The semiotics of relevance: campaigning for the bible in greater Manchester

Abstract

This is an article about an advertising campaign that ran in the Greater Manchester area, north of England, in May and June 2007, sponsored by the Bible Society of England and Wales, and aimed at stressing the relevance of the Bible to the general public for understanding today's world. One of the Society's assumptions was that the best way to do this was by appearing not- Christian: drawing on semiotic and aesthetic registers that drew from what were understood to be "Cultural" rather than "Church"-based repertoires. The specificities of the case study are explored in some depth, but related also to the wider literatures on Christian approaches to language and secularization theory