I as I caught up on some of the comments on my follow-up post on the McDonald’s Boycott I came across the following comment by blogger MInTheGap.  In his followup post he made a few good points I want to interact with, but first his comment:

I always wonder if these things really work– especially with people that are hardened in their ways. McD’s clearly has taken a stand, and believes they’ve taken the right one.

Well, I would point out a few recent boycotts that seem to have worked – Ford and American Girls Doll. I also know of a few that have not seemed to have any effect – the SBC boycott of Disney in the 80′s and 90′s. Incidentally, we did not take part in the Disney boycott because it just wasn’t on the radar for us back then.

The other thing to think about is whether or not this will have the opposite effect. While I’m definitely in the “holiness” camp and not in the “love” camp, this is yet another opportunity for the Enemy to characterize us as unloving.

I radically disagree with this statement or at least the implication that this is a bad thing. God is love AND He is holy; I don’t think the two are necessarily mutually exclusive.  To some extent the fact that we are even having this discussion (is it loving to take a public stand against sin) shows the success of the world to frame the debate. It’s the first card that McDonald’s played – I suspect due to the fact that its Vice President of Communications is a gay man who is also the corporate rep on the board of the NGLCC.  Gay activists are very good at trying to use the politics of guilt and pity for their own ends.

Indeed, we need a positive thing we’re doing instead, and not just a negative thing.

Agreed. I do positive things to combat the sins of our culture all the time. I attend public worship, I tithe, I have family worship, I train my children to read the Bible and pray.  In other words I try to live all of my life (and train my children) to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. This would include how I treat anyone I meet in person.  See Matthew 5.

We also need to be careful that we do not exaggerate the importance of this one sin. We may all be willing to jump on the bandwagon of boycotting a place that supports homosexuality– but how about those that promote gluttony, gossip, and other immorality.

I’m trying to give you things to think about. I believe homosexuality is one of the latter things that happens to a culture in decline, and it’s something that should be fought against, but we’re hypocrites if we only judge where we will eat based on this one issue.

Well there are certainly things to think about here. Several things come to mind.

1.) In my view God exaggerates the importance of this sin. Romans one makes a couple of points relevant to this.

a.) The act is unnatural (Rom. 1:27)

b.) The particular sin of homosexuality is in itself a judgment for the sins of idolatry (Rom. 1:27) – thus putting it in a unique category.  Not to belabor the point but it is a sign of the decay of a culture because it’s a form of judgment that brings more judgment from the Lord if not repented of. 

2.) You are setting up a false dichotomy if you try to force a choice between boycotting everything and nothing. I might, as the head of my house, choose to commit to certain strategic efforts to force public change on one or more (or no) companies as I see fit before the Lord. This does not make me a hypocrite. You said in a recent post

“How about boycotting the All-You-Can-Eat buffet for allowing or encouraging gluttony?  Any takers?  How about an organization to combat gossip, being a busybody, or invading someone else’s privacy? “

As for gossip I direct you to the badge in my sidebar   Back to your comment:

We’re all sinners– some saved by grace. We need to be praying and working to bring people to repentance. This is more important than worrying about buying a burger from a specific place.

Here is the heart of the matter for me.  See, an all-you-can-eat buffet is not actively promoting gluttony in the public sphere the way the NGLCC is.  I see the push to normalize homosexual behavior in our culture as the leading front (or one of them) in the culture wars. It’s at the heart of the attack against the Biblical family, and is being used to chip away, in our culture, at the fundamental social unit in society – the family – by chipping away at  the perceived differences between the genders and their roles.

No one is denying that we need to work for repentance and faith in those who do not know Christ.  When you say “This is more important than worrying about buying a burger from a specific place,” I think you risk trivializing the issues and the people involved in the boycott.

Finally I want to close by thanking MinTheGap for his thought provoking commentary.  We need good issue-driven discussions, illuminated by Scripture to sharpen us as believers.

Links to MinTheGap posts:

Boycott Mcdonald’s?

The Ultimate Boycott

MinTheGap’s comment on Kim’s post

DON’T forget the Gunn Brothers awesome documentary from which the above clip was taken

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