Saturday, 31 March 2012
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According to Some Christians, "Boycott Starbucks!"
By The Closet Calvinist
Have you heard the news? The good news? Well, or maybe not such good news. Starbucks is EVIL. Or at least some are making them out to be. Starbucks announced on January 25th (Yeah, I’m that behind.) that they would officially be supporting gay marriage.Much to the rejoice of the LGBT community, and to the vitriolic anger of some conservative Christians.As per the usual some Christians have decided to boycott Starbucks. I think this makes the second Christian boycott of Starbucks in a year or so. The last one being when their CEO decided not to speak at Willow Creek’s leadership conference because Willow Creek says homosexuality is a sin. Interestingly enough, the CEO decided not to because of fear of a boycott from the LGBT community. (And, who knows why a church would have a leadership conference, or why a non-Christian corporate CEO would be invited to speak at one. Well, I do, but I would become angry if I delved into the topic further.)
Christians haven’t always been the majority, in fact, Christians aren’t the majority anywhere in the world except for in the US, and even being the majority here is questionable. We are at least a sizable enough group that a certain political party pretends to care about us. But, what happens when we aren’t a sizable group? Could you imagine if Christians in Iran boycotted a company, yeah all 5,000 of them. The company wouldn’t care, likely because they wouldn’t even notice.
A boycott is an act of power and aggression, used by a group to punish a person or company for an action or view that they are opposed to. I don’t think a boycott is a proper reaction from those who are called to love. If we are called to live peaceably with all people as so much as it depends on us, how can we act in mass to bully a company? Are our arguments against gay marriage so weak that we need to lower ourselves to bullying to get people to comply with our beliefs? Isn’t there a better way?
That being said, I do think there are legitimate reasons for individuals, not the Church as a whole, to not spend their money with a company. I, for one, avoid spending my money at certain monolithic department stores. Not because their stance on gay marriage, but because many of their products are made by slaves or desperately underpaid employees in third world countries. However, I think that is something individual Christians need to decide, after becoming educated on it, rather than something that needs to be preached from the pulpit. The Church is to be a Gospel people, not a political entity, and certainly not a bullying consumerist or political group.
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- From: ClosetCalvinist
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Comments (65)
I don't think refusing to buy Starbucks is considered "bullying," I'm not throwing eggs at their stores or anything. Where I spend my money is my choice and I'm free to by coffee where I want. If my mood or my personal taste or my politics determine where that is, ok, that's my business. I don't think it's bullying at all.
I don't believe in this type of boycott. It smacks of Bolshevism. Corporations are free to speak their views.
And I am free to disagree.But I love their coffee and can't wait for my next Starbucks visit!
@starvingdrunkard@xanga - I absolutely agree with your point about free will. And with my free will? I might choose not to shop there, because I have the choice to not support gay marriage, but I won't be protesting it, either. I'm one of the few Christians, I think, with the "live and let live" mentality.
i think it's just misguided for christians to try to exert their influence societally.
for example:
rome wasn't exactly "christian friendly" or even "jew friendly" and they were the ones that eventually crucified christ... and yet, when asked about paying taxes to the roman regime - what did jesus say? all of those shekels or whatever were used in a pagan "administration" that persecuted, tortured and eventually killed (ever more flagrantly and spectacularly) the faithful... yet what did jesus say?
also:
what does it benefit society if it adopts christian mannerisms but has not adopted christ? the misguided notion of christians trying to affect society is clearly understood when you consider that for every precept that you coerce onto people does not get them one iota closer to heaven.
illegalize homosexuality and abortion and pornography and contraception and dancing and whatever else gets christians in a tizzy... that society will still go to hell without conversion.
THIS is why jesus charged christians with the GREAT COMMISSION... not the GREAT LEGISLATION or the GREAT POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE or even the GREAT BOYCOTT.
you guys have ass backwards.
and why?
not really for the benefit of society. like i said, they're STILL going to hell!
you're being SELFISH.
you want a christian world that is SAFE for you and your kind. THAT is what drives the christian societal change machine and that's all.
and that is not at all something christ called you to do... go make the world safe.
political and societal action that is different from straight up proselytization is misguided and most likely corrupt and of dubious motivation.
finally - the closest analog to this starbucks situation in the bible is probably meat sacrificed to pagan idols... don't do it to make a political stand (again, it's dumbassbackwards)... if it offends your sensibility - don't do it cuz you're sinning. if not, get the cafe mocha. it's freakin' excellent.
i used to avoid starbucks because of how expensive it was. after hearing about this, though, i've made it a point to only get coffee from there.
same goes with the NOM's attempted boycott of JCPenney over Ellen DeGeneres. what i really need to do is find a list of places NOM supports. then i can boycott those :)
actually i don't support starbucks because of their lousy business practices, and their child labor farms where the beans are harvested. they keep those children away from their families, pay them pennies a day, and keep them in absolutely pathetic conditions (and I have seen first hand video of this from a friend who went there with a team to check it out.. what she found was terrible). With the amount of money that company makes the least they can do is improve the living conditions and hire whole families.
