Missing the Target

In my Commentary entry for May 14, 2019, I discussed a recent incident in a Chicago Target store where a man entered a women's restroom and exposed himself to a young girl. I mentioned that a number of ministers and Christian groups were once again openly calling for their congregants and members to boycott Target in reaction to their LGBT-friendly policy of allowing people to use (in the words of Target) the "restroom facilities that correspond to the individual's gender identity, regardless of the individual's sex assigned at birth."

(Uhm, "...regardless of the individual's sex assigned at birth"? So what do they do nowadays, pick a gender out of a hat?)

In that Commentary, I also mentioned the fact that after giving it some thought and reviewing a few passages of Scripture, I had decided that I was not in favor of the idea of Christian leaders openly calling for boycotts against particular companies, regardless of how perverted or despicable their policies or practices might be.

And I left it there.

But I couldn't stop thinking about it—and the more I thought about it, the more it bugged me. I knew in my spirit there was more meat on that bone, and the Holy Spirit just kept poking me in the ribs to dig into it a little more deeply. And it wasn't long before I knew:

I couldn't leave it there.

So, this article is basically going to pick up where that Commentary left off, because I believe that when Church leaders publicly call for Christians to boycott a certain company, there are some issues at work that warrant being fleshed out a bit more. There are dynamics in play that cut to the very heart of the body of Christ and what it means to be a member of it.

Before we get into this, let's start off by defining our terms to avoid any misunderstanding. First of all, what exactly do I mean by "boycott"?

boycott (v.) — To refuse or join together in refusing to purchase goods or services from and/or prevent others from having any dealings with a person, company, organization, etc. as a means of protest or coercion.

boycott (n.) — The act of boycotting a person, company, organization, etc.

I want to emphasize that the word "boycott" can legitimately be used in the individual sense. In other words, if one individual refuses to shop at a certain store because they dislike or disapprove of something that store does, it is correct to say they are "boycotting" that store.

But I am not focusing my attention on the word in the individual sense.

In this article, my attention is focused primarily on the word "boycott" in the corporate sense, as it is used in reference to an organized refusal to do business with a company. My main focus is on organized boycotts publicly called for by those in positions of leadership, who have some degree of influence over a group of people. I am not focusing on the strictly personal or private decisions of individuals. Throughout this article, I will endeavor to keep this distinction clear.

As always, the first thing to do is go to the Word.

What does the Word say?

First of all, let's clear up one thing:

There is no mandate to be found anywhere in Scripture for leaders in the Church to call for an organized boycott of a business for any reason.

None. For example, you'll find no mention in Scripture of the apostle Paul urging the believers in Ephesus to refuse to do business with a local merchant because he offered a 20 percent discount to customers who worshiped at the Temple of Artemis, while overcharging Christians. There's no such thing anywhere in the Bible.

But what do we see in the Word that might have some bearing on the subject?

Let's start with Paul's admonition to the Church in Rome:

Paul is talking specifically about the issue of eating food offered to idols, but the principle can be applied to any activity that lies in what we might call a gray area. The idea of eating such food made some first-century believers feel a bit guilty, presumably because it was so closely associated with the pagan worship many of them had previously been part of but had been set free from. Many such believers genuinely felt in their heart that it was wrong, and their conscience bothered them about it.

Paul is basically telling them that it's not necessarily wrong per se; but if their conscience convicted them, then for them it was wrong. Why? Because if their conscience convicted them, then there was no way they could do it "to the Lord." In other words, if their conscience told them that eating such food was wrong and they went ahead and ate it anyway, then they couldn't give God thanks and do it in a way that glorified Him. Then it became sin.

Paul goes on to say that we have no business judging other believers for such personal decisions of conscience, because each of us will give account of our actions at the judgment seat of Christ.

Applying this principle to a boycott, we could say that if an individual believer feels strongly that they shouldn't shop at a certain store due to some policy that store has and their conscience genuinely bothers them about doing so, then it's perfectly acceptable for that person to refuse to shop there and in the process give God the glory. And there is no biblical basis for questioning or criticizing their personal decision.

