Yesterday, I was flipping the channels on the T.V. and wasn’t really paying close attention when all of a sudden a commercial for The Gap came on. It was one of those typical holiday commercials with people dancing around in winter clothes and sweaters. What was most interesting was the fact that the commercial mentioned Hanukah, Kwanza AND it clearly and unequivocally mentioned CHRISTMAS.
So what’s the big deal you ask? As I pointed out in my previous post the American Family Association (AFA) has been getting quite a bit of press lately by urging Christians to boycott Gap, Inc. According to the AFA The Gap refused to recognize “Christmas” by name this holiday season. Yet, The Gap commercial I watched yesterday VERY CLEARLY mentioned Christmas by name.
So this whole boycott of Gap, Inc. by the American Family Association has a whole lot to do about nothing!!! I think the term I am looking for is EPIC FAIL!
Something is TERRIBLY wrong in Conservative Evangelicalism!
To help identify and define what is terribly wrong in Conservative Evangelicalism here are some diagnostic questions that I think every Conservative Evangelical needs to face and answer.
1. Where were Conservative Evangelicals and their holy indignation when stories began to break that Gap, Inc. was employing child slave labor in its factories in India?
2. Why is it that Liberals and Emergents, who deny that the Bible is the literal inerrant Word of God, deny the doctrine of the Penal Substitionary atonement, and deny that homosexuality is a sin, why is it that that Liberals understand that Christianity does not exist to make the world a safer place for American Corporations who enslave and exploit the poor in their pursuit of maximizing profits?
3. Why is it that Conservative Evangelicals who emphasize the importance of doctrinal purity and claim to be Christ Centered and Gospel focused keep missing the fact that one of the implications of the gospel is that corporate executive sinners who are enslaving children to make it possible for you to buy a t-shirt at Wal-Mart for $7 must be called to repentance & the forgiveness of sins in Jesus name for their EVIL practices every bit as much as a practicing homosexual, philandering politician or late term abortionist?
4. How long will Conservative Evangelicals threaten to boycott corporations that don’t use the word “Christmas” during the holiday season yet never utter the word “sin” when members of a corporate executive team make a decision that poisons a river or enslaves a child?
5. How long will Conservative Evangelicals selectively turn a blind eye to the sins committed by fellow conservatives and only call out those sins that are committed by their ‘political’ and ‘cultural’ enemies?
As long as those who believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, who zealously wage war with the forces of immorality in the culture refuse to understand that they are ambassadors of the Kingdom of God, not the Republican Party, and are called to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Name to ALL sinners left and right, socialist and capitalist then there will continue to be something TERRIBLY wrong with Conservative Evangelicalism!
Why is it? Because Conservative Evangelicals are neither conservative, nor evangelical! They have bitten off the last morsel of Cultural foolishness, namely perpetual offendedness, and in the process have sealed their introverted tendencies with a kiss of Satan! It's tawdry, torpid, petty and vindictive and apparently they like it this way. Even their own sins no longer bother them!
But then again... we all have a tendency towards this kind of foolishness.
Posted by: Matthew Pancake | November 16, 2009 at 04:31 PM
whoa..... this is a new side of you we haven't heard of....
speak the truth man, speak the truth....
Posted by: Edwin | November 16, 2009 at 05:23 PM
Great post Chris. This 24-hour news-cycle "wall-watching" is nothing more than sensationalism. At no point in the gospel are we told to attack sinners through their pocketbooks, one may onle be reached by allowing the word of God to penetrate their heart. Don't forget though, these are the same people who are endorsing a calling for a Christian exodus of all Christians from public education by 2011. Leave the helpless to secure our own salvation. Great plan guys. Keep up the good work.
Posted by: Dave | November 16, 2009 at 05:37 PM
Interesting post Christ. I am putting together a few thoughts on the topic.
Dave, calling Christian parents to disciple their own children is hardly analogous to ignoring sweatshops.
Posted by: Arthur Sido | November 19, 2009 at 12:53 PM
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/426153260
Here's a petition on the subject.
Posted by: loop | November 20, 2009 at 02:26 PM
Arthur, with all due respect, you seem to be stuck in an adventure of missing the point. Just to entertain you and you piety though, how long did it take Jesus to teach his disciples? Hint: the answer is not 18 years.
