In Theory: Religions meet in Amazon ad
Amazon’s latest ad for its Prime service is believed to be the first television commercial in the United States to feature a Muslim cleric, writes Elizabeth Weise of USA Today.
The ad, which began airing in the United States, United Kingdom and Germany this month, features an Episcopal priest and a Muslim imam laughing and talking over a cup of tea before they both wince at their weak knees as they stand.
The two then are shown ordering items for each other on Prime — later revealed to be identical knee pads.
“Amazon didn’t set out to make any kind of political statement and the subject had nothing to do with the recently concluded U.S. presidential election,” Weise writes.
Q. What do you think of the advertisement?
The advertisement, to me, is a touching reminder that we’re all human, with similar basic struggles, joys and the need to be understood and appreciated apart from the stereotypical labels that others might hang on us, or the difficulties created by past ideological battles. And, of course, it’s an advertisement, so the message is that if you want to show basic human decency to someone different than you, you should buy them something on Amazon.
Unfortunately, the message of common human decency has not in practice been fully embraced even by people of faith. We get so caught up in theological differences and battles that we overlook the fact that people who are unlike us are, well, people just like us. We need to go back to the first book of the Bible, which describes the creation by God of the one man and woman from whom we are all descended. We need also to go back to the gospels that teach us that God sent only one sacrifice, his son Jesus Christ, to die for the sins of all men regardless of ethnicity. One creator, one common origin, one savior. If we embraced those simple truths we might actually live out on a daily basis the touching scenario we see in the Amazon advertisement.
Pastor Jon Barta
Burbank
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It all depends on what part of “what [I] think” is what you want me to express. I think the commercial is a cute, uncontroversial piece that will probably serve Amazon well. I have had many Islamic friends, especially Iranian ones, and I could see myself at an advanced age sitting with my own town counterpart and having such a moment as this commercial depicts.
However, if one wants to get political and contentious about this ad, then we’ll have to pull out our theologies and discuss why we differ there, and why we cannot ever have accord regarding religion. We can still love our fellow sinners and hate their sin, but the Islamic sin is a very large one in the minds of Evangelicals, because it’s an absolute rejection of the Christmas Child’s identity, and an assertion that some Arab warlord is the latest, greatest, mandatory prophet of God. Add to that the constant “radicalization” capacity of world Muslims (based on their common text) and the fact that so many American Muslims won’t adamantly denounce their actions, leaves us all in a bit of a quandary. And while native troglodytes might target innocent, arm’s-length Muslims to release their frustrations, most Americans are not anywhere close to that; we’re just worried, and most of us merely grasp for ways to approach this subject.
In the Mideast, Muslims force horrible strictures on their people; they make women second-class citizens, and they murder those whose herbal predilection we Californians just legalized. They even prescribe capital punishment for non-Muslims. So here, in ostensibly Christian America (the land of the free, where religious freedom is a right) we expect alien transports to embrace our way of life. When some among their number do not, we suspect a religious ticking bomb in the rest. After all, it’s the Koran and its Hadith, and their interpreters, that foment so much of the godless horror in our midst. We just had another example this week in Ohio, right?
The true God says, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Rom 12:18 NIV). “If” and “depends” are rich words. We must do what God says, but we must not be so naive as to think that the motives of others are all pristine and benevolent. Neither should we suspect the reverse. The very fact that Muslims emigrate to America makes me think that maybe it’s not all peaches-and-cream in the old country, and perhaps their American compatriots have more in common than should be feared. I hope that is the case, and that is how I determine to live.
Rev. Bryan A. Griem
Tujunga
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As I viewed the ad I wondered first if the people who viciously denounce multiculturalism recognize that the target of their ire is represented by this sweet little interfaith vignette (if such a skillfully created appeal to human emotions in the service of further enriching one of the world’s largest companies can be regarded as sweet).
I also think about Amazon becoming our largest retail business and the fourth most valuable company across all sectors of our economy amidst a steady stream of reports about its controversial and anti-competitive business practices, its tax avoidance by questionable means and the shabby treatment of its workers.
I guess it is supposed to be inspirational to see elderly clerics coping with physical pain in carrying out their religious duties, but to me it would be more humane and rational to show them instead dropping the archaic ritual of kneeling, or altering it to accommodate their limitations. But then that’s not going to sell any knee pads on Amazon.
Roberta Medford
Atheist
Montrose