At the same time, however, neither is there any biblical basis for questioning or criticizing another believer's personal decision to continue shopping at that store. Even though they may be fully aware that the store's policies or practices are contrary to God's Word, their conscience may be perfectly clear, just as Paul's was in regard to eating food offered to idols. He knew it was just food. Some believers feel that continuing to shop there is in not an endorsement of those policies, and so they don't feel they are doing anything wrong. They know it's just merchandise. They are just ordinary people buying ordinary things that ordinary people need—nothing more, nothing less. They don't feel a wisp of guilt, and can give God the glory all the way home.

On the other hand, some people use passages of Scripture such as the following to defend the idea of calling for boycotts:

Some believers point to such verses and assume that the failure to support the call for a boycott of some company that has sinful practices shows that one "loves the world," or has "fellowship with the world," or is "friends with the world." They seem to have the idea that any believer who fails to support such a boycott is failing to demonstrate their requisite disapproval of that company's actions, and so may even be tacitly expressing their (gasp) approval of them!

But is that what these and other similar passages of Scripture are suggesting? I say no. I believe such passages are basically saying this:

Don't love the world, the things in the world, the activities of the world, or the world system—and don't live as if you were part of that system. You are new creatures in Christ—you are in the world but not of the world.

So if a born-again believer casually strolls into Target to buy something they need and walks out, are they demonstrating the fact that they secretly approve of that store's pro-LGBT policies, and by extension the entire LGBT agenda? Should we infer from this that they heartily approve of the perversion that Target's policies brazenly promote? Should we interpret this to mean that such a believer is perfectly OK with the gender-bending sexual perversion that a fallen world glorifies?

Obviously not, in my humble opinion. They can be just as sealed with the Holy Spirit as any other believer, hate what God hates just as much as any other believer, and want no more part of a fallen world and its evil system than any other believer, and still simply be ordinary people doing what ordinary people do every day of the week. And I say that because of the following fact:

Our citizenship may be in heaven,
but our current address is in Babylon.

Welcome to Babylon

After the Israelites were taken into captivity in Babylon in the early sixth century BC, there were false prophets among them who were "prophesying" things about how the people should rise up and rebel against the wicked Babylonians, and attempt to return to their beloved Jerusalem as soon as possible. The prophet Jeremiah, however, set them straight with the words of their God, who had ordained for them to live in exile in Babylon for 70 years as a judgment. Jeremiah wrote the following prophecy to them from Jerusalem, and in it he tells them what God expected from them:

God made it clear to them through the prophet Jeremiah that their captivity in Babylon was His doing, and was to last a full 70 years. So, they might as well settle in and get used to it. God basically tells them:

"You're going to be calling Babylon home for a good while, so here's what I want you to do: Build houses. Plant gardens. Eat of what you grow. Take wives. Have kids. Have grandkids. Seek to live peaceful lives by seeking the peace of the land where I have placed you."

Not completely unlike the Israelites, in a sense we live in Babylon as well. Spiritually speaking, we are exiles in a land that is not our home—but this is where we will live for the duration of our earthly lives. So, like the Israelites, we should seek to live peaceful lives by seeking the peace of the place in which we live—as godless and corrupt as it may be.

The point is that there was no way for the Israelites to completely escape the ungodliness of Babylon—they had to live there, and God wanted His people to simply get on with living ordinary, peaceful lives in spite of the wicked ways of the society in which they lived.

As far as the notion of us effectively living in Babylon during our earthly lives is concerned, Paul touches on a similar thought in his first letter to the Corinthians, some of whom were apparently engaging in some shockingly immoral behavior:

Paul says to "have no company" with people who commit such gross immorality, but notice that Paul is not talking about people in the world—much less the businesses they run. We see in verse 11 that Paul is talking about other believers (or people in the congregation who at least called themselves believers). He's talking about people in the Church who persist in openly engaging in immoral behavior, and he tells the congregation not to associate with such.

But notice what Paul says in verse 10:

"I'm not talking about not having anything to do with immoral people of the world, because to do that you'd have to leave the world!"

And obviously they couldn't do that—and neither can we. The point is that a fallen world is going to be a fallen world no matter what we do—we can't completely isolate ourselves from the sinful practices of the world because we live in the world. What Paul is saying is that as a body of believers we should strive to be a good witness for Christ, and that means we should not allow people who name the name of Christ but brazenly continue in blatantly immoral behavior to remain part of the congregation because it dishonors the very name we seek to glorify. (By the way, when was the last time you saw a church actually do that?)

