But is WalMart acting Christianly? That’s the question examined by Jeff Sellers at Christianity Today. He’s focusing on issues such as low wages and benefiting from sweat shop labor.
What you’ll find, however, is that the shots being taken at WalMart are the same fired by liberals at any major corporation—writ large because of WalMart’s size. I believe WalMart is more sensitive to the Christian market than any retailer out there.
I will continue to shop at WalMart, while I wish for competition that will provide a more pleasant experience and shopping alternatives that will be both practical and enriching.
--James Jewell
The reason that WalMart is taking bigger hits is because it so overwhelmingly dominates the retail marketplace. WalMart's imprimatur on a product can literally make or break a manufacturer, and its insistence on keeping the price point as low as possible (or they'll drop you) is all the pressure that (especially small) manufacturers need to cut costs any way that they can. So WalMart's decisions have a ripple effect in the economy out of proportion to its size (which is already huge to begin with).
YanıtlaSilThe question for Christians is, "If you really love your neighbor, can you support this kind of business model?" Ultimately, it's that simple. That fact that WalMart is more sensitive than other retailers to what Christians want to see on the shelves is, as far as I can see, irrelevant to the question of how those items got to the shelves in the first place.
What I hear you saying is that because WalMart is responsive to certain Christian concerns, and because other retailers have the same negatives as WalMart (though, see my first point), then you may as well keep buying there. What I suggest is that we all reevaluate our consumerism. Price and convenience aren't sufficient reasons to justify the destructive practices of any business.
Alternatives to the giant retailers already exist, but they require making changes to the way that we live.
First, stop buying so much stuff. Period. We don't need it, and what we do need we can learn to make for ourselves. Homemade alternatives to most storebought chemicals are cheaper, healthier, and if you have kids they are fun to make together as a family.
Second, look for just alternatives to the things that we do need. There are local farmers everywhere who are desparate to sell directly to consumers. The produce is better quality than the crap at the supermarket and you get the priviledge of meeting and supporting the beleaguered people who grow or raise your food.
We buy a half of a cow and some chickens from a local farm every year. It was less expensive, over all, than the hormone laden stuff we were buying at Costco or Fred Meyers. We also started making our own bread, which turned out to be a whole lot easier than I realized. The kids have a blast with it. And its one less thing that we have to buy.
Third, it can be overwhelming to think of switching from a mindless consumer lifestyle to a more conscious way of living. If you were raised the way that I was, you have to have someone show you how to do all of this stuff for yourself. So you have to do it in community with people where you can share the load. We found out that it was a great way to get to know our neighbors better and to connect with folks in our church that we wouldn't have met otherwise.
Finally, I think that there is a crucial aspect of spiritual formation at stake here. After years of involvement in church leadership, I am absolutely convinced that the greatest threat facing the discipleship of the believer is our culture's consumer mentality. It makes us view God as a product that we are shopping for.
It is an axiom in spiritual formation that, when you are struggling with a particular sin, you begin to do just the opposite as a means of countering your desires. Christians absolutely must counter the consumerist drive that motivates so much of our daily lives. We are enslaved to it, and it forces us to support activities that are 100% contrary to the Gospel. WalMart and its retail cousins are hardly the cause of consumerism; instead, they are the drug pushers who are feeding our habit. We may not be able to get rid of the dealer right away, but we can at least stop buying his junk.