I don't care if they love homosexuals, Jesus does too.
@LadyGwenivere@xanga - Starbucks claims that most of their coffee is all ethically produced. If you can prove they are lying about this I encourage you to do so.
@MagisterTom@xanga - wish i could.. i have only seen the video.. i know the group that went did approach the company with their findings but i do not know the outcome.
More Christian nonsense - Like the Jet Blue Captain running up and down the aisles and telling people to pray after he turned off the plane’s radios, dimmed his monitors and told the first officer on board that “we need to take a leap of faith,”according to court documents.
Anybody who believes a 2000 year old Jewish Zombie is going to let them live forever belongs in the stone age where tha story originated.
By all means, let's show others Christ like behavior and behave badly towards them. Makes a ton of sense. If anyone gets the chance, a good read is Jesus, The Bible, and Homosexuality, by Jack Rogers, an elderly pastor who was put in an unlikable position of studying homosexuality and Christ. This, after decades of having the normal position of looking upon the sins of gays as something not worthy of church leaders. If we truly believe the behaviors of gays is sinful, why then is our sinful behavior any better? I've been asking that question since becoming a Christian 29 years ago, and Jerry Falwell still likes to blame the Twin Towers on homosexual behavior.
@flapper_femme_fatale@xanga - @LadyGwenivere@xanga - @Pollypinks@xanga -
YES. TO ALL OF YOU. thank you for restoring some of my faith in humanity after reading this destroyed a lot of it.
@MagisterTom@xanga - That Closet Calvinist person is a prick.
Um, boycotting a business isn't bullying them. It's exercising your freedom of choice. There's no law forcing people to get coffee at Starbucks, so what's the big deal if people don't?
If the aim is to not give your money indirectly to a cause you are against, the boycott makes sense. But if the aim is to make the company change it's support, then you are wasting your time. I doubt there is enough regular Starbucks customers who happen to also be Christians who are that vehemently against gay marriage enough to stop going there.
On the reverse, you have Chick fil a that supports the other side of this debate, and people who support gay marriage are told not to eat there. Yeah, I am completely for gay marriage but I also love Chick fil a. And my gay friends told me they didn't care if I ate there, they eat there too.
I rather boycott a company whose actual business practices that go into the product or service are questionable rather than a company for its political stance. Starbucks, last time I check, isn't exploiting people to get the coffee beans. At least in the beginning, they didn't.
as ironic as this might sound, amen to that!
First of all, reading this on the second day hasn't changed my mind, and secondly, boycotting this multi-billion dollar corporation that is not required to pay taxes won't do diddly except put thousands out of work. But, our Christian boycott won't even do that, because there aren't enough of us who are going to go the extra mile and do this. If we really cared about change, we'd stop voting for people who put millions in their own coffers via lobbyists, and protect the billionaires against taxes, thus requiring you and me to pick up the slack. Yes, the Christians running for office are lying through their teeth, because once they retire from Congress, they too will become a lobbyist. Reminds me of a local here who ran as a conservative Senator long enough to retire, on family values of course, and then became a tobacco lobbyist. If you don't believe me, just check out the tax code that no progressive is able to change.
If I can harmlessly redirect some dollars away from an agenda that unwittingly fosters HIV then that's what I'll do.
@sometimestheycomebackanyway@xanga - Never thought I'd rec one of your replies but.... *rec*
@Captric@xanga - LOL! Zing!
The thing with Christians boycotting a non-christian company because they are supporting something that's sinful (and in turn doing something sinful, supporting a sinful "cause") is that unbelievers are not held by the same standards that believers are. They don't understand that what they are doing is sinful. So, boycotting a company that isn't a "Christian" company because they are doing something sinful isn't really important. IF it were a Christian company supporting a sinful cause, then I could see reason to boycotting it.
And to think that people also boycott starbucks because the mermaid is topless. hahaha. Anyway I'm glad that there'll be no boycott... the last thing that an American service industry needs is a boycott that causes them to lose money and consequently be forced to cut more jobs. Nope. No sir.
They are encouraging love which in my opinion, is Christian. Boycotting a company who is supporting human rights doesn't sound very Christian to me!
Funny that this has come up. I actually just recently have felt convicted about buying Starbucks. I was buying at least a latte a day there, and because they also support and donate to planned parenthood, I just don't feel I should be indirectly supporting something that I don't agree with. Starbucks has their choice to support who they want, and I have a choice to support who I want. I'm not necessarily "boycotting", just choosing to spend my money in places that are more aligned with my beliefs.
I guess you don't count Catholics as Christians, huh?