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The late British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge wrote in Christ and the Media that "the media have provided the devil with the greatest brainwashing operation since Adam and Eve. … history will see advertising as one of the real evils of our time."

Tim Finley has seen the sinister side of advertising. A former national advertising and direct-marketing expert, Finley saw the media used to sell everything from medically dangerous weight-loss programs to shady investment schemes. By his own admission, he marketed products that emptied souls.

Since then, Finley believes he has found a way to redeem this medium—using its power to sell a message that brings life to the lost.

Finley and the organization he founded in 1998, Mars Hill Media (MHM), have reached a potential reader audience of 45 million. Producing shrewdly conceived full-page ads in major newspapers like the Los Angeles Times and USA Today, MHM seeks to engage Americans creatively and alter their perceptions of Christianity.

During a 15-year advertising career in the secular marketplace, Finley saw both the positive and negative influences of advertising. After being graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1983, he worked for several ad agencies, joining a small Minneapolis agency in 1990 that he and several partners built to national prominence. Within seven years, the firm grew from 7 to 80 employees and was billing over $100 million per year.

Finley became a national expert and sought-after speaker on direct-marketing strategies. Although he was a committed believer, a creeping carnality was beginning to infect him. Amid increasing financial rewards, his soul, in his words, was "beginning to be eroded."

Shortly before speaking at a national direct marketing convention in New York City in 1995, Finley came across two quotations from books on effective advertising that haunted him: "Advertising can be described as the art of arresting human intelligence long enough to steal money from it"; and "Transactions are all that matters; meaning has no place. Under no circumstances will the advertiser accept the notion that selling could hurt anyone."

After addressing a large audience of fellow marketers at the convention, Finley walked down Fifth Avenue and wandered into St. Patrick's Cathedral. His vocational quandary of creating schemes to sell products he didn't believe in had nauseated him.

Finley spent two hours in reflective prayer seeking God's guidance and solace. Leaving through the side door of the cathedral, he faced the Saks Fifth Avenue department store, the mecca of American merchandising. He entered Saks and saw displays with $220 ties and $1,500 suits.

The excess of the prices and products, juxtaposed against the relative simplicity of the church across the street, left Finley in despair. He returned to his hotel and articulated his crisis in his journal:

These two structures were preaching two different agendas. One proclaimed mercy, peace, and forgiveness; the other proclaimed money, glamour, and power. Advertising sells fear by convincing people they aren't rich enough or pretty enough and the world is passing them by. My vocation is in sharp contrast to the gospel. The world's system, driven by the lust of the flesh and eyes and the pride of life, is playing a joke on me and everyone around me. God hates the world's system and all its glitzy jingles and false promises.

Eighteen months after the New York trip, Finley walked away from his high-profile agency and millions of dollars in future compensation. He could not justify being an agent who, in his words, "helped someone be a slave to the world's system." He did not want his marketing ploys to cause consumers to "spend money on what is not bread, and labor for what does not satisfy" (Isaiah 55:2).

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July 8 2001, Vol. 45, No. 9