The point is that nothing Paul says here gives anyone any justification whatsoever for calling for a boycott against a business because they engage in unbiblical practices.

Speaking of living in Babylon, you would have to search long and hard to find a society more wicked and corrupt than the one in which Jesus found Himself two thousand years ago. Between the most hard-hearted, legalistic, religious hypocrites in history in the person of the Pharisees and the cruel, iron-fisted tyranny of the Roman empire, Jesus certainly had plenty to choose from if He had been inclined to organize a boycott or a protest of some kind against some social ill. But is that what we see?

Not exactly. Instead of telling His followers to organize some type of boycott or come against the evil practices and corruption of the Roman government, Jesus told them to pay their taxes to support that government—the same government that would later execute Him as a common criminal.

Paul touches on this theme in his letter to the Romans:

Boycott? How about "be in subjection"? How far do you think that would fly in many Evangelical circles today? Now, I realize that paying taxes is not exactly the same as shopping in a certain store, but I believe the underlying principle still applies:

Play your normal, expected role in the economy.

On a related note, my fellow residents of Babylon, if your church calls for a boycott of Target, what's next? Why call it quits with the trendy perversion du jour? Why not call for boycotts against multitudes of other companies for multitudes of other objectionable practices? For example:

• Considering the torrent of raw sewage that spews forth from Hollywood, why aren't the same Christian groups calling for boycotts of Target calling for boycotts of every single movie theater in the nation?

• Why aren't churches boycotting Barnes & Noble bookstores (the ones that haven't gone belly-up, that is) because they sell Playboy magazine?

• Instead of stuffing their bulging bellies there after Sunday service, why aren't they boycotting Denny's restaurants because they are open on Sunday morning, thus denying their employees the opportunity to attend church?

But they aren't boycotting those companies, are they? Playboy? Yawn. Denny's? Yum! Oh, but some trendy, high-profile issue like transgender bathrooms? Something related to a socially relevant juggernaut like the LGBT movement? We're all over it.

Q. How do you think this highly selective attitude toward what we protest and what we don't makes the Church look in the eyes of the world?

A. Do I have to say it?

How do you think it makes the Church look? It makes us look like a gaggle of judgmental hypocrites, which is precisely what the world constantly accuses us of being. And we wonder why.

The bottom line is that we are in the world. We have no choice but to be involved in the economy of Babylon, because we are going to be residents of Babylon until the day we die.

Or until the day we hear a trumpet.

Robert Rothwell nails it down about as well as it can be nailed down in an excellent article posted at Ligonier.org:

So instead of calling for boycotts against companies for their unbiblical practices, perhaps the Church should take note of what the Word has to say to us in this regard, which could be loosely summarized as follows:

Although our citizenship is in heaven, we're going to live in the world every day of our lives. Don't love the world or be part of its system, but live your life. Get a job. Buy a car. Get married. Buy a house. Have kids. Be a good citizen. Respect (and pray for!) those in authority. Pay your taxes. Obey the law. Provide for your family. Shop in stores for the things you and your family need.

And for Pete's sake, use the right restroom.

What goes around...

One thing that occurred to me as I worked on this article and thought about the subject of boycotts is the question of what happens when the shoe is on the other foot. That is:

How about when the world boycotts a Christian business?

You know, if calling for a boycott of some company is a weapon the Church should be using, then it strikes me as a bit odd that the world would be doing the exact same thing, wouldn't you agree? But boycott they do, and recently they have been boycotting Christian businesses for being so...Christian.

So, you're itching to boycott somebody, eh?

Aaron and Melissa Klein were the proud owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, a small bakery located in Gresham, Oregon. One fine day, Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer, a lesbian couple who were planning to get married came in and requested a special wedding cake that would celebrate their same-sex marriage. The Kleins, both Bible-believing Christians, politely declined, telling the couple they couldn't create such a cake in good conscience because it went against their biblically based beliefs that homosexual behavior and same-sex marriage were wrong.

