Faith in the Marketplace

Today in The Blaze, there was an article about one pastor's outrage against Disney and a Magic Kingdom Christmas celebration.  The word “Christmas” had been left off of a Disney billboard in Orlando, in a message advertising Disney World's popular holiday-themed Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party.

Right up front, let me say I found the pastor's concern over leaving the word "Christmas" off of the billboard message a bit odd, since the event itself (which he and his family have attended for eight consecutive years) is itself a profoundly secular event.  It has few - if any - truly Christian overtones. It's a typically Disney party for kids of all ages, celebrating the holiday season, but not the birth of Christ.

I read the pastor's comments with interest.  Some years ago, I had been personally active in the "war against Christmas" kerfuffle, at a time when it did seem that everywhere we looked, people and businesses were actively working to take "Christmas" out of the Christmas holiday. 

However, as I reflected on that former passion and this current situation, I saw some differences - perhaps in what is going on in society, and perhaps what is going on in me.

I still actively and vigorously oppose those organized atheists who use the threat of court costs to force municipalities and schools to ban Christmas celebrations. However, for me, that opposition is more political than theological, and it also highlights my own resentment against bullies.

This Disney deal, it seems to me, is different, and the issue here is theological rather than political.

I am a proud and (I hope) dedicated Christian; however, I don’t look to (or expect) secular corporations to carry my message of faith for me. Pastor Eddie DelValle of With Love Ministries is of course entitled to his reaction.  Viscerally, I might have reacted the same way on seeing that billboard for the first time.  However, for me, that would be the end of it, and here's why.

We Christians live in a secular society ... we cannot expect the secular world to reflect, let alone promote, our beliefs

We Christians live in a secular society, and I believe that  we are both misguided and misleading ourselves if we expect the secular world to reflect - let alone promote - our beliefs. If we boycotted every secular corporation that failed to carry our banner for us, we’d be limited to shopping at - or interacting with - just two kinds of companies.  Those whose owners have real faith and want to share that faith (Hobby Lobby and Chick-fil-a come to mind) or those cynical secular corporations who proclaimed our message, not out of faith, but out of greed.

Frankly, I’d rather be ignored than be pandered to ...

While I do NOT want to deal with corporations or organizations that actively espouse an anti-Christian message, or which, by their actions, support an anti-Christian objective, I can't think of all that many organizations that fit that mold (except, perhaps for MSNBC and CNN, and a few other actively-hostile news media outlets). 

However, there are some businesses Christians can't avoid, even if something they do is distasteful.  For instance, all pharmacies are required to sell morning-after abortion pills, and as someone who's not a supporter of abortion, I find that distasteful. However, there are no alternatives I'm aware of, so I continue to do business with CVS Pharmacy.

I have also worked with and for clients and employers who personally profess either a lack of belief or an active disbelief. However, I deal with them in a purely secular role, and see no problem with that, since their businesses do not reflect their lack of faith or actively oppose mine.

So what's my bottom line here?  Disney is a secular corporation, and in our free country, they are free to celebrate - or not celebrate - Christmas as they choose.  That is their business, not mine.  I am free to do business with - or ignore - Disney. However, I have two grandkids who LOVE Disney movies, TV shows and products, and because of that, I'll very likely continue to "shop Disney" for Christmas presents. 

This does not offend, nor does it threaten, my faith

And I guess I encourage Christians, including Pastor Eddie DelValle, to pick their fights with a bit more care.  If Disney were actively trying to undermine Christianity, that would be different. But they're just trying to make a buck in December, which makes them not anti-Christian, but quintessentially American.

A&E Caves to Pressure from Robinsons & Fans - Including Christians - But...

GLAAD and Other Gay Advocacy Groups Suffer Stunning Defeat ...

But This ISN'T a Win for Christians

 A&E has reversed itself after ten days of twisting slowly, slowly in the wind, and has publicly reinstated Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robinson to the show.  With a mealy-mouthed and convoluted statement, A&E claimed a victory (of sorts) even as it admitted defeat.  The statement was a poor attempt at PR damage control, but given the situation they'd put themselves in, it was probably the best they could do.

This reversal was a huge and stunning defeat for GLAAD and all the other narrow-focus, one-issue, PC-enfolded fascist-tactic advocacy groups.  However, this defeat was not a victory for Christians who'd rallied to Robertson's support.

Let me repeat that.

This was NOT a victory for all of the Christians who'd rallied, in the hundreds of thousands, to  Phil Robertson's support.

