Every Easter there is a plethora of plush bunnies, flowers, and maybe a lamb. This year I was thrilled to see Hallmark has made My Best Friend Jesus which is an adult Christ plush with sandals, white robe, and blue sash. So often stores stick to the folklore, the easter bunny for instance or during Christmas Santa and elves. It was refreshing to see a plush of Jesus, that could be a comfort to a child, I wish I had one when I was a kid battling fears.
Hallmark has been in some controversy over the shake ups with Candace Cameron Burr leaving over the Hallmark Channel adding same sex romances and LBGTQ characters to stories. I am sure there are those boycotting Hallmark and urging saints to stop supporting it. While I understand that we as Christians must be counter-cultural and stand for our values, boycotting is tricky, because companies like Amazon allow quick access to Christian resources like Bibles, but at the same time they made a cartoon supporting a false retelling of Genesis and Lucifer. If you truly boycotted all companies supporting abortion, you’d have to give up all Apple, Microsoft, Target, and etc products. You have to decide where you stand on the line, can you reason those companies supporting values you do not have that right and while you do not condone it, you will nor boycott to harm your own comvienence. Or do you take the road of finding alternatives, which means usually more expense products, and you taking a risk if the company is of unknown quality and if billing safe. We probably will have to create our own market as early churches did when to shop at the Roman market required burning incense to the Emperor as a god to buy and sell. In the meantime you have to decide by your conscience, are you willing to cut yourself off from convvience and care? For instance do you require hospitals to have your values when saving your life? If the best surgeon is of another faith or supports politics and social issues you don’t would you opt for less skilled one? Or eateries? Do you look up all restaurants and see their social issue index, politics, and what they support? I say stick to your conscience in the Holy Spirit, but unless you become Amish and make your own butter, wool, and etc there is a chance the supplier does not share your values and supports non-Christian beliefs. I mean now the Amish are making Hashish (Cannabias), so they are not squeaky clean anymore. Arn’t we suppose to only police those inside the Church in these matters?, “What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those on the outside; but as the Scriptures say, “You must remove the evil person from among you.” (1 Corinthians 5:12-13). For instance we do not judge those who abort babies who are outside the Church or homosexuals like Freddy Mercury of Queen, but inside the church we require the standards that forbid homosexuality and other sins, “But now I am writing you not to associate with anyone who claims to be a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a verbal abuser, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.” (1 Corinthians 5:11). So if this is the standard to judge only those within the church, why then would we implement boycotts? Now in the case Hallmark the case is made that it was Christian, Hallmark at the very least had associations that it was pro Christian, and traditional values. So in that case I can see the argument for that boycott. But what about the war on companies that support Pro Choice and abortion? Many would claim that is a righteous crusade, and blood guilt is on the Christian consumer who still go to those companies. But are you willing to switch to no name tech, abandon Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, and etc? If you intend to boycott Target, do you still hold a device bought from a company that supports the death of the unborn or do you grandfather your tech and say, “well I got this before they started supporting Pro Choice.” I am not being facetious, I am asking how far do these boycotters go? Will they return a car they commute to work with over their car company supporting values they don’t condone? I am merely delving deep here. In the end, you either have to take Paul’s words about not judging outside the church and only exclusively boycott Christian companies who support social issues that violate Scripture or we better now build a market of our own, our own Christian Amazon and Christian Apple, and etc, and call this the proto-Beast and prepare for The Mark of the Beast (Revelation 13:16-17) now, perhaps seeing this turning all trade into support of anti scriptural issues as the Beast already or at the very least a return to that burning incense to the Cult of the Roman Emperors.
That was quite a detour, but it is battle of conscious for us as Christians. I am not claiming which path is the answer, Paul’s or Boycott, you have to decide for yourself in your conscience. The only thing I ask is don’t be a hypocrite, don’t scream at someone shopping at Target when your phone is from a company that supports the same issues as Target. Amen.
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