In response, these two lesbian lovebirds became a pair of pitbulls. They called on the LGBT community as well as those sympathetic to their cause to boycott Sweet Cakes by Melissa, but they didn't stop there. They not only called for a boycott of the Kleins' bakery, but also boycotted and harassed any other bakery or supplier who had any dealings with them—and to top it off the lesbian couple took the Kleins to court and sued them for discrimination. What transpired over the next few months blossomed into full-blown economic terrorism at its most vicious, and Sweet Cakes by Melissa was successfully driven out of business. According to Aaron Klein:

"The boycotting, the harassment. I mean, quite frankly, they didn't just harass us they harassed the other wedding vendors that we did business with...It cut off our referral system, we had to shut the shop down...We were facing in excess of $150,000 in damages for this, just for simply standing by my First Amendment rights." [Source]

The Kleins, who I am happy to report have received generous financial support from the Evangelical community, have since taken their case to the United States Supreme Court. It remains to be seen, however, whether SCOTUS will actually hear and ultimately rule on the case since they only hear roughly 150 out of 7,000 submitted cases per year.

Of course, according to the lesbian couple, the LGBT community, and most of the world, the Kleins are narrow-minded, hate-filled, transphobic, homophobic, religious bigots who wantonly discriminate against innocent, loving couples who are simply exercising their legal right to live a lifestyle they don't happen to approve of—which is a crime, didn't ya know (and the famously liberal state of Oregon agreed). And forgive me if I left out any relevant buzzwords.

Free Palestine: If I were in the mood, I could sound off about (professing) Christian groups calling for boycotts against Israeli companies and those who do business with Israel, i.e. the BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions), ostensibly because the Jews (if they really are Jews) are evil Zionists who are illegally occupying land that rightfully belongs to those poor, oppressed Palestinians. OK, quick show of hands: Who wants to take a page out of their playbook?

So another question that leaps to my mind in regard to the topic of Church leaders calling for a boycott of some business that has policies or practices that run counter our beliefs as Christians is this:

Q. What are supposed to say to those who boycotted the Kleins' bakery and successfully destroyed their business?

A1. "That's not fair! What a horrible thing to do! I can't believe you wicked perverts drove those nice Christian people out of business just because their Bible says your lifestyle is an abomination!"

No? A tad on the judgmental side? How about something along these lines:

A2. "Ooh, nice economic coercion you got going there! Hey, we gotta remember that! A tactic like that could come in handy!"

In other words, do we slap them in the face or slap them on the back?

Gut check: How does the incident involving the Kleins make you feel toward that lesbian couple and the LGBT crowd that supported them? To wit:

Does it make you feel that you should reconsider or soften
your views toward homosexual behavior and things LGBT,
and perhaps try to be a little more tolerant and inclusive?
— OR —
Does it make your blood boil?

That's what I thought.

So, let me ask you a question: Do you think the CEO of Target is sitting at a conference table as you read this, having a soul-searching heart-to-heart with other executives, saying something like...

"You know, I did have misgivings about that transgender bathroom policy, and now I think maybe I was right. Christians all across America are sending us a clear message that the policy is against biblical principles, and by gosh, I think they've got a point. I guess we were wrong, boys, and I reckon we'd better fix it and make it right—and maybe start reading our Bibles while we're at it."

Really? I think you know better than that.

Calling for a boycott against a company—regardless of who boycotts who and why—is a powerful form of economic coercion routinely used by the world. And that leads us to another key question:

Q. That lesbian couple used a boycott—a weapon of economic coercion—and used it well. Is that the kind of weapon the Church is supposed to use?

A. You already know the answer to that one:

Of course, some boycotts are more effective than others. If the company is large enough, a boycott by a particular group may have minimal impact, and some can even see that company's stock price rise. Some, however, especially those against smaller companies, can wipe a company out.

Clean out your locker: By the way, what if some Church leader calls for a boycott of some company and it ends up costing employees who happen to be believers their jobs? How would that make you feel, knowing that you ruined the lives of fellow believers in a misguided effort to hurt the company they work for? Or would you brush it off and say that's what they get for working for such a sinful company?

An organized boycott is a powerfully coercive tool that's a little bit like an economic shotgun: It doesn't discriminate between those you want to hurt and those you do not—it hits everybody. As a result, it may well have an unintended negative impact on people who happen to be born-again believers just like those organizing and participating in the boycott, and it certainly constitutes waging war according to the flesh with the weapons of the flesh, and in a potentially devastating way. Don't believe me?