This "victory" for Phil was prompted more by career-fear among A&E's top brass executives.  With good reason, the A&E suits' feared that they would go away because they'd destroyed the network's most profitable-ever franchise.  Hollywood, the entertainment media and it's read-headed stepchild, the broadcast news media - it's all a brutal business, driven by ratings and  profits.  Executives are paid ridiculous amounts of money for delivering hugely-profitable programming - but the minute something crashes and burns, jobs go on the block. 

In this case, it looked like the best-performing program A&E had ever put on the air was going away, and if that happened, heads would roll.  Board members and investors and "bigger suits" at the parent companies would have insisted on firing people who'd blown a multi-million-dollar profit center for no better point than appeasing a pressure group.

It's a corporate play, and here's how the players line up.  A&E Television Network us a joint venture of the Hearst Corporation and Disney-ABC Television Group, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company.  That's a lot of corporate executives and board members who back A&E only because there is a lot of money to be made.  Lose some of that money and once high-flying execs will be out of work, and stigmatized for their failure as well. Nobody with a mortgage and an alimony, child support and a couple of kids in college is going to willingly risk firing over support for s single-issue pressure group, no matter how loud that group yells.  This applies to GLAAD, but it also applies to the Christians who backed Robertson.

The reason why A&E blinked is because the Robertson family stood behind their patriarch, making it clear that without Phil, there would be no show, no viewers, no ad revenues, no merchandising profits ... and no suits at A&E who had anything to do with getting into a game of chicken with a bunch of multi-millionaire rednecks who also have strong family values and rock-ribbed Christian beliefs.

Please don't misunderstand - without the support of hundreds of thousands of Christians and millions of fanatically-loyal viewers, A&E might have stared down the Robertsons.  It's hard to walk away from $2.5 million or so each season (with two seasons per year), even if you own a $400 million dollar business.  But the huge outpouring of support made it clear that the Robertsons could walk - away from A&E and into a new TV deal.  CBN and Glenn Beck's The Blaze had already made offers, and more would have come quickly.

Still, the final decision was influenced more by career-fear at the top of A&E  than it was by the rallying of the troops.  That rallying of outraged Christians and other fans was enough for Cracker Barrel - they quickly realized they were on the wrong side of the issue from their vocal target audience - but despite the online petitions and blogs and all the rest, A&E had no such realization.  Even in the face of the Robertson's apparent staunch faith, and even in the face of an outpouring of strong Christian and fan outrage, the suits at A&E do not take Christians - or duck hunters (i.e., bible-thumping red-necks) seriously.  We are the worst of the denizens of flyover country, and they're not even sure we exist.

Instead, those execs responsible for putting the most profitable franchise in the network's history at risk realized that they'd made a mistake in going to the mats with the Robertsons, and as a  result, they were about to lose, and if they lost, their jobs were at risk. 

Frankly, they realized that they might be fired for caving in to the demands of a small, vocal and fascist minority (GLAAD).  That was what happened to the NPR honcho lost her job after firing Juan Williams, except that instead of rolling over for GLAAD, she caved in to CAIR, a strident one-issue Muslim anti-defamation group. 

But the principle was the same - cave in, screw up, lose job.

At the bottom line (and it was really just a bottom-line issue for A&E), Duck just means too much Bucks to A&E to let the franchise go just to appease a pressure group, even one as powerful in Hollywood as GLAAD.

WIth this powerful reversal and repudiation of pressure group tactics - especially when accompanied by Cracker Barrel's own swift turn-around - executives at other businesses and media groups will now feel empowered to ignore GLAAD and other one-issue advocacy groups.  This will be especially true for those execs whose lavish lifestyles make them people who really can't afford risking their jobs. 

In the future, GLAAD will still be able to elicit meaningless platitudes, one akin to A&E's lame and confusing statement issued Friday, but GLAAD will not be able to force action that mean anything,  A&E's cave in has made it clear that supporting groups like GLAAD or CAIR risks costing shareholders money ... and executives their jobs.

However, despite the high-fives and self-congratulatory comments from many Christians who pushed hard to get A&E to cave, this is NOT a triumph for either religion or morality. Despite all of our best efforts - and they were good, good enough to get Cracker Barrel to cave - the A&E decision is all about pure economic power politics.  The fans - and most important, the Robinson's - willingness to tank the program and walk away, that was decisive. We Christians who spoke out helped, but we were not decisive.

A&E's leadership is still the same pro-gay/anti-Christian group they've always been.  It was the Robinsons (and, most importantly, their willingness to walk away) was decisive in persuading the decision-makers that it wasn't worth their jobs and their fabulous incomes to support GLAAD.

Allow me to conclude with the immortal words of Han Solo, just after Luke Skywalker destroyed his first Imperial fighter ...