After big meetings, Little Fred takes The Executive Committee to his private dining room for dinner. They are thrilled to be with “Little Fred, The Greatest Protestant Marketing Genius of Our Age!”
They recount some of Little Fred’s Protestant Marketing Triumphs. “I remember when you invented The Marketing Plan that led a generation of ambitious assistant ministers to ‘break away’ from the older ‘Mainline Denominations’ that employed them. They formed those thousands of self-serving ‘Independent Churches’ based on your Marketing Plans!
“Then, after your new “Independent Churches” had stolen a third of the Mainline donors, you invented the ‘Protestant Pentecostal’ movement that took half of their members for the next generation of ambitious assistant ministers! You must have left a hundred thousand churches close to bankruptcy!”
Little Fred smiled modestly and replied. “The actual number is 92,554. God has been good to us.”
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When dinner is over, Little Fred and his staff unwind with after-dinner drinks. After a few glasses of brandy, many recall their personal favorite of Little Fred’s Protestant Marketing Plans. “I loved all of your TV Marketing Plans! I still laugh when I remember how you had swaggering Evangelicals crying for hours on television about sins they never identified!”
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Another executive complimented Little Fred’s Telephone Marketing Plans. “Your phone banks with ‘matching funds’ for TV Evangelists were absolutely brilliant! “Donors actually believed all those incoming calls and matching funds were real! They had no idea that one televised bank of phones was being answered by unemployed actors. They were all in the same studio with different set decorations for different evangelists and working on 10% commissions!”
“That did keep costs down!”, Little Fred modestly admitted. “When our phone bank isn’t working for our clients, we rent it out to public television fund-raisers! That’s what pays your Christmas bonuses!”
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The Wardrobe Department Director added his praise for Little Fred. “I am always impressed by the way you have the TV Evangelists dress! You always make them wear expensive clothes! But, you make sure are always slightly ‘off‘. The lapels are always too wide or too narrow. Same with ties and collars! Their trousers are always too long or too short! Plaids are always too big or too bright! Their hair is always odd. Even their belts, shoes, socks, and watches are not quite right!
“And, the women’s dresses and hairdos are always too puffy or too plain or too large. You are brilliant to have Protestant Evangelists dress the same way that people with little sense or taste would dress if they came into a fortune!
“My hat is off to you, Little Fred! You never let a donor be intimidated by his or her bad taste in clothing or theology!”
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