In the game of global branding, good ol' 'Merica is #8. 

Formally speaking, branding is a marketing term used to discuss the trademarking process by which a product, institution or company is recognized. The stronger the brand, the more easily a product, institution or company is recognized. Think Apple, Starbucks, or Nike. Go almost anywhere in the world and these logos will be recognized by the masses.

What makes a brand particularly strong is not just the design, colors, or graphics but the idea behind them. What they represent. A horrible product with the best branding possible will still only be an easily recognizable, and still horrible, product. Ford and Chevrolet have strong branding, but to loyal owners of either, the opposing brand represents anything but reliability. Walmart might be your personal Disney World of shopping utopia, or it might the antichrist incarnate. Same brand, but a vastly different relationship with the company behind it.

And so it is a particularly interesting idea to find that entire countries spanning the globe also desire to work on their brand image as well. Enter FutureBrand, a company dedicated to helping companies, products, institutions, people and yes, even entire countries, work on their self-image. This year in the 2012-2013 Country Brand Index,  ‘Merica took a hit. Since 2009 the old Stars & Stripes brand has dropped from #1 all the way to #8.  You can scroll through some of the data to discover what has caused the fall from grace, but suffice to say that the creation of a newly approved Brand USA initiative signals that the U.S. government has most certainly noticed.

But branding has another definition as well. It is the process of an owner marking a possession. Think cattle. In this regard, the two words have a strange relationship to one another because both convey something of the fact that branding is intimately associated with identity. So when branding becomes an important pastime of countries, we all should stand and take notice. Consider for a moment the statement made by Robert Cevero, Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley:

“The public impression of a country is important as a source of national pride. Invariably, people source part of their own identity from the image of their country.”

If that statement is true, then it begs the question, what does this mean for those that claim to be followers of Christ? What are the implications for the millions globally who are called “strangers, and aliens” in this present world (1 Peter 2:11), people who consider themselves to be, first and foremost, citizens of heaven rather than any particular country (Phil. 3:20)?

In his new book Gospel-Driven Life Michael Horton writes, “God is not a ribbon-cutting deity who presides over patriotic events symbolizing the proud heritage and military might of his favored nation…(because) The gospel creates a genuine ‘cross-cultural’ community that gathers the generations, races, rich and poor around Christ and his feast of grace.” 

If that observation is correct (and I believe deeply that it is) than are the citizens of Christ’s Kingdom allowing their identity to be shaped by such truth? Is the ‘”age to come” to which we are called to participate in as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven reflected in any actual way in this present age? Are you defined more by a kingdom that places inherent value on your race, age, economic status, ethnicity and country of origin, or the Kingdom that is ferociously at work reconciling all things, all things, under the reign and rule of one King?

To what degree is your life promoting rightly the global branding efforts of Jesus and his Kingdom. Do people know you more by your citizenship in a country, or your citizenship in a Kingdom?

Recently Pepper Schwartz, a sociologist at the University of Washington, wrote an op-ed on Americans’ fascination with the love-life, and recent wedding, of Jennifer Anniston. Regardless of whether or not you care for Jennifer Anniston, the principles of the article can apply equally to our obsession with Beyonce, Adele, Lebron James, or the stars of “Teen Mom” or “Jersey Shore.” In her piece, Schwartz notes that we live in a media culture today that so frequently brings the lives of celebrities into our living rooms, smart phones, and tablets, that they feel like friends to us. Furthermore, and this is the point that was most fascinating to me, Schwartz noted that because of the familiarity (however real or contrived it may be) that we feel with celebrities, we find ourselves living vicariously through them. When it comes to Anniston specifically, Schwartz says that women follow her love life because A) when Anniston gets dumped it helps women to feel better about their own heartbreaks arguing, “if Jennifer Anniston gets dumped, anyone can” and B) Women are watching to see if true love will stick this time for Anniston because, again, “if it can happen to her maybe it can happen to me.” Schwartz closes the article by stating that the "fairy tale ending" we hope to glimpse in the lives of celebrities “is a stand-in for the fairly tale ending we want for ourselves.” After reading the article, I couldn’t help but reflect back to my favorite book on preaching written by Frederick Buechner in 1977 entitled Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale. One of the main premises of the work is the way in which each of us, regardless of time, language, and culture is drawn to fairy tale: the ugly becoming beautiful; the poor becoming rich; the oppressed finding justice; the overlooked becoming the centerpiece. It is, in so many ways, written on our hearts. It is what we long for in every good movie, every good song, and every good novel. It is the ageless story of the cross, and it is the gospel. We are all searching for it, this good, seemingly impossible news, that despite all of our warts and wrinkles, we might be found accepted, loved and wanted. J.R.R Tolkien once wrote, “It is the mark of the good fairy-story, of the higher or more complete kind, that however wild its events, however fantastic or terrible the adventures, it can give to child or man that hears it, when the ‘turn’ comes, a catch of the breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, near to (or indeed accompanied by) tears, as keen as that given by any form of literary art.” Our culture is dying to experience the fairy-tale. Surrounded by counterfeits, many have settled for living the life the wished they had through others, rather than entering the fairy-tale God has already written. Jennifer Anniston’s marriage doesn’t have to work out to offer you hope. Lebron doesn’t have to win the championship game. The creator of the universe knows you by name, is more aware of your failings than you will ever know, and was willing to move heaven and earth to rescue you. No fairy-tale could ever compete with that truth. Hollywood could never write a better story.

