On Target

 

 

Good afternoon, reader. 

At some point this summer I plan to update the blog with family happenings, photos, and a basic life update from me; alas, that day is not today. 

As my kids aged, I made a decision to blog less about the day-to-day in our lives in part because life became so busy and in part in deference to their privacy. It's cute to blog about toddlers who're learning new things daily; it's less appropriate to blog about your pre-teen's saucy attitude and how often the two of you butt heads because she is just like you. I am slated to visit Scotland later this summer, the Lord willing, a trip that was originally scheduled for 2020, so I pray between now and August when the kids and I return to the classroom I have the time and energy to inundate you with details and photos. 

I began blogging many years ago primarily for two reasons, one being I had a young child whose life I wished to chronicle in some way, and two being the occasional urge I have to opine on a political topic of the day. It is this second reason that brings me to the blog today. 

Target has been the subject of much discussion on social media lately. And of course it has been on our minds and our lips because women love to shop at Target. Not one of us desire this complicated mess, but it is sadly a part of the complicated world in which we live, a world in which every last thing has become politicized, including where we choose to buy toilet paper and adorable throw pillows.

First, Target has for years not been your friend, Christian ladies. Whether it is June or any other month, you can always find a perverse use of the rainbow displayed on a T-shirt, often in the kids' section. They have always taken the money you give them and used some of it to fund people and organizations whose values are antithetical to those we hold and want to pass on to our children. Lately Target has seen some financial repercussions some believe are due to their increasingly overt attempts to push a misguided, perverse ideology. 

Rather than an organized boycott in this or other instances, I do believe in the market. What I mean is while many companies are led by people who're guided by a worldview that is antithetical to mine, what most of us want is to be able to shop without having to shield our kids' eyes. Target has for years used profits in ways I would not, and I have, at times, contributed to those profits, but as Target becomes increasingly bolder, as they stock swimsuits in the girls' section designed to help a male hide his genitals, well, we are entering new territory, and this is the reason for the recent pushback. Is their stock falling because shoppers have finally had enough? I don't know. There are always a myriad of factors influencing markets. I do hope they take note. I hope and pray they realize they went a step too far and adjust accordingly. I don't need a CEO who is in church every Sunday morning and leads VBS every summer; I do pray for CEOs who realize most Americans do not wish to take their daughter shopping for a swimsuit and have to weed out those suits designed for confused young men. I do not expect a pro-Christian shopping experience; what most of us want is neutrality, sanity. 

There is no easy, obvious answer for the Christian shopper. I do not believe there is one correct answer in this instance because a hard boycott of one store leaves you researching the values of those who head other stores and corporations, and you often will not like what you find. Unless we are going to grow or sew everything we need, we will hand our money to people and companies whose values don't align with ours. And what else would we expect? We are explicitly told we live in this world, but we are not to be of this world. 

Does it bother your conscience to shop at Target? If the answer is Yes, then shop elsewhere. Are we required to record our official stance on our social media feed? No. Can you make an effort to shop there less? To spend less there while not signing a blood oath to boycott completely? Of course.

Do we all have to arrive at the same position on this issue? No. I say this as someone who has had arguments over books with Christians, what books I should (and should not) read, what books I should and should not teach to teens who attend a Christian school. Do we all have to land on the same page on certain issues? Yes, we do, but I do not believe this is one of them. You can determine how you will proceed with regard to Target as well as other retailers who do not share your values and to whom you may be reluctant to give your money.

Realize nothing has actually changed; Target is the same corporation pushing the same worldview it pushed last year.

Our purview remains the same as well. We remain in this world while grappling with the knowledge we are not to be of this world. We remain the parents and teachers of young, impressionable people we are trying to steer to Heaven. We remain rooted in the knowledge that the world can twist and pervert what God intends for good, certainly including the rainbow and the complimentary nature of the two fixed sexes, but God remains on His throne.

This latest skirmish in the culture war that rages in America will not be the last. I implore you to view it on a macro level rather than becoming mired in the details of who shops where. There is certainly a culture war being waged in America, and Target is one of many corporations aligned with what are clearly dark forces, evil forces, but Target and even America are relatively new entities in this battle. Target's stock will rise and fall; nations will rise and fall, but what matters more than where you buy a throw pillow is raising young people who spend eternity in Heaven. Nations have no soul; corporations have no soul; your children have a soul, and they will spend eternity somewhere.

How you navigate Target, the month of June, and a hundred other issues with your children is up to you, but when they put their head on the pillow at night, they need to know they were made in the image of the living God who formed them as He saw fit; they are physically perfect in His eyes but in need of the salvation He offers through His Son whose blood is the only way back to their Creator.

Above all, do not become so focused on Target's rising and falling stock or where your neighbor shops that you lose sight of the tiny souls sleeping under your own roof, that you fail to recognize the opportunities before you in your classroom at church or at school. Young people don't even understand what it means that Target's stock is falling; they do understand the love and guidance and Godly teaching of a caring, attentive adult, and that is how you prepare them for the inferno into which they are slowly lowered as they age in modern America.

It is June in America, reader, and I encourage you to see this as an opportunity to live the words of "How Deep the Father's Love for Us" in your daily life:

AZ