Not your father's Oldsmobile…

A few years back, the manufacturers of Oldsmobile cars realized they had a serious branding problem. When they polled people and asked them what the name “Oldsmobile” brought to mind, the answers were mostly about cars that were behemothian land yachts; bloated, block-long monstrosities with seats the size of couches that you could barely fit around the corners of the parkade, never mind squeezing into an actual parking space. And that car had become, for most folks, very undesirable.  The solution – an ad campaign that showed the new Oldsmobiles as sleek, sporty, sexy, with the tag line “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile”. We now know (because history has made it clear) that it takes more than an image makeover to save some brands from decline, but there is a part of me that admires the attempt, and a larger part that resonates with the problem.

Sometimes it can feel like “Christianity” is the Oldsmobile of the religious world. Outsized and outdated, cumbersome, about as appealing as an outmoded car. It’s not that we don’t want to get around, it’s just that we don’t want to drive “that”. This week, and off and on this summer, I want to do some poking around in what it is about the “faith of our fathers” that makes it hard to want to believe…or even if we want to believe, makes it uniquely challenging to do so. I think it is almost always easier to find reasons to not believe than to believe, and yet there is something deep within us that can’t help looking for both the reasons for belief and the tenable shape of it. I look to exploring this with all of  you.

By the way, if you have already been to one of our first two gatherings at The Frame Arts Warehouse, this week we will be in the same building but a different space. Still 318 Ross, but in the “A” Gallery. Temporary move due to a booking error, but also an opportunity to test drive the space we are hoping to be in in September. Watch for the signs, and I’ll see you on Monday evening!

Peace.

Tim