(Plus: Don’t Trust Your AI)
See if you can finish these advertisement jingles and slogans and identify what they were intended to sell. (Hint: If you have difficulty, say the jingle aloud. For example: “Fly the friend blank blank blank,” holding out the blanks shorter or longer, depending on the length of the underline.)
1. “You’ve come a long way, baby, to get where you got to today. You’ve got your own _____________ now baby. You’ve come a long, long way.”
2. “Fly the friendly ___ __ ______.”
3. “___… ___… Good! ___… ___… Good! That’s what _________ ____ are: “___… ___… Good!”
4. “I can’t believe __ ___ ___ _____ thing!”
5. “Thing go _______ with ____ _____, things go better with ____.”
6. “In the valley of the ______ – ‘ho-ho-ho!’ – ______ ______.”
7. “____a____, the San Francisco _____.”
8. “Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz __ ____ __ _______ __ is.”
9. “Hold the ________, hold the _______, special _____ ____ _____ __.”
10. “Oh, I wish I were an _____ ______ _______, that is what I’d truly __ __ be.”
(Answers can be found at the end of this article.)
If you were able to fill in most or all the blanks, I know two things about you: 1) Even though you’re old (the jingles and slogans I chose are from fifty or sixty years ago), you’ve got a good memory; and 2) What you have watched and listened to on television and radio (and laptops, tablets, and phones) has had an impact on you.
Perhaps the impact of individual advertisements was greater fifty or sixty years ago because there were not as many of them. Today, we are overwhelmed with messaging. We pull up to a gas pump and find 25 separate messages competing for our attention. Some regard safety (“Shut Off Engine”; “No Smoking), others are about purchase points (“Pay Inside/Pre-Pay”; “Credit Card/Debit Card”) or are product and price related (Unleaded/Premium/Diesel/ E-85). Then there are the products being sold and services offered: a car wash, coffee, pizza, donuts, etc. Our brain can hardly handle all the input.
If you successfully filled in the blanks above, your good brain has been carrying around a lot of worthless stuff for the past 50 plus years. (If you didn’t know my generation’s worthless stuff, your brain is probably being filled with your generation’s worthless stuff, which it will carry around for the next 30, 40, or 50 years.) Whether it is something our brains actively take in (say a book we read or a movie we watch with friends) or something that we passively receive (a “Shut Off Engine” warning or an “I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener” jingle), the information we take into our brains is the food that feeds our minds.
It used to be – or I felt at the time – that viewers could watch the evening news and receive accurate reporting, which everyone knew would be interrupted by advertisements at set times. These days, the reporting itself is a kind of advertisement, meant to persuade viewers to buy into a political brand or take a particular side on a contemporary social or moral issue. Does this stuff stick in our brains the same way the Oscar Mayer jingle did?
What our minds take in has an impact on our mental and spiritual wellbeing. I am not saying that we cannot watch the evening news or a movie with friends, but we must keep a kind of antivirus program always running so that distortions can be quarantined and attacks be deflected. The gold standard antivirus for our minds is a full download of the Bible.
I’m not talking about a few encouraging verses here and there. We need to have the Bible’s big story, its metanarrative, as the scholars call it, running in the background of our minds. Then, when some movie scene or news report clashes with the Bible’s story, alarms will sound. We will be able to quarantine the possible infection until we have had a chance to examine it for inaccuracies and distortions.
I’ve already made clear that watching the news or enjoying a movie with friends is something we can do—if our antivirus program is running. But we must be careful not to input more data from movies and news programs than we do from trusted Christian sources (principally the Scriptures, but also good preaching, and conversations with fellow disciples). If we are spending more time with Sean Hannity or Rachel Maddow than with Jesus and Paul, it won’t be long before our thinking is out of kilter.
If you are already spending more time with Hannity and Maddow than with Jesus and Paul, decide to change that and begin taking steps to implement your decision. The renewal of the mind is not accomplished with commercial jingles and newscast jingoism, but with the Holy Spirit and God’s word.
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Answers:
1. “You’ve come a long way, baby, to get where you got to today. You’ve got your own cigarette now baby. You’ve come a long, long way.” (Virginia Slims)
2. “Fly the friendly skies of United.”
3. “Umm… Umm … Good! Umm… Umm … Good! That’s what Campbells soups are: Umm… Umm … Good!” (Campbells Soups)
4. “I can’t believe I at the whole thing!” (Alka Seltzer)
5. “Thing go better with Coca Cola, things go better with Coke!” (Coca Cola)
6. “In the valley of the jolly – ho-ho-ho! – Green Giant.” (Green Giant canned veggies)
7. “Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco treat.” (Rice-a-Roni)
8. “Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz—oh, what a relief it is.” (Alka Seltzer)
9. “Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don’t upset us.” (Burger King)
10. “Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener, that is what I’d truly love to be!” (Oscar Mayer Wieners)
One More Thing: Don’t Trust Your AI
I turned to AI last week for an illustration. I was looking for a story about someone who failed in a particular arena but, when given a second chance, succeeded. The AI produced the story of Stephen Elop, who was CEO at Nokia during its market collapse. AI went on to describe how Nokia was bought up by Microsoft and took Elop on as an executive officer. But Elop did not have good working relationships at Microsoft, and his leadership was blamed for creating instability in his department. Microsoft let him go but, according to AI, Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella eventually rehired him to serve as a consultant.
That was the kind of illustration I was looking for to promote my sermon The God of Second Chances, but I needed a few more details. So, I asked AI what year Elop was fired by Microsoft and what year he was rehired. The answer surprised me: AI reported that Elop was never rehired by Microsoft. So, I copied and pasted its previous answer and wrote, “This is the answer you gave me a few moments ago.” AI responded simply: “I was wrong.”
No apology that I remember. No embarrassment about getting caught in a lie. I asked the AI if it had no shame. It answered that it was not programmed to feel shame.
I might trust it more if it was.
The Way Home 
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