Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stoneberry. Last year in the U.S., advertisers spent over four hundred billion dollars trying to convince you to buy stuff. You probably don't even want. In many cases, their ads make us feel an artificial need, and then sells us a solution.
In his new book, Reflecting the Sun: How to Mirror Jesus, author and professor Dr. Thaddeus Williams points out that the message of the cross does not need a slick ad campaign. Here's Dr. Williams: We live in a consumer culture, largely the legacy of a Chicago ad man named Leo Burnett, whom Time magazine branded the. Of sell, ranking him among the top hundred most influential people of the 20th century, according to Time.
Burnett was obsessed with finding visual triggers that could effectively circumvent consumers' critical thought. This mastermind behind the Jolly Green Giant, the Pillsbury Doughboy, the Marlboro Man, and Tony the Tiger. He hailed the triumph of visual form over carefully reasoned argument, advertising. Has been famously defined as the science of arresting human intelligence long enough to get money from it. Leo Burnett was the Isaac Newton of that science.
Now, to grasp the scope of Burnett's legacy in our culture, take a guess at how many advertisements the average American is exposed to within a typical 24-hour period: a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand. In the late 1990s, researchers found the number 16,000. That's nearly six million simple, memorable, inviting, fun things each year clamoring over the voice of reason. And that was before the global explosion of social media and the smartphone revolution. Today, you can hardly check in on your friends without being bombarded by ads for magical supplements that promise an Olympian body without the inconvenience of exercise.
Jesus, by contrast, does not arrest the intelligence of his challengers or circumvent our critical thought. He was not the Leo Burnett of the first century. When Jesus says, "Love God with all of your mind." He is not only history's greatest giver of that great commandment; he is also history's greatest keeper of the great commandment. When Pharisees accuse him of casting out devils by Satan's power, he uses the logic of reductio ad absurdum to reduce their charges to absurdity in Matthew twenty-two forty-one to forty-six. He uses argumentum a fortiori, argument from the stronger reason, to prove that it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath in John seven twenty one to twenty four.
He uses modus ponens, or the way of affirmation, to vindicate his messianic claims in Matthew eleven three to six.
So unlike six million plus ads we face each year. The teachings of Jesus are full of mind-engaging, meaningful content. Logic is part of how a mind that fully loves God functions. In fact, we get our word "logic" from the Greek word "logos." It's no accident we find "logos" as one of the famous titles for Jesus in the New Testament, like in John one verses one to three. In being logical, Jesus was simply being himself.
As Dallas Willard concludes, "quote We can learn from Jesus to use logical reasoning at its best." Willard adds, "Jesus is Lord can mean little in practice for anyone who has to hesitate before saying Jesus is smart. He is not just nice; he is brilliant," says Willard. Jesus doesn't demand a blind leap, but invites a reasonable step. By an empty tomb, he became the walking, talking case that he is. In fact, all the extraordinary things he claimed to be, he presents his resurrected body to the scrutiny of a crowd of more than five hundred eyewitnesses, whom Paul encouraged his Corinthian readers to consult for a fact check in First Corinthians 15.
One eyewitness testifies, "We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His Majesty." That's in Second Peter one sixteen. Jesus cares about facts and evidence, so should we in a Leo Burnett culture. A consumer culture constructed to bypass and stupefy our God-given intellects to maximize profits—we must be countercultural. Don't succumb to the brain rot of mindless scrolling. Don't binge media until your brain turns to mush.
Don't post conspiracy content devoid of solid facts. Instead, read good books, think deep thoughts to the glory of God. Learn to spot bad arguments and build good arguments. Maybe consider joining the Colson Fellows Program to upgrade your theological and worldview training. Love God with all your mind, like Jesus did.
It's not a divine suggestion; it's a command. That was author and professor Dr. Thaddeus Williams. For more on how to love God better with your mind, see his new book, Reflecting the Sun: How to Mirror Jesus. The Colson Center.
I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint.
