Boycotts

Christians love to boycott! We march outside abortion clinics and adult bookstores. We carry picket signs and deliver passionate speeches on street corners in hopes of swaying voters. We boycott products and companies, movies and television shows. Back in the day we would send passionate letters and flyers to pastors and church deacon boards in hopes that they would warn their parishioners about reading a particular book, voting for a distrusted candidate, buying an ill thought of product, or seeing a morally bankrupt movie. Today we’ve got tools like email, Facebook, cell phones, and Twitter to get our message out to the masses in a nanosecond.

For years Christians have been encouraged to boycott anything Disney because, “Few companies have demonstrated as much of a callous disregard towards the concerns of Christians as Disney has” – this according to a “how to boycott Disney” website. The belief is that Disney promotes the homosexual lifestyle. In 1989 a woman named, Terry Rakolta led a boycott against the then fairly new television show, “Married With Children” after viewing an episode that oozed sexual innuendo (didn’t they all). She started a letter writing campaign urging advertisers to drop their support of the show. Ironically, it was her boycott that made more viewers aware of the floundering show and the ratings soured. In fact, “Married With Children” enjoyed high ratings from then on and was kept on the air until 1997. So then, the boycott was a bust? Yeah, I’d say so.

Listen, boycotts are not bad things. I often say that bad things must happen to good people so that good people will rise up and effect change. A boycott will often shine the light of truth on a particularly unjust situation or law. I love a quote from Jonathan Acuff from his blog, “Stuff Christians Like”. #149 addresses boycotting stuff and he points out that he’s not completely against boycotts. “I would rather have a well done boycott spread light on a real issue,” says Mr. Acuff, “than have hatemongers wearing Christian masks be the only thing the world sees when it comes to a boycott.” He’s right. The world tends to see us as hatemongers wearing Christian masks.

I submit to you that we ought to shine a brighter light on some of the junk that goes on behind the church doors. Let’s use our sign making skills to boycott gossip, judgment, divorce among Christians, name calling, and wars about what kind of worship songs we should be singing! It’s not a bad thing that we want to clean up our neighborhoods and cities, but our own house is a mess!

Get off the Pew and speak up! Speak up when the church busybody talks smack about the couple going through a rough time. Speak up when a high school student chatters on about the Sunday School “slut”. Speak up when the pastor preaches something that you believe is in opposition to the inerrant word of God. Speak up when the televangelist begs and cries for money then goes home to his multi-million dollar house on a hill. Speak up when the family with the incarcerated son is kicked out of church, or the single woman is told she must quit the choir because someone saw her at a bar! When we present a clean and orderly house, the visitors will be drawn to us, and ultimately to God Himself.

Get off the Pew, put down the picket signs, and clean up God’s house. Get off the Pew!