Coop, from While Rome Burns, has posed some interesting questions in a recent article, Buy Black Experiment.  in it, he begins provocatively:

I got the link from a blogger in my home state of Wisconsin, about a couple in Chicago who made a commitment at the beginning of the year to buy only from black-owned businesses. Now, as a white person, if I made the commitment to buy from only white-owned businesses, I’d be called a racist and a bigot, and probably rightfully so.

But lest you think this is a (somewhat accurate) examination of the intellectual inconsistencies involved in racial politics, Coop flips the question through the front doors of the church:

how is this any different than the commitment so many in the church make to buy only from Christian-owned businesses?

This immediately brought to mind Steve Taylor’s 80’s insight in “Guilty by Association” -

So you need a new car?
Let your fingers take a walk
Through the business guide for the “born again” flock
You’ll be keeping all your money
In the kingdom now
And you’ll only drink milk from a Christian cow

Don’t you go casting your bread
To keep the heathen well-fed
Line Christian pockets instead
Avoid temptation

Guilty by association

What do you think?  When I observe my own patterns, I think that where the line is crossed is in the heart.  There are times I shop specific Christian-owned businesses because – a) I know the owners, and I want to help them stay in business during this tough time; or b) I have been their customer in the past and their honesty and values have kept me coming back (thinking specifically about a mechanic that has saved us hundreds of dollars via honest suggestions and estimates, and an appliance repairman with a similar reputation).  This is in line with both good stewardship (loving God) and loving my neighbor.

Where I think the line is crossed is when I either a) judge others for not using Christian-owned businesses; or b) I see myself as somehow ’superior’ for my “lining Christian pockets instead”.

A matter of the heart.

What do you think?

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A slight programming note:  I am taking my wife (and no children) on our first overseas vacation together ever, so I will not be on much – if at all – in the coming week and a half.  You can follow our pics and goings on at my personal blog (if we find a good wireless connection).  In my absence, you can expect that the other .Info guys will “watch the store” and maintain what order we have out here on the frontier.

So often I’ve tried to convince those in the blogosphere that what they are printing is false or less than accurate with no success.  But I can tell you that whenever someone sends me an email from the “source” I dismiss it out of hand because…well…that source is less than credible.

Often times we here try to point out that what is being promulgated as fact is actually skewed opinion wrapped with shreds of truth. This is done with a varying degree of success.

In lieu of the following article appearing this morning on MSN I will forgo my previous planned closing of the article.   Irish student hoaxes world’s media with fake quote.

The student Shane Fitzgerald had this to say:

“I am 100 percent convinced that if I hadn’t come forward, that quote would have gone down in history as something Maurice Jarre said, instead of something I made up,” he said. “It would have become another example where, once anything is printed enough times in the media without challenge, it becomes fact.”

This makes sense.

“And listen to the way he talks about us: ‘You shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life’ (Phil. 2:15-16). As Shawn Mullins sings, ‘we’re born to shimmer; we’re born to shine.’ You are supposed to shimmer. ‘Let your light shine before men’ (Matt. 5:16). All this groveling and self-deprecation done by Christians is often just shame masquerading as humility. Shame says, ‘I’m nothing to look at. I’m not capable of goodness.’ Humility says, ‘I bear a glory for sure, but it is a reflected glory. A grace given to me.’ Your story does not begin with sin. It begins with a glory bestowed upon you by God. It does not start in Genesis 3; it starts in Genesis 1. First things first, as they say.

“Certainly, you will admit that God is glorious. Is there anyone more kind? Is there anyone more creative? Is there anyone more valiant? Is there anyone more true? Is there anyone more daring? Is there anyone more beautiful? Is there anyone more wise? Is there anyone more generous? You are his offspring. His child. His reflection. His likeness. You bear his image. Do remember that though he made the heavens and the earth in all their glory, the desert and the open sea, the meadow and the Milk Way, and said, ‘It is good,’ it was only after he made you that he said, ‘It is very good’  (Gen. 1:31). Think of it: your original glory was greater than anything that’s ever taken you breath away.

“‘As for the saints who are in the land, they are the glorious ones in whom is all my delight’ (Ps. 16:3).

“God endowed you with a glory when he created you, a glory so deep and mythic that all creation pales in comparison.” (John Eldredge, Waking the Dead, 77-78; his emphasis.)

Be blessed today. Be glorious!