We Will Understand it Better Buy and Buy?

"Virtuous Woman perfume comes packaged with a passage from Proverbs. But what makes the floral fragrance distinctly Christian, Hobbs [the Virtuous Woman retailer] said, is that it’s supposed to be a tool for evangelism. “It should be enticing enough to provoke questions: ‘What’s that you’re wearing?’ ” Hobbs said. “Then you take that opportunity to speak of your faith. They’ve opened the door, and now they’re going to get it.”


Sounds like something from a Saturday Night Live skit,doesn't it?   But this perfume is being marketed to Christians across America today.


The company website states:

Virtuous Woman (VW) is an exciting new perfume that provides women with a fragrance experience that engages body, mind, and spirit. VW fragrance is designed to promote and express spirituality. The fragrance wearer is honored for exemplifying the image of a Virtuous Woman.

Who can find a virtuous woman? For her worth is far above rubies. Proverbs 31: 10-31

VW is designed to cater to the needs of women who are interested in incorporating a passion for sharing their faith with a beauty product that makes them feel and smell really good.

When I read this I burst into laughter, but the sad reality is that Christianity in America has become a huge marketing success with hundreds of billions of dollars being spent annually.  The sadder reality is that few people seem to care.  


It's not that I'm against products that make people "feel and smell really good"; I just don't think such things have anything to do with the words and lifestyle of Jesus.


I can remember when the debate over using Christ to sell products applied to Oral Roberts selling "anointed" prayer cloths.  Boy....have we come a long way since then.

As I reflect on the physical needs I see in my neighbors, my community, in America and the world,  and on the words and life of Jesus, I find myself getting angry at how the name "Christian" has become attached to so many material items and angry at how much money is spent on "Christian" merchandise when it could be used to meet the needs of others as Christ talked about in the Gospel.


The word "Christian" has developed into a huge brand with the power to sell just about anything.  From "Christian Soap" to "Christian Perfume" to "Christian Video Games" ...Christianity sells !!!!!!






Here's a description of a new “Christian” video game: 

• Left Behind: Eternal Forces. The game aims to make a broadly appealing video game, similar to Grand Theft Auto; it is a “real-time” strategy game that “features plenty of biblical smiting, albeit with high-tech weaponry as players battle the forces of the Anti-Christ in a smoldering world approaching Armageddon.” Warriors shout "Praise the Lord!" as they blow infidels away, and players can switch to the side of the Antichrist to kill Christians.

One of the leaders in promoting "Christian" merchandising is the Christian Booksellers Association. Their mission statement reads:  "To serve Jesus Christ by equipping those called to share the Good News and make disciples through Christian retail excellence."


Christian retail excellence?  .....  I checked my Bible concordance but I just couldn't locate the verses about "Christian retail excellence".


The CBA, of course, has it's own fleet of products for sale to "Christian" store owners.  Books, DVDs, and seminars guaranteed to increase sales and profits. One of their products is intelligence reports which are essential for every Christian store:

 "........give a unique look at 300,000 consumers and their specific buying behaviors that impact their behaviors in your store. This can help to better understand how to market to those customers, better understand them as groups or “tribes” and then provide things retailers can do in their stores to help set them apart and discover their uniqueness."

The CBA website states:

• While Christian stores are very diverse in their mission and customer base, the primary market served by Christian Retail stores is the evangelical market. About half of Christian retail stores also seek to serve the needs of Catholic customers and Spanish-language customers
  
  
• In addition to books and Bibles, today's Christian stores carry a wide array of apparel, children's products, curriculum, gifts, greeting cards, music, software, and videos. They offer a wide range of services in an inviting atmosphere.
  
• Sales of Christian products by CBA member suppliers through all distribution channels are valued at more than $4.63 billion.

• The typical Christian-store customer is very active in faith, attends church regularly, reads the Bible, volunteers at church, and is very loyal to Christian stores.

