Category: Politics

Why I Don’t Boycott Hobby Lobby

I want to expand a little bit on the thoughts I used to close my post recently about Chick Fil A, about how I don’t engage in nor do I believe it is morally consequential to “vote with your pocketbook”, to make choices about where to spend or not spend your money based on the political or social stances of various individual corporations or businesses.

I don’t boycott businesses. I haven’t stopped going to Chick-Fil-A. As a teacher, I shop at Hobby Lobby and Mardels pretty often. I enjoy Papa Johns pizza and Jimmy Johns sandwiches occasionally.

I also don’t favor businesses that are favorite among progressives. I’m not a regular patron Starbucks or Target because of their progressive stands on culture war issues. I don’t seek out certain corporate entities for being “right” about things I’m passionate about, like LGBTQ+ rights.

When I shop, I generally shop at places that are affordable, convenient, and especially places near in proximity to me; I think reducing the amount I’m driving because of its environmental impact is a better use of my idealism.

The reason I don’t boycott places is because, if I was gonna boycott a business over its political position on, say, women’s rights, or LGBTQ+ inclusion, why would I not also boycott businesses for their stance on federal tax policy, or labor regulations, or factory farming, or overseas manufacturing and production? Basically, where do I stop? If I am being consistent and true to my political and social priorities, I would boycott everything. I would make my own clothes, grow all my own food, build all my own tools. I would need to be completely self-sufficient and off the grid.

I personally carry a strong critique of market capitalism and the ways it distorts human nature, corrupts our priorities, and undermines our dignity and freedom. If I would be completely consistent in my shopping priorities, I would need to extract myself from the capitalist system. In this view, it doesn’t matter if Target is supportive of trans rights, because Target also markets and manipulates consumers into making conspicuous consumption choices and purchasing items that more than likely were either produced in a way harmful to the environment or harmful to those who made it.

Now, I’m not saying living such a disconnected and off the grid life is bad. In fact, just the opposite: I think it’s very good! I think we should all live that way! It is not, however, a very feasible way to live, individually. This kind of radically disconnected life requires the creation of community. It needs the nurturing and care provided by close connection with others. It needs the power of a group of people coming together and providing a new way of life for themselves and those around them.

This is the kind of community I think the church needs to be; it is what disciples of Christ should be striving for. It is how I hope to live one day. I hope to be able to be part of a community in Christ that values people above consumption, that recognizes the importance of connection and relationship over the ability to buy and own things. This is the community Christians need to be expending energy here and now building, because it is going to take a lot of hard work.

In the meantime, however, I think scoring political tribe points by pointedly and publicly boycotting certain businesses, while still engaging in the overall amoral capitalist system, and all the oppression and coercion it uses, is not only morally inconsistent, but is also a distraction. Like so many things in this social media age, it is a way for people to publicly proclaim their political allegiance, to signal their inclusion in a certain group. It is like the preening of a peacock.

Our energy is better spent elsewhere. Build a community. Don’t just mime your inclusion in one.

A Third Way on Abortion

John Fea directs attention to this interesting piece on the abortion debate among Christians by Michael Sean Winters at the National Catholic Register. Obviously, this passage stands out to me:

I question the moral integrity and political efficacy of the mainstream pro-life movement for a simple reason: By lashing themselves to President Donald Trump, they have morally and indelibly compromised their cause. The Susan B. Anthony List announced it will launch a $52 million campaign to reelect the president and help the Republican Party hold on to its majority in the U.S. Senate. Marjorie Dannenfelser, the group’s president, did not voice any concern about the unborn children waiting with their pregnant moms at the border, denied entry by a racist president who has turned his back on our nation’s proud history of welcoming immigrants. She did not explain how the president’s denial of climate change has retarded efforts needed to help the thousands of pregnant women in Bangladesh who are experiencing higher rates of miscarriages due to climate change. Nor did she explain why she thinks the theme of this year’s march — “Life Empowers: Pro-Life is Pro-Woman” — is a thought that can be entrusted to a man whose misogyny is legendary.

Obviously, this all rings true to me. However, as Fea points out, this article also challenges both sides of the argument. Here is Winters again:

What is convincing, what is undeniable, is that the whole theme of the Scriptures is that God has bestowed the gifts of life and love upon sinful mankind, sometimes we humans spurn that gift and go astray, and the Lord calls us back. If abortion does not constitute the spurning of a gift, and a most precious gift, I am not sure what does. Catholics may differ on what legal solutions exist for the problem of unwanted pregnancy, we can admit that the moral gravity of the act is diminished by a variety of circumstances, but I do not see how a Catholic can ever adopt a libertarian stance on abortion any more than we can adopt a libertarian stance on climate change or economic justice. That, for me, is one of the absolutes in this discussion.

There is a lot of really good stuff to grapple with in the piece, and I wish I had more time today to do so. I’m hoping soon to do so. But for now, I really just want to highlight this passage from the end of the essay:

I cannot — and this year I would not — join the marchers on the National Mall in Washington on Friday. Many large-hearted souls will be there whose consciences have led them to attend. Still, the organizers have become blind to the damage they have done to their own movement. I do not celebrate an Alabama law that makes no allowance for women who have been raped. I do not celebrate a president who daily exhibits himself to be immoral or amoral or both. I do not celebrate the addition of Supreme Court justices who will vote to undermine workers’ rights, defend corporate rights and oppose the kinds of regulations we need if our pro-life commitment to preserving the planet is to become real. That said, I challenge the Catholic left as well not to abandon the cause of defending life.

