WHAT WOULD JESUS BUY? (WWJB?)

I have an idea. Howabout we Catholics
and Protestants reclaim the religious heritage of our nation’s sacred days for
ourselves and boycott what encroaches upon them? Why not, for example, make All
Saints Day bigger and more noticeable than it is now? Howabout placing saint
lanterns on our doorsteps on All Hallow’s Eve, while boycotting the
particularly gruesome Spirit Halloween stores, which litter the landscape every
October? (I’m recalling standing in line with my seven-year-old, trying to
distract him from the life-size phantom next to us, holding a bloody axe and
chanting with a sinister voice, “I’m going to cut your neck to the
bone!”) Howabout making or buying products that tell the real story of
Easter, as we share the true tale at home through our prayer, words, and home decorations?
Easter in America has been subsumed under a big bunny and hard boiled eggs. I
didn’t even know, until I was sixteen years old, that Easter Sunday had any
relation with religion, much less Jesus.

Our purchasing power can help evangelize the culture. The only thing that will
sway corporations is money, not morals, so why not speak to them in the only
way they know how to listen? If we don’t buy it. They won’t make it. If we buy
it, they will make more of it. This Christmas you can boycott Santa and his elves,
and anything else you wish. Instead, you can support Christ’s work on earth by
purchasing religious items, which celebrate the Real Christmas Story, and by
giving Fair Trade gifts.

Fair trade helps the poor help themselves. Small-scale artisans and farmers
receive all the benefits of eco-friendly fair trade items–a fair price,
long-term trading relationships, safe and healthy work places, and a social
premium to be invested in their community project. Through Catholic Relief
Services, in particular, Fair Trade funds are also recycled into grants to
assist more small-scale producers overseas and grow the marketplace in the
United States. Click here for an online catalogue of products, and click here
to purchase chocolate or coffee.

You may also wish to join a national boycott of companies that donate to
Planned Parenthood, the leading abortion provider in the United States. I was
shocked to find out that my bank, my credit card, my favorite airline, even my
jeans were implicated in this. Click on these sites to read past lists of
donors, and boycott away! (Newsinfaith.com,Lifenews.com
and an older and
informative list from an opposing viewpoint.) It curls the stomach to think
that companies such as Johnson & Johnson made the list. Everything from
Wheaties to Windex seems to be there. Do you like Coca Cola, but are willing to
switch to Pepsi? Nice try! Both were on the list.

An official current list of Planned Parenthood donors, which changes each year,
can be purchased through Life Decisions International. (Click here to order, and click here to read about LDI.) By ordering this list, you support
their ongoing research and efforts of exposing which companies support the
abortion industry. LDI estimates that the boycott has cost Planned Parenthood
more than $40 million since the Corporate Funding Project began nearly 18 years
ago. Since then over 256 corporations have stopped funding Planned parenthood.
Boycotting can make a difference for God!

BY CHRISTINE WATKINS