by Mark Morelli
August 15, 2005

As summer ends, I think of the passing signs of the season. Literal signs. All those cool, colorful, illustrated signs advertising Vacation Bible Schools.

(Vacation Bible Schools, for those don't know, are themed, one-week Bible/Playtime events hosted by Protestant churches.)

They are outstanding ways to keep kids busy. If you string one VBS after another, you can gobble up an entire summer and expose the kids to a sampler of Protestant religions.

The Vacation Bible School instructs Bible stories and lesson through the prism of Nickelodeon-like pop culture.

I rarely see Catholic Vacation Bible schools.
Probably because the Catholic Church is structured like a monolithic corporation. It is big, from the top down, and such organizations are slow to react to pop cultural phenomenon's like the cute bible camps. On the other hand, many Protestant churches do not possess their own sense of story and culture like the Catholic faith does.

The Catholic church is far too rich in its gothic pageantry, it's frocks and statues and grandeur, to even try to pull off Vacation Bible Schools with signs like -- I saw this one just weeks ago -- "Learn the Bee-Attitudes", complete with cartoons of bumble bees with halos!

SpongeGod SquarePants
When you have all the rich lore of Saint Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland, and Saint Francis of Assisi communing with animals, you would do serious damage to the brand by juxtaposing these formidable icons bumble bees, or signs stating: FIRE & FLINTSTONE - OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE CAMP, or GO AND SIN-A-MIN BUN NO MORE BIBLE STUDY & DIET GROUP, not to mention these:

- Casper the Holy Ghost Bible Study

- Ferdinand and Toro, the "Pair o' Bulls" Puppets Reenacting New Testament Stories

- The Salmon on the Mount Fellowship Seafood Barbecue (with Garden of Eden salad bar)

- Personal Savior & Personal Trainer: Get Fit for Faith

Come to think of it, I'm not so sure the Vacation Bible School gives children a real look at any Protestant denomination as much as it exposes them to a plethora of trendy pop culture icons.

Who's it all about, God or the worshipper?
I've been thinking about pop culture and religion ever since I was a kid and saw the book "The Gospel According to Peanuts" in which a discussion of the New Testament was illuminated by selected Peanuts comic strips.

Then a few years ago, I was working in an ad agency. One salesman had an account with an expanding Baptist church. He guided us to come up with a campaign of three brochures that would go to the residents in the neighborhood where the new church would be built.

The first card showed a picture of a mask and a silver bullet. The copy read, "One man came with a silver bullet...." Then you opened the card to see a picture of an old rugged cross. The copy was, of course, "...another man came with an old rugged cross."

On the cover of the second card was a "slash," and the tip of a sword. The copy stated, "One man made the mark of a Z." Inside, over the image of another cross, were these words: "Another man made the mark of a cross."

On the third depicted the Green Lantern ("one man came with a Green Lantern"), which I'm sure was a copyright infringement, and then the inside of the card stated, "another man showed us the Light."

The Baptist Church either didn't like the campaign or ran out of money, so the direct mail advertising campaign never ran. He immediately tried pitching the ideas to the Episcopal Church down the block, who didn't buy. The last I heard, it was being reviewed by the Lutherans across town.

I don't know whether these brochures would have been effective in driving people to attend the neighborhood church.

All I know is that it didn't say a thing about what the Baptist worship experience was all about. It revealed more about the baby boomer salesman who was so gung-ho to use the icons of his TV- and comic book-soaked childhood.

Will the fun turn into faith?
Will the Catholic Church end up even stronger for being unflinching and weathering the gale forces of ever-changing pop culture? Or will it be uprooted, or stripped bare of its heritage, or forced to adapt to the era of polls, popularity and mass media ("Lives of the Saints . . . a cartoon series brought to you by Smuckers!")

And when the time comes when the kids need their faith, will they remember the bumble bees or the Bible stories?