It was purely by observation I realized that the latest users of Public Relations and marketing tactics are religious and spiritual organizations. Walking down London’s Tottenham court road you will almost definitely be stopped before a storefront called ‘the church of dianetics and scientology’ and will be asked to come in for a free stress test and an introduction into the practice of scientology. A few steps further down you may encounter a ‘Hare Rama, Hare Krishna’ disciple inviting you for a free meal at their temple along with an introductory discourse on Krishna consciousness. It may be disguised as ‘spreading the message’ but if you think about it, these smooth-talking, smart salesmen are practicing direct marketing and, throwing in freebies and incentives just ads to their use of promotional activities.
As a PR student it is interesting for me to notice how PR is taking over the world and is applying itself in all possible fields. However when it comes to faith or religion the roots of using promotional strategy or tactics that may classify as modern day PR are steeped in world history. For example Sikhism in India bas born out of Hindu-Muslin angst and angst against the caste system, however it spread by the effective word of mouth promotion of it’s founder- Guru Nanak and his disciples. Being only 531 years old, one could say that Guru Nanak saw a market for a religion of its kind and thus went about promoting it effectively. In a country like India, where religious converts usually arose out of conquests, Sikhism re-instated the concept of religion by way of ‘spreading the message’.
Even Christianity and the Church are known to use widespread promotional tools and events towards spreading their message. In fact the Christian faith has since history been accused of using propaganda tools in order to further their belief;, however propaganda is also something that Public Relations has forever been accused of using. In light of this I found a comment on the BibleBabble website that may not have qualified as propaganda but it definitely qualifies as Public Relations,

By making all these observations, under no circumstances am I trying to insult any religious practices or lower the credibility of any religion, my observations purely go on to raise the credibility of the practice of Public Relations.