Today I got an email from the American Family Association (AFA) stating their offense at the fact that the Mrs Field's company was not offering any products with the word Christmas on them and asking me to write the company expressing my own offense and threating to boycott their products.
I just gotta ask, Really?
Does the AFA really think I'm going to be offended by the fact that a corporation does not celebrate the birth of Jesus. More importantly do they think encouraging thousands of Christ follwers to send threating (or just mean spirited) letters to the company will help people discover, recognize, love and submit to Christ as their savior?
What is the Goal of this campaign? If thousands of "christians" write letters, and the Company is bullied into putting the word Christmas back on its packaging will God be glorified? How will these letters be received by the real humans at Mrs Field's who read them. Will it draw them to our incredibly loving God or will it move them away? Will it help them understand who He is?
So here's my proposal. Lets write the employees Mrs Field's and tell them they make great cookies and that as Followers of Christ we are sorry if they receive offensive letters from those claiming to be God's representatives. Let's tell them that God loves them and that He longs to have a relationship with them. Tell them that we are not offended by their actions but that we recognize their good intentions. And that we hope, if they don't already, that those who read our letter would come to a point where they personally celebrate Jesus birth because they recognize it as a gift from God.
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3 comments:
THANK YOU for saying that. "Christian boycotts" have always made me so sad, as they seem to do nothing but continue the misrepresentation of Christ in the world.
There isn't bullying going on, Mrs. Fields expressed their opinion by saying no to the simple words Christmas, we're just expressing our opinion. They don't want to offend A hand full of athiests? But are willing to offend God and those who believe. Yep, I am a bit offended, and Christmas isn't for Athiests, this was our holiday, and nobody forced them into joining, now they have pushed their way in, and are changing the rules. You put Christians and pansies in the same boat and you are wrong.
I think Anonymous misses the point. There is a difference between expressing your opinion and threatening to boycott someone's products. A boycott hits a company where it hurts -- the bottom line. It is not an effort to provoke dialogue, but an effort to create confrontation -- to force the company to change -- to do things the way that we want them to do things by using economic pressure.
Ironically, Anonymous wants to tell atheists that "nobody forced them into joining" our holiday, but that is exactly what a boycott is -- an attempt to force Mrs. Fields into joining our holiday.
Now, you can argue whether this is a good (Christlike, God-honoring) thing to do -- or not -- but don't pretend you're just expressing an opinion and not forcing anyone to do anything when, in fact, that is exactly what the AFA boycott is designed to do.
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