Something Corporate

All the experts say you ought to start them young. That way they'll naturally love the taste of corporate cum. -- Pedro the Lion One of the guiding principles Christians in the United States live by is to be "in the world but not of it." Christians, as Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, are to "be not conformed to this world but...transformed by the renewing of (the) mind." It's interesting to see how this plays out in real life. Such ideas are often used to suggest that Christians shouldn't engage in particular behaviours, like smoking, drinking alcohol, watching movies with a rating above PG-13, or saying words like fuck. Such activities, I have been told, can hurt one's "Christian witness." I don't run in such circles any longer, so I honestly don't know how many Christians still believe those things. I suspect it's still a lot. Funnily enough, other behaviours are still acceptable for the Christian who isn't conformed to the world. Whether it be shopping at businesses that use sweat shop labour, eating fast food, or attending a church that models itself after a corporation (instead of after the early church), for some reason many Christians don't consider these things to be "worldly." Thus, you often see Christians boycotting businesses for things like treating homosexuals as human beings. But you don't as often see Christians boycotting businesses for paying substandard wages or for failing to provide adequate health benefits for their employees. Tonight a couple from my church who lives in Chicago's Pilsen neighbourhood is on ABC's Extreme Home Makeover. I'm really happy for them. At the same time, it's hard not to be simultaneously unnerved. Should I be happy that Sears is donating thousands of dollars worth of free stuff to a family in need? Or should I be upset that that free stuff was built on the backs of tens of thousands of sweat shop labourers? I don't know. But I do know that I'm not going to stop saying fuck until RepubliChristiamericans stop shopping at Wal-Mart.