Let me state right upfront that I don't think bookstores devoted to selling Christian books are bad.  I've purchased books there in past years which proved very helpful to me.  I just think things have gotten out of hand and I cant help but think we've lost something vital about following Jesus when we are inundated with products of all types bearing the "Christian" brand.


The question, What Would Jesus Do?, concerning the use of his name for profit and the massive commercialization of Christianity in America isn't hard to answer.

• "Jesus entered the Temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 'It is written,' he said to them, 'My house will be called a house of prayer but you are making it a den of robbers.'" (Matthew 21:12-13)

Read what some others have to say about the ever expanding American phenomenon of Christian Mass Merchandising:



"Walking through convention of the Christian Booksellers Association, I was accosted by jugglers, stilt-walkers, and clowns. The new “Christian” Cirque de Soleil was in town. It was too much for me. 
We have created a subculture. Our kids join Christian soccer leagues and Christian book clubs and go to Christian concerts. In Colorado, we even have a Christian rafting company, …….. you could smell it as you walked through Vanity Fair in Denver. “What Would Jesus Do?” He’d be flipping tables and whipping costumed pirates …..
…..many Christians seem to believe Jesus Junk promotes Christian community.  It is somewhat natural to feel this way. After all, the Christian culture warriors raise millions of dollars with a steady drumbeat: “We are besieged. We are marginalized. We are going to lose the culture war if you don’t send in your money.” And people don’t like feeling un-cool, out-of-step, or weird. Therefore, Christian gear comes to the rescue by helping us feel like a mighty, Christian band.
This is a false and shallow idea of community. Acts 2:42-47 describes community in terms of sharing in doctrinal teaching, meeting one another’s needs, and breaking bread. When we advertise our faith for purposes of identity, we are truly cheapening how the Gospel plays out in our lives."

--Jason Janz, Sharper Iron

"I grew up in the Bible Belt. When I became a Christian, I learned I didn’t have to stop buying stuff — I just had to start buying Christian stuff. ...In light of all the exciting movements addressing world hunger and peace, many with Christians in the forefront, I really believe Christian stores should be pioneers and innovators, rather than chameleons......t we have a long way to go. I just saw an iPod shaped like a cross. Ugh..... (I am)  convinced that the world will not know we are Christians by our bumper stickers and T-shirts, but by our love."

--- Shane Claiborne: The Christian Industrial Complex

"Two thousand years after Jesus drove out the money changers from the temple, and it looks as though they snuck back in. Go to a Christian bookstore and see miles of trinkets and plaques to fill shelf-space, fiction books with expensive Technicolor covers, and scores of DVDs and CDs that are quite often entertainment masquerading as ministry. Listen to the radio, and you’ll practically drown in advertisements for “Christian conferences” aboard luxury liners going to the Caribbean or Alaska or Cancun or some other ritzy location that is short on prayer and tall on breakfast.

This offensive and materialistic mindset is precisely why the church in America is in the sorry state that it is; we have merged our Christian faith with the American Dream, the notion that God wants us all to have stuff, stuff, and more stuff, that Jesus proclaimed a Prosperity doctrine, a name-it-and-claim-it license to avarice, gluttony, and self-indulgence. It’s a self-centered Christianity of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"

--Mark Turney , Prosperity doctrine, Christian consumerism, 

and the American Dream are choking the gospel

We'll Understand It Better By and By is the title of an old gospel hymn in the Baptist Church where I was raised in South Carolina.   With todays emphasis on buying Christian merchandise of all varieties, it seems many Christians have changed the words from "By and By" to "Buy and Buy".

We are often destitute of the things that life demands,

Want of food and want of shelter, thirsty hills and barren lands;

We are trusting in the Lord, and according to God’s Word,

We will understand it better....Buy and Buy.

Trials dark on every hand, and we cannot understand

All the ways that God could lead us to that blessèd promised land;

But He guides us with His eye, and we’ll follow till we die,

For we’ll understand it better ..Buy and Buy.

By and by, when the morning comes,

When the saints of God are gathered home,

We’ll tell the story how we’ve overcome,

For we’ll understand it better.....Buy and Buy