Hobby Lobby is one, but it's certainly not the only one. I've seen several of these old curiosities lately: Businesses that tout themselves as a "Christian business".
Just look at their marketing pieces. The talk about "honoring the Lord in all we do by operating the company in a manner consistent with biblical principles", or something like it.
The reason I mention these so-called "Christian businesses" isn't to weigh in on contraception or homosexuality. I actually am not even concerned here with that category mistake known as "corporate personhood". Those are smoke and mirrors to the real issue that's been bugging me for the past month.
I'm out today to make a rather bold claim for a guy who lives in the Bible Belt: There's no such thing as a "Christian business", and it's a good thing too.
Whether it's Hobby Lobby or the local used car dealer, the idea of operating a "Christian business" burdens my spirit, and turns my stomach sour.
Here's why.
I attended a small Christian college. Sometimes, it was like church. Other times, it was that cultural anomaly known as the tortured "youth group". But it was comfortable. Comfortable, I think, because it was mostly safe.
But somewhere around my junior year of college, when I really started taking Jesus seriously, I had an epiphany. Institutions qua institutions can't be Christian.
They can't express a genuine faithfulness as disciples. They have to act on their own self-interest. And that inevitably brings them into conflict with God's interests as expressed in Jesus.
This is an acute problem if you're a for-profit institution.
There's been an economic narrative emerging in the Church for the past 40 or so years. We've begun to see the evils inherent in for-profit systems. It stems historically from the Scottish economic thought of the 18th century that believes our world only survives through competition instead of kindness. Just look at the treatment of the poor since the 18th century, and you'll see why this has been a big deal for Pope Francis recently.
Any for-profit business is a part of that economic system. For better or worse, Hobby Lobby and used car dealers operate with the mindset of "defending" their business. It's a matter of competition.
But if you're operating in a mindset of biblical integrity, such competition we call sin. A biblical economic doesn't operate from the presumption of limitation, but instead from grace -- from a kindness that shares because there's more than enough to go around.
I bring this up not because I want to weigh-in on Hobby Lobby. I bring it up because our culture is buying the idea that these businesses represent Christian faith. They don't. What's more: They can't.
The real issue isn't whether contraceptives should be available. The real issue is whether there's such a thing as a "Christian business" at all.
I think there isn't.
I think it's blasphemy to use Jesus to cull your clientele. I think it's blasphemy to use Jesus to bolster your bottom line. Because, if you're out to make a buck in this economic climate, you're not representing the Kingdom Jesus brings.
What's really at stake here -- the reason I don't buy the idea that a used car salesman operates a "Christian business" -- is that my spiritual (and therefore economic) imagination hasn't been shaped by Adam Smith. Instead, I've read stories like Acts 16.16-23 and Acts 19.23-30 and Revelation 18. Those stories narrate our economics Christianly. And in each case, the business isn't Christian. It's demonic! Because ultimately it's driven by the power -- the spirit -- of money.
We in the American church have done this before. We allow these smoke and mirror issues -- like contraception and homosexuality and the like -- to get our attention from the bigger, the more real questions.
Now, we have an opportunity to ask those questions.
Can a business -- whose bottom line and self-interest are always at stake -- represent God's Kingdom in Jesus Christ?
What does a business -- driven by the consumption of goods and services -- say about God's grace?
What might such a business say to the world's spiritual sicknesses -- hunger, poverty, economic oppression, the right to "consume" while others look on in suffering?
I support Hobby Lobby's decision to go to court. That's their right. I support any business that opens and runs. That's their right.
I just don't think you can rightly call it a "Christian business". Because I think there's no such thing.