Religious Marketing is Different

The controversy surrounding the use of marketing by religious organizations is over two decades old and still raging. Theologians have been overwhelmingly opposed to any use of marketing by churches, while marketers have turned a blind eye toward their concerns and churned out books and articles on how to do church marketing. This article attempts to find common ground between the two camps by identifying the marketable components of church missions, and describing a way of marketing them that preserves the spiritual identity of the institution.