I struggle personally with the question of abortion. I straddle a line wherein I do not think the act of abortion is moral good, but I also do not think that legislating the personal health decisions of women in one of the most challenging and important time of their lives is a good idea. In fact, reading Winters own approach to Supreme Court case law on this, I come done pretty close to him. He writes,

 If the pro-life movement were smart, it would actually ask the high court to overturn their 1992 decision, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania vs. Casey, but uphold Roe. It was Casey that shifted the standard for upholding a law from Roe‘s trimester framework to the new standard of whether or not a law placed an “undue burden” on a woman seeking an abortion. Roe placed the U.S. squarely within the legal orbit of most developed countries, permitting abortion in the first trimester, allowing regulation of the procedure in the second and granting states the authority to ban the procedure entirely in the third trimester, excepting situations where the life of the mother is at stake. As a political and legal resolution of the issue, I do not believe we can do better. Overturning Roe would throw the issue back to the states where abortion-on-demand would become the law in more states than not.

This is a really interesting approach to case law that I hadn’t considered before, and I think that is because of the shallow and chiefly political (rather than moral) argument around abortion in America today. Too often, the debate becomes one over completely legalizing versus completely disallowing. This is why I place myself, at present, firmly in the pro-choice camp politically, despite my moral misgivings about the act itself. I think, in policy making, we must consider the results of our actions, and I have very little doubt that a complete overturning Roe would do more harm to the cause of women’s health and autonomy, as well as not solving any moral issue around abortion, than keeping it in place and being more nuanced in our approach to policy. In short, abortions are gonna happen whether the law permits it or not; regulated and licensed doctors performing them is preferable to unregulated and backroom procedures.

And, of course, none of this has even acknowledged the fact that, despite its legality, abortion is a steadily declining; the number has been going down fairly steadily since the early nineties, and is at the lowest point since before Roe made it legal. This is a longer way of saying that the conservative fear mongering about the explosion of abortions in America is, in fact, a lie.

Again, I struggle with talking about and thinking about abortion. As a straight white man, I know the dangers of pontificating on something that I’ll never have to personally experience or go through. There is a long, sordid history of men who look like me dictating policy to women that I find abhorrent, and I don’t feel comfortable straying into the territory. I have many good friends and family who are strongly pro-choice, and I honor and respect their passion and their drive, and far be it from me to act like I know more about or have something more important to sat about this issue than they do. At the same time, as a Christian theologian thinking and writing about religion in 21st century America, I can’t really avoid the issue; in fact, its not far fetched to say that the election of Donald Trump was driven indirectly, but almost completely, by the political logics surrounding abortion access and the making of case law on the subject. So I cannot ignore it; I must deal with my own discomfort here. Finding pieces like Winters is helping me do that.

So consider this a placeholder and reminder for me to engage more fully with Winters’ piece, and other like it, and become more clear in my thinking on the subject.

The Words of Christ are no longer sufficient for Trump’s favorite evangelical

How seriously do we, and should we, take the ethical guidance and commands of Christ? This is a question that has long interested me as a Christian. Christ is fairly explicit throughout the Gospels, and especially in the Sermon on the Mount, that an ethic of nonviolence, mercy, and compassion is required of those who would be disciples. Jesus instructs in his sermon that we are to love our enemies, give quietly and without great fanfare to the needy, refrain from judging, and, most famously, to turn the other cheek.

These commands are key points of contention between realist and pacifist Christians arguing in the political and social realm. Should an ethic of nonresistance and even submission guide a Christian’s engagement in politics? While the more Niebuhrian will clearly answer no, they almost never go so far as to disparage these words of Christ; rather, their opposition is grounded in a realpolitik approach to social engagement, in which hard realities must be met, even if that means that we at times, like all sinners, fall short of our calling. (It is here that I think Niebuhr’s grounding in Reformed theology really shines through most clearly.) Christ’s words are the ultimate good, in this view, but our own sin, and the sin of the world, often prevents us from living up to them.

Jerry Falwell Jr’s new Falkirk Center at Liberty University, however, takes things in a completely anti-Christian direction in its mission statement. Apparently, the very words of Christ are just simply unacceptable to Donald Trump’s favorite court evangelical. According to Falwell, the specter of “leftism”, and the driving urge he feels to defend America first and foremost, takes precedence over the words of Christ:

Bemoaning the rise of leftism is no longer enough. Turning the other cheek in our personal relationships with our neighbors as Jesus taught, while abdicating our responsibilities on the cultural battlefield is not sufficient. There is too much at stake in the battle for the soul of our nation.

“There is too much at stake” for us to take the words of Christ seriously any longer. Being a follower of the Crucified God is all well and good, but winning the culture is much, much more important. God and Country, after all, right?

This is disgusting, frankly, and it really strains the bounds of what can really be considered Christianity. It’s one thing to grapple with these commands and come down on the side that they are sometimes simply unrealistic in the face of realities today. I don’t personally subscribe to this view – I am quite confident that the example of Christ is never deficient; it may sometimes result in our own personal discomfort, deprivation or even death, but such is the price we pay for following the One who offered himself up to death. But it’s another thing indeed to just declare, as a Christian, that the words of Christ just simply aren’t good enough anymore.

It’s enough to make me think that, if Christ were here today giving his Sermon, living his life of nonresistance and peace, that there would be large swaths of the American church who would label him a “snowflake” – or worse.

The words of Christ are never deficient. Are they sometimes inconvenient, hard, or unpopular? Will they sometimes ostracize us, separate, or even put us in bodily danger? Absolutely. But they serve a greater good than immediate political victory and support of conservative political causes. It seems like Jerry Falwell Jr – and many conservative Christians – seem to have forgotten this. Political achievement has replaced Christian principles.