Why are people mad at Mickey? Beginning last year, some of the country's leading Christian ministries have signed on to a full-fledged boycott of Disney's television programs, feature films, theme parks, and other products.
There is good cause for alarm. Michael Eisner's Disney Inc. of the 1990s has become a multinational entertainment and media powerhouse, which now includes the ABC television network, that bears increasingly little similarity to founder Walt Disney's family-friendly company. Today Disney releases movies under its Touchstone and Miramax labels that would have made Uncle Walt blush. Also, its new policy of granting company benefits to live-in partners of homosexual workers has triggered an angry reaction from Christians.
BOYCOTT POPULARITY GROWS
While Disney's questionable corporate-benefits policy and backing of scandalous films like Priest are of grave concern and should be addressed, the boycott poses deeper questions: Are boycotts clearly Christian? What scriptural principles, if any, undergird the boycott method? And when do boycotts become counterproductive? These questions urgently need answers because the boycott is rapidly becoming the weapon of choice of Christians in the public square, in part, because boycotts have a broad-based, populist appeal.
Recently, Christians have pressed for boycotts with increasing frequency. Within the last year, they have advocated boycotts of drug manufacturer Hoechst AG for its product RU 486, the abortion pill; against tobacco firms Phillip Morris and R.J. Reynolds; against all French products until the government ends its nuclear weapons testing; and against Calvin Klein for his lewd ads.
The campaign to punish Disney or other groups through boycotts is an example of what historian Mark Noll describes as the essential failing of the American evangelical mind. We prefer doing something now to a carefully thought-through strategy for Christian public activism. We have not taken the time to articulate our response to a culture that does not share our core beliefs. As a result, we often appear reactionary and nostalgic.
Indeed, do we boycott every corporation with policies that are wrong-headed or sinful? Inconsistent application of a boycott in the end is counterproductive. And, unfortunately, the decision about who is subjected to a boycott often seems arbitrary.
Why is Disney being singled out? Other corporations, including Apple Computer and Ben & Jerry's ice cream, also grant benefits to "domestic partners." Perhaps Disney is being singled out because of its family-friendly image. While superficially plausible, this is simplistic. For Disney to be family-friendly does not mean that its corporate mission is to reinforce the Christian moral vision. Disney is an entertainment company, period.
We are mad at Disney for not living up to our expectations about how a family-friendly corporation should conduct its affairs. Are such expectations justified? Answering that question requires coherent public philosophy--an articulate Christian response to contemporary pluralism that is hostile or indifferent to biblical belief.
A coherent public philosophy defines Christian expectations for the larger culture. It answers a very important question: What can we rightly expect from our neighbors and our communities? Christians have assumed the prerogative to make demands on their neighbors, including the Fortune 500 companies, without explaining--either to themselves or their neighbors--why their neighbors should pay them heed.
LESS ACTION, MORE THOUGHT
Before we boycott Disney or anyone else to affirm our Christian moral perspective, and even before we develop a philosophy of what we can expect of our non-Christian neighbors, we must also ask: What ought we to expect of ourselves as a Christian community? A simple changing of the television channel or choosing not to enter a turnstile may be the best Christian response to a questionable Disney production--always being prepared, of course, to explain the convictions underlying our actions.
But the issue goes beyond corporate policies and products. It is about more than boycotts. The impact and message of the collective Christian presence in the public square is at stake. We have become too accustomed to acting first and thinking later. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and the black majority in South Africa all employed the boycott as part of a larger campaign to secure justice for their people. Their campaigns had a clarity our efforts lack. What is the larger cultural campaign that the Disney boycotters are engaged in?
Christians owe the nonbelieving public a little less action and a lot more thought. Believer-initiated boycotts have their place, but only when integrated into a biblical agenda of reconciliation between God and his people and between one another.
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