Starbucks Presents Decision Point for Faith Driven Consumers

March 28, 2013 by 1 Comment

What should Christians do when a corporate icon dismisses the biblical view of marriage and family? 

 

With alluring coffee-based confections that tempt even the most price-conscious taste buds to indulge, Starbucks has taken the world by storm since its founding in 1971 to become a global Fortune 500 icon showcasing American innovation and ingenuity.  

Its 2011 revenues of $11.7 billion, generated by the hard work of more than 149,000 employees in 17,000 stores, make Starbucks a company that can profoundly impact local communities in the 55 countries where it operates.

According to their website, Starbucks seeks to do good and be “a catalyst for positive change”. Its vision is to help customers “thrive” – while “respecting and bringing value” to the communities it serves.

But what if Starbucks – through its corporate actions – shows disrespect for a powerful and rapidly emerging group of consumers? What are the consequences if Starbucks actively invests in public policy initiatives that not only oppose a group’s values and worldview but ultimately undermine its prosperity and freedom?

In recent years this very situation has unfolded with Starbucks’ position toward the 46 million Americans known as Faith Driven Consumers. Although they represent 15 percent of the population, spend $1.75 trillion annually and drink plenty of coffee in their homes, offices and churches, Starbucks has supported state and national political efforts to redefine sexuality, marriage and family away from the natural, organic and biblical model.

Here, Starbucks was one of 203 companies to sign on to a brief encouraging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn California’s Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), both of which define marriage as being between one man and one woman.  

CEO Starbucks

Howard Shultaz, CEO of Starbucks. Picture from The Week

In 2011, under pressure from gay activists, CEO Howard Schultz cancelled at the last minute a contracted keynote speech to Christian leaders sponsored by evangelical megachurch Willow Creek in Illinois. And just last week at its annual shareholder meeting in Seattle, Schultz told a Faith Driven Consumer who questioned the impact of a Christian boycott on corporate performance to “sell your shares and buy stock in another company.”  

He stated that the company’s actions support diversity.  However, many people question how you can have true diversity by including some groups while excluding others, like Faith Driven Consumers, from the rainbow?  While views among Christians about how to respond to Starbucks’ support of political efforts that undermine the sanctity of marriage and family range from boycott and petition to a shrug of the shoulders, others encourage a “buycott” of companies that are more faith-compatible. 

It’s clear that Starbucks has chosen sides in the culture war and communicated to Faith Driven Consumers that their biblical worldview is neither welcomed nor respected.

Just as Starbucks has the freedom to choose which market segments it will pursue, so, too, do Faith Driven Consumers have the right to choose which companies they support based on their faith and values.  And just as God cares about a ten percent tithe, is He not also concerned about how well his people steward the remaining ninety percent entrusted to them?  

This begs the question:  Is it good stewardship to spend money with a company that directs significant proceeds to activities that undermine God’s created intent for sexuality, marriage and family – and ultimately threaten the cherished American religious freedom?

If not, perhaps it’s time for Faith Driven Consumers to take positive steps to choose a more faith-compatible alternative to Starbucks. While the options will vary from one community to the next, some to consider include Caribou Coffee, Dunkin Donuts and coffee produced by groups like Thrive Farmers Coffee.   

Faith Driven Consumers know that every choice matters and has stewardship consequences.  The corporate behavior of Starbucks presents Faith Driven Consumers with a decision point:  Choose this day whom you will serve.

Filed Under: Company Reviews, Culture Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Definition of marriage up for a vote in North Carolina

May 7, 2012 by Leave a Comment

On May 8, 2012, North Carolina voters will go to the polls to vote on North Carolina Senate Bill 514—also known as Amendment One.

For Faith Driven Consumers who seek, on a daily basis, to honor God and His revealed Word in all that they say and do– including voting – it is important to consider the full impact of what a vote in favor or against Amendment One actually does.

The purpose of the bill is to “amend the state constitution to provide that marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that should be valid or recognized in this state.” This amendment would prevent same-sex marriages, civil unions and other forms of domestic partnerships from being recognized by the state of North Carolina.

The proponents of this bill have made clear that its purpose is to protect the families of North Carolina. According to VoteForMarriageNC.com, the bill will protect families by doing the following:

  • “Protecting the interests of children is the primary reason that government regulates and licenses marriage in the first instance.”
  • “Marriage is a special relationship reserved exclusively for heterosexual unions, because only the intimate relationship between men and women has the ability to produce children as a result of that sexual union.”
  • “By encouraging men and women to marry, society helps ensure that children will be known by and cared for by their biological parents.”

Opponents of the bill suggest that the bill could do the following:

  • Harm North Carolina’s children” because parents in unmarried relationships may not be able to provide health care benefits to their children.
  • Have “negative effects on NC seniors” who are living with a partner but remain unmarried.
  • Have “dangerous consequences for NC women” because it “threatens domestic violence protections for unmarried women.”

While opponents of the bill believe that it could have negative effects on the people of North Carolina, proponents have done their research and refuted the opposition’s claims – recently running an ad to rebut the claims. Specifically, VoteForMarriageNC.com cites a “report from independent legal experts at Campbell University Law School, proving that this Amendment does not disrupt protection for all qualified citizens under our domestic violence laws, and nobody will lose health insurance benefits.”

While it’s easy to be swayed by emotional and heated rhetoric from both sides on a topic as culturally divisive as homosexual rights in society, Jesus clearly affirms the male-female paradigm for the ordering of human relationships in Mark 10:6-9 where he says, “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’  ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one.  Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

While some argue that the essence of marriage as an institution is to unite two people who are in love, Scripture supports that which natural law and tradition in virtually every culture across time and place has affirmed:  marriage is the bringing together of the two halves of humanity – male and female – in a societally recognized union that creates the safest and most stable arrangement for raising the next generation.

As such, marriage is not – nor has it ever been – primarily about adult wishes. Instead, from a social policy perspective, its role is focused on what’s best for children.  And here, social science research affirms that children have a deep longing for both a mother and a father, and that they do best on virtually every social indicator when raised by their biological parents in a stable, low-stress marriage.

Government has a vested interest in defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman in order to ensure the best possible context for the children that can potentially come from the sexual union of male and female.   In contrast, governmentally recognized unions involving same-sex couples signal that male and female no longer matter, that one sex or the other is dispensable and that children do not deserve both a mother and a father.

If you are registered to vote in North Carolina, learn the facts about Amendment One and vote your values on Tuesday, May 8th.

Filed Under: Culture, Politics, Traditional Family Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,