Do celebrity endorsements help religions, or hurt them?

Question

I'm not talking about paid endorsements, but simple approval and membership.

Answer 1

I personally don't think that a religion (or religious group) should want to have any kind of celebrity endorsement actually. Right off the bat, that is like trying to use the celebrity factor to attract people to come to their church/religion then. That is absolutely not what you want because you would be attracting people for the wrong reason then.. People should be attracted to a church/religion because of it's belief system, etc.. not because some celebrity believes it..

Plus, in most cases, people would then attribute everything that celebrity does as what the religion believed which would be pretty awful.. since everyone (celebs and non celebs) make mistakes, etc.. and if they're being zeroed in on by the press, etc.. it's going to hi-lite those issues.

Answer 2

Religion shouldn't be a popularity contest or chosen because of celebrity endorsements. Otherwise, one isn't really following the religion, just the celebrity. Which causes one to wonder what would happen if the celebrity decided to choose a different religion. Would the person do the same or keep with the former religion?

Answer 3

I would never follow a religion because of a bunch of stupid celebrities. In my case, their endorsements hurt. I do my own thing.

Answer 4

Depends on who the celebrity is. What if Tom Cruise converted to Christianity?

Answer 5

Depends on the celeb. A flake like Tom Cruise could hurt the religion's image. A good one like Oprah could boost it's image. It realy depends on who exactly is indorsing it and wether or not they do so in a was that is modest.

Answer 6

My guess is that it depends on who the celebrity is and what religion they are converting to.