Today, the Living Waters group (http://www.livingwaters.com/) are on college campuses across America handing out reading material. Some of you may know Living Waters by its celebrity member, Kirk Cameron, and his variety of YouTube videos decrying evolution.
The reading material, though, is The Origin of Species.
That's right: Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species, the very book that Christianity has [mixed up with The Descent of Man and] fought against...handed out by the anti-evolution Living Waters group.
Ah, but wait! There's more to this book than meets the eye! It comes with a "special" introduction by Ray Comfort of Living Waters.
...and the introduction completely attacks The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man. It doesn't stop there: it goes after other religions and Darwin's personal life as well. It forces propaganda down your throat with every paragraph, decrying abortion and homosexuality and all the staple things that fundamentalist, evangelical Christianity has been on the rampage against for some time now.
...from a P.R. perspective, this is HORRIBLE horrible P.R.
Congratulations, Living Waters! Now, instead of making videos and giving speeches (all which can be forgotten or deleted) you have published your extreme ideas! Living Waters uses logical fallicies, incorrect "facts" and personal attacks to pad their argument. Tearing down Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam for the sake of promoting your ideas does not make you more appealing. Neither does trying to tear down Charles Darwin's argument by attacking his other views.
Living Waters has now cemented its stupidity, giving tangeable proof for any and all who wish to go after them. How do you make yourself look good in this situation? It's hard to.
A second point of bad P.R.: the average person does not read a book introduction.
You might catch a few people (like me) who want to see what you have to say. But for the most part, people are going to skip to the meat of the book. People got the book for the book, not for the intro...so the message gets lost on roughly 3/4 of the intended audience, unless someone else tells them "Hey, look at the silly things in the introduction," (also like me).
If word of this spreads (which I do so hope for and am helping to expedite), can Living Waters take the hit? Or are they wrapped up in their world, in which public image doesn't matter as much as the message?
Only time will tell.
For those of you who want more viewing of Living Waters and Ray Comfort:
Ray trying to spread the gospel ---> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDqz7taF5Dg&feature=channel
And more well-known Banana argument ----> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfv-Qn1M58I
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I never came upon anyone from Living Waters on campus that day, which kind of bums me out. I would have liked to engage in conversation with someone, because I often find that what influences me more than anything is the attitude from the people distributing materials. Everyone knows the Tate preacher... and loathes him, not only for his message, but for his hideous people skills. I am a Christian myself, but nothing sets me off more than a "Christian" preaching totally inappropriate attitudes of Christianity, and the same goes for other religions (it was definitely inappropriate Living Waters trashed Hinduism, Islam, etc.) That is no way to gain followers. Who are we to judge? But I'm getting off track. All in all, I have not thought very much about appropriate PR for Christianity, it really is a tricky subject, but this has inspired me to think on the subject further.
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