Just a few months into my career as a pastor I found myself burying a friend who had committed suicide. He left behind a wife and children and a community who felt guilty for not recognizing the signs of his deep depression. Perhaps most shocking of all about the incident however were the details he shared in his suicide letter which outlined the situation that drove him to such a drastic, and final, solution. My friend claimed his suicide was not a way out of his depression, or financial struggles, or tied in any way to poor moral choices. Instead, he told us, in no uncertain terms that his suicide was the only way to free himself from his addiction to online gaming. Recently CNN produced an investigative piece on the growing issue of online gamming addiction in the country of Korea. The video is worth 10 minute

s. http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/08/tech/gaming.series/korea.html#cnn_gmsrsstoryntro One of the interesting lines from the video is a statement a psychologist makes about what drives so many Koreans into cyber world. In a word, he believes it is a search for “identity” (skip to 8:20 on the video for full discussion). In Korea’s strict class society youth feel that they are unable to break free from social expectations based on education and wealth, and chose to live, as much as 18 hours a day, in a virtual reality instead where their identity can be re-created without social pressures to conform. The search for identity is hardly unique to Korean youth. I have watched countless students (largely, males) during my years of college ministry, with great potential, squander their lives by staring blankly into a lit screen for the majority of their day in an attempt to escape reality, and responsibility. But online gamming is only one of the potential vices people reach for when trying to establish a sense of identity. Recent reports on the man, Wade Page, who opened fire at a Sikh temple this week in Wisconsin, revealed that he was a white supremacists and a member of a popular hate-rock group. Writing about the impact that music such as Page’s has had on the movement Devin Burghart, author of "Soundtracks to the White Revolution," noted that, “Bands like Page's are instrumental to bringing disaffected teens into the movement. They're isolated individuals, often with behavioral problems, perhaps problems at home who are looking for a new familial bond as well as a sense of identity and belonging." Identity. It drives the clothes we wear, the movies we watch, the friends we gather with, the cars we drive, the people we love, the people we ignore, the people we hate. And many people today feel that their personal identity is not theirs to choose. It is being dictated to them from every website, billboard, magazine, Facebook post and advertisement. Every moment in every day we are being told, “buy this and be free”…”wear this and be loved”…”drink this and be accepted.” For many, all too many, there are only two choices, submit or rebel. Increasingly, whether it is through online gaming, pornography, gangs, drugs, or suicide, many are choosing to escape and to rebel. But there are also many who have discovered, and who are discovering, that there is a third option, letting your identity to be shaped by the one who made you. The only one who truly knows you. In his letter to the Corinthian church the apostle Paul once wrote, “Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” (NLT) Paul’s words indicate that being known by God is in the present tense. We are already fully known people. Even when we are uncertain about ourselves, we are known, and known fully by the one who breathed life into us and wants to rescue us from all of our empty pursuits to rescue ourselves and our vain attempts to submit, escape or rebel against the hollow definitions of purpose and success that the world offers. If you are on a search to “find yourself,” let yourself be found by the one who made you.