ad wizard

Perhaps you can recall the SNL "Stand Up and Win" skit from a few years ago with Jerry Seinfeld and Adam Sandler. Regardless of the question Adam Sandler would answer "Who was the ad wizard who came up with that one." I have always appreciated Sandler's comment and wanted to use it in some type of comedic reference. Thanks to the web, a scanner and Northern Baptist Seminary's ad my perfect sarcastic storm has blown ashore.

A couple years back Northern Baptist Seminary created possibly the worst
advertisement in the history of seminary ads. I only saw it in Christian Century.



A close second, is one of the current ad for my alma mater. The people pictured are great Liberal Prostestant saints, but here is the crux: the pictures are in black and white and two were born in the 19th century. It looks more like an ad for a nursing home than a seminary. Furthermore, it looks like it was cut and pasted in about five minutes.



I know what the ad is attempting to convey but, come on; is this the best the ad wizards can do?

The folks pictured above added greatly to the history and tradition of CRCDS, but they accomplished more than a simple picture. I feel a better advertisement would show the lines and lines of people during the March on Washington. Or a picture of the consecration service with the laying on of hands for the bishop. Or how about a picture of Jim Forbes serving communion at Riverside. Better yet, a simple number - the number of Rauschenbusch books that have been sold!

CRCDS our graduates are a part of the most important religous movements of our nation. CRCDS our graduates change history!
Come and be a part of what God has set in motion.

I bemoan because I love CRCDS and I want it to succeed, I want it to be the best Protestant seminary in America. I would love if it had a waiting list, a majority of younger students, had Glen Hinson as prof of spirituality and was paving the way for liberal evangelicalism, conversed with emergent church and opened the way for broader racial reconciliation. And on top of all of this I pray to God that they would develop an advertisement that would make people want to look at the pathetic web site. Oh CRCDS how long, how long?

One last note, I have yet to find any seminary ads the whet my whistle.