The Minister’s Workshop: The Minister and the Marketing Orientation

At a Ministers’ Meeting the other day, the new district superintendent gave a speech. “Men,” he said, “I’m going to give it to you straight. You’re a commodity. And at appointment time you’re a commodity for sale. Whether you’re ‘bought’ or not depends on your image and your reputation.”

What he said was true, and the terms were familiar. Erich Fromm recognized this development in sociopersonal relations in 1947, when he wrote Man for Himself (Holt, Rinehart and Winston). The question he raised is this: What does it do to a man’s personality to be a commodity for sale? Fromm speculates that a new personality factor arises: the “marketing orientation.”

The marketing orientation is based upon a concept of value that arose with the advent of capitalism. The value of a product came to depend less and less on its inherent usefulness (as a pair of shoes is useful), and more and more on its exchangeability (does the market demand it?). This placement of value in the market has led to acceptance of a similar method of evaluating persons, including oneself. For instance, instead of asking himself, “Am I a person useful to God and man, playing a useful role in society?,” the minister may ask, “Am I in demand?”

What does the modern minister, businessman, psychologist, or physician have to sell on such a market? Principally his personality, because his skills (or use value) have diminished in market importance. As the district superintendent noted, selling a personality package is the minister’s chief means of achieving success.” (Like detergent, a salable package of clerical traits might come striped in liturgical colors, proclaiming itself Hard-Working, Long-Lasting, A Bargain for the Price.) Furthermore, one must display whatever sort of personality is in demand at the moment. (One can imagine a Clerical Traits Stock Exchange: Fundamentalism, off ⅜; Situational Ethics, up ¼; Experimentalism, up ½; Traditionalism, steady.)

How does one discover what type of personality is most in demand, what type one should develop or pretend to develop? Partly through TV, magazines, and advertising of all sorts, but largely, I believe, through simple observation of the successful—that is, those bought for a good price. In clerical circles, one discovers the salable type of personality by observing ministers who get the good appointments, the higher salaries, the preaching invitations, the important committee appointments. In a recent church publication, an article announced the appointment of a young minister to a prominent conference position. Not only was each accomplishment, award, and activity of the minister held up for others to note, but his wife’s activities were listed as well (president of the garden club, Red Cross volunteer, and so on). How many wives feel pressured to seek such positions in order to enhance their husband’s salability?

For the minister, as for others, there are at least three dangers to psychological health and to what Fromm calls “authentic selfhood” inherent in the marketing orientation.

First, self-esteem may suffer. One may find that, as his worth is determined by his market value rather than his use value (capacities, skills, and abilities), so his self-esteem is determined by salability. Naturally, self-esteem that depends on market conditions beyond a person’s control is very shaky self-esteem indeed.

Secondly, one’s feeling of identity is threatened. To be salable, to respond quickly to changing market demands, he must be able to acquire and abandon qualities readily. Superficiality, of course, accompanies such quick-change acts. The minister need only appear “righteous” and “pious” until the market swings to “worldly” and “bold.” Core, central, bedrock qualities are not necessary. Relationships with others become superficial—one temporary self responding to another.

The most serious threat to authentic selfhood that accompanies the marketing orientation is the fear of peculiarity. Persons may avoid appearing unusual, different, strange—and may thereby stunt the development of individuality. Independence and autonomy are thus seriously damaged. Ministers may find themselves glancing furtively at denominational leaders for hints of new market trends before they dare act. Yet the thesis of Fromm’s book, as well as of the body of his work, is that a man lives fully only when he lives as himself, as the expression of his inherited self and his freely chosen values.

What can be done if we recognize traces of the marketing orientation and its accompanying evils in ourselves?

1. Fromm’s own solution is confidence in one’s inner self, which leads to a glad recognition of one’s potential qualities of love, understanding, and creativity. One insists on the freedom to be himself, firmly rejects the authority of the market, and is aware of social forces that may mold personality on an unconscious level.

But the Christian minister will want to go beyond this.

2. The minister must maintain confidence in his skills—as proclaimer (in whatever form) of the message of supreme worth: that of God’s redeeming love. Self-esteem, then, can depend upon the applaudings of conscience when one has successfully performed God’s work, and not upon what sort of price one fetches on the market.

3. Ministers must muster the courage to risk being peculiar, perhaps unsalable, if integrity calls for such a stand. This may mean gentleness when toughness is in fashion, time-consuming devotion to sermon preparation when moonlighting for OEO is popular, firmness in moral standards when a Salem above a clerical collar appears chic. Yet they must remember that no single stand is right for all men. For each personality there is a unique expression that can be developed from continual honest introspection, and action based on a response to the Holy Spirit.

4. Ministers must choose principles upon which to base integrity and then hold fast to them, balancing this with flexibility in non-essentials. Personalities built on solid, permanent values and traits can withstand market fluctuations.

5. Ministers must practice searing honesty with themselves. They must always be alert to role-playing and mask-wearing that is replacing honest response, little games for enhancing salability at the expense of integrity. (Shall I be Humble, Aggressive, Flattering, Jolly, Severe? Shall I play Pal or Wise Leader? Spiritual Saint or Social Activist?)

6. Ministers must practice being responsible primarily to the Holy Spirit, however they receive his guidance. God takes the place of the market in Christian lives. In him, we find our value; in him, direction for change; in him, strength to hold fast.—KAY POSEY, Hurtsboro, Alabama. (Mrs. Posey, the wife of a Methodist minister, is a school librarian and English teacher. She holds an M.A. in religion and society from Emory University.)

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