the party, there he was at the door.

And he spoke, spaketh he, saying, “I AM COME.”

And I knew there was a joke there… but Jerry Falwell’s god will not be mocked.

So I said, “Come in.”

Jerry Falwell’s god
Jerry Falwell’s god
Huh!

Now, I’m no heavenly host, but I throw a decent party, and there were people of all kinds there — black, white, Swedish, Norwegian, the whole human spectrum.

And right away, Jerry Falwell’s god found the two people who would listen to him and began spaking in a voice so loud, it made the Beastie Boys sound like the Vienna Boys Choir.

And he made the lame to walk.

And these were my friends, so they were still lame, but they could walk.

And he turned the loaves to fishes, and the Oreos to Hydrox.

And he divided up the room, divided he, saying “Gays here, lesbians here, pagans here, abortionists, feminists, civil libertarians, People for the American Way,” and frankly, some of us did not know where to stand.

I went with the lesbians.

Jerry Falwell’s god
Jerry Falwell’s god
Huh!

And he pointed his huge finger at each group in turn, saying, “I blame you, and you, and you, who have secularized society and cast me out of the town square,” and I thought, “Man you are the town square.”

He said, “Lo, I have lifted the Veil of Protection, for the end days are here, and the judgment is nigh, where I will draw the faithful to heaven and will leave the unrepentant to walk a desolate earth.” And I thought, “More polyester for the rest of us.”

And he spat fire, and he rained toads, and he brought forth seven bowls of seven plagues, and finally I just said, “Look, I’ll tell you one thing Jesus would not do.

Jesus would not wreck a guy’s party.

And Jesus would not preach hate.

And Jesus would not stand in the rubble and say, ‘I told you so.’

And Jesus would not use an international catastrophe to score points for some misogynistic, narrow, homophobic, anti-Semitic interpretation of his life and teaching.

And if people are jealous and judgmental and vengeful and violent, maybe it’s because you made them in your image.

And if people have cast you out of the town square, maybe it’s because you are a finger-pointing, moralizing, rageaholic, stone drag who gives deities a bad name!

And if people have turned away from your word, maybe it’s because you have spinach in your teeth!”

And he smote me.

Jerry Falwell’s god
Jerry Falwell’s god
Huh!

 

Songs of Sacrilege: I Want a Marriage Like They Had in the Bible by Roy Zimmerman

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This is the twenty-fifth installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.

Today’s Song of Sacrilege is I Want a Marriage Like They Had in the Bible by Roy Zimmerman, an American satirical singer-songwriter and guitarist.

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