Posted by: Dave | November 20, 2009 at 10:03 PM
Well, as for child labor, one should pushed companies to hire at least teens or adults, this is the responablity of third world country leaders. How to start a movement in these countries I don't know. Christians didn't become interested in child labor until the 19th century. Going back as far as the middle ages, a lot of children work in the fields under both Roman Catholic Western Europe and the Byzantine Orthodox East.
Posted by: cynthia curran | November 20, 2009 at 10:41 PM
Great post, Chris - you raise some questions I care deeply about.
My take on this is that conservative evangelical Americans are stuck in a worldview which is invisible to them, and which is overwhelmingly individualistic. This means that sin can only be seen as something which individuals struggle with, and so when sin happens on a larger scale (like through modern-day slavery or corporate greed) it's largely ignored, not because people don't care about those things, but because they do not have the ability to think larger than the individual in the first place.
And so sin becomes something which is stays at the level of dealing with personal morality (say, abortions) and never asks the question of, "What are we doing to the environment?" It simply does not make sense that, as you say, they "never utter the word “sin” when members of a corporate executive team make a decision that poisons a river or enslaves a child?" CE's seem to have this idea that we can do what we like to the environment, which is a complete misreading of "subdue" when God commanded us to subdue the earth in Genesis.
How do you think that we can widen CE's theological definition of sin to include personal morality, social justice and environmental responsibility, without CE's feeling like they've given in to "liberal theology"?
Posted by: Roger Saner | November 24, 2009 at 04:47 PM
Our prophets have become O'Reilly, Beck and Hannity. Would we not be better served by Jeremiah, Hosea, and the Apostle Paul?
I'm struck by how much the OT speaks of social justice issues and how little Conservative Evangelicals "get it".
Posted by: JamesTE | December 19, 2009 at 06:37 PM
I've said from the pulpit that the AFA "Christmas" petition is totally stupid and misguided (though I support much of AFA's work).
Nevertheless, Dave is utterly clueless. I can hardly conceive of a more foolish and damnable error that to imagine that my kids are called to be rescuers of the teachers in the government school system. How do otherwise sane people absorb such nonsense into their thinking?
Posted by: Shawn Meyer | January 06, 2010 at 10:58 AM
Shawn, with all due respect I must reply to your offensive comments. As a "pastor" do you not teach your congregation to seek & save the lost? Are there never children in your church? Do your children in your congregation receive some sort of disclaimer prior to your "teaching" that the gospel call is not for them? All questions that if you answered you may receive some insight into what I was saying.
Posted by: Dave | January 07, 2010 at 11:43 PM
Dave, if you think I'm saying we don't witness to children, I wonder what in my comments led you to such a conclusion. The Gospel is for everyone. I happen to think the most effective way to reach children is to reach their parents first. We've had this experiment now for about a half century. How well is it going? And how much longer do we need to see that our kids aren't really making disciples in the government schools? Instead, they are being paganized. The government is making disciples for Darwin and Freud and Marx while we watch from afar and say, "How wonderful that my 7-year-old can be a witness." Give me a break!
As for "social justice" we better be careful that it doesn't become a cliché. It's a scandal that we take our thinking orders from the McLarens among us. Fashionable it is for evangelicals now to decry child labor, etc. Note, however, that part of the reason America is full of brats is because we have no child labor. Must we wonder why the Amish kid speaks to his elders with respect? He's been on a roof with his dad and uncle since he was 11. Maybe if the 16-year-old kid in the drive-through window at McDonalds had gotten up at 5:00AM to milk the cows for the past 8 years, he'd could serve up a #4 with a smile instead of a zombie stare. That's not to endorse oppressive and/or coercive situations in other countries. Ironically, however, most 3rd-world sweatshops are full of people just happy to have jobs. We might resent Wal-Mart shares going up but they don't.
Posted by: Shawn Meyer | January 08, 2010 at 10:26 AM
In the defense of GAP, or any other business; they must produce products at the lowest possible cost in order to be competitive in the world marketplace. Their primary focus is to be profitable. Social justice and protection from fraud is the role of government oversight. Therefore it is highly unfair to go after GAP as the chief evildoer in this case, when the clear failure can be traced to governmental corruption. GAP has since acknowledged taking advantage of this corrupt niche in the labor market, have repented, and taken steps to never let it happen again even though, technically, it is not their primary responsibility. Not a word from the real perpetrator, ie, corrupt government, however. Therein lies the proper target for Conservative Evangelical outrage.
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Posted by: Shelley34Reese | June 14, 2010 at 01:47 AM