Just ask former bakery owners Aaron and Melissa Klein.

Business as usual

I can just hear what a few of you are thinking right now:

So what are we supposed to do? Nothing? Just let these heathens flaunt their sin and parade their perversion in our faces...in our children's faces?! Is that what you're saying—business as usual?

In a sense, that's exactly what I'm saying: business as usual. But that begs our final and arguably most important question:

What exactly is "business as usual" for the Church?

Perhaps that's part of the problem—maybe many Christians have lost sight of what "business as usual" means for the body of Christ. Somewhere among all the snappy pep talks that have replaced the anointed preaching of the Word, all the seeker-friendly efforts to make sinners feel comfy and cozy, all the politically correct drives to stick the Church's nose into socially relevant issues, all the attempts to make people believe everybody worships the same great big, loving God—along with all the requisite watering down of the gospel that all this entails, the Church for the most part has lost its focus on what its business actually is.

Let's walk through this, and I'll go ahead and use Target as an example.

OK, so Target implements a policy that allows transgendered people to use whatever public restroom corresponds to the gender they identify with. Swell. Now, how do we as born-again believers feel about that? We feel repulsed. We feel angry that such a perversion is being brought into the public arena, where our children are exposed to it. And men dressed up like women being allowed to sashay into the women's restroom is certainly something that we don't want them exposed to, right along with Drag Queen Story Hour in the public library—can I get an amen?

So Church leaders—including men such as Franklin Graham, a man of God for whom I have nothing but the utmost respect—publicly call for a boycott of Target, and we respond. We say, "Yeah, that'll show 'em!"

Q. What does the Church seek to accomplish by doing this?

A. It seems the Church wants to punish Target, and make them realize that their policy is a perversion that flies in the face of God's Word—it's sin and believers won't stand for it, by gosh. The Church wants Target to feel the heat so they will back down and change their abominable policy.

Q. Do the people who run Target truly feel that homosexual activity and its LGBT trimmings all constitute sin?

A. Sin? Are you kidding? They can't stop gushing about how inclusive and diverse they are.

Q. And is it our coercive actions that make these people realize their policies are sinful and a perversion of God's Word?

A. No. It is the ministry of the Holy Spirit operating through the body of Christ that convicts the world of sin:

The Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, and there's no indication that He does that by having the Church organize boycotts. The following has been true for the Church since the day of Pentecost when it was conceived, and will continue to be true until the Rapture when it will be caught away:

Our job as believers is not to force a fallen world to clean up
its act. It is to strive to honor God, let our light shine before
men, edify other believers, long for His return, and advance
the gospel in whatever ways God makes available to us.

That's "business as usual" for the body of Christ. That's what we are called to do, and that's what the Holy Spirit equips us to do. And nothing has changed in two thousand years:

It is the Holy Spirit operating through the body of Christ who strives to make the world aware of the depravity of sin, the perfection of Christ's righteousness, and the certainty of the judgment that awaits those who spurn God's grace and mercy by rejecting the message of the gospel.

I've seen it many times and in many ways. One of Satan's favorite tactics in his efforts to weaken and distract the Church is to goad it into attempting to do things that it is neither called nor equipped to do, and trying to change the behavior of a company that implements ungodly policies by calling for an organized boycott of that company is a prime example.

Again, if any individual believer feels that they can't shop at Target in good conscience due to their sinful policies, then they should simply refrain from doing so and give God the glory. No problem—may God bless and keep them.

But for the reasons we have discussed, I believe that when Church leaders publicly call for boycotts against businesses that engage in practices that we as believers find objectionable, no matter how utterly sinful or depraved those practices may be, all they are accomplishing is some of the following:

• They are prompting the Church to act like the world, and in most cases making Christians look like a bunch of judgmental hypocrites to boot.

• They are potentially causing serious albeit unintended economic harm to other believers.

• They are encouraging the Church to wage war according to the flesh, using the weapons of the flesh.

• They are distracting the Church from its primary functions by encouraging it to try to force a fallen world to modify its sinful behavior against its will, which is something that the Church is neither called nor equipped to do.

And when the Church does those things, there is only one thing I can say:

It's missing the target.

Greg Lauer — MAY '19

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