We live in a culture of spin. We saw it in the presidential debating. We also see it in commercials. I saw a commercial today for Progresso Soup that made the claim 7 out of 10 people prefer Progresso Soup over Campbell’s in a national taste test. On the bottom of the screen the fine print read, “For those who had a preference.” In other words 9 out of 10 might have said “I can’t really tell the difference” or “they taste the same to me.” Then out of the remaining 1 out of 10 that said there was a difference, 7 out of 10 could have endorsed Progresso. What then appears to be a 70% preference for Progresso Soup becomes a 7% preference for Progresso Soup. I don’t know the numbers and it is probably not that extreme but fine print shows that there is some degree of spin taking place here.
Some Christians have tried to put spin or fine print on the Gospel. The health and wealth Gospel is one example that makes the claim – God will do whatever you want and maybe even more if you just do this or that or send money here or there. But the fine print reads “These are not typical results.” We don’t have to spin the Gospel do we? Isn’t the fact that God has overcome death and that he will redeem us from the grave to live with him forever and that he even redeems and restores us here and now enough good news for us? We don’t need fine print. We don’t need spin. The Gospel speaks well enough for itself without any hype.
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amen.
I’m interested in this concept, because I would tend to disagree. Strong arguments could be made that key books of the Bible at propagandist.
To me, it goes back to defining the difference(s) between influence & manipulation. If by spin you mean the value-neutral shaping of data to convince someone of your conclusion, then I’d say the Bible is replete with spin. But if by spin you necessarily mean only the negative types of influence-wielding, then I’d agree that the Gospel neither needs nor utilizes spin.