"...jumped quickly into the fray suggesting that no more Chick-fil-A franchises be allowed in Chicago until the restaurant “reflect Chicago values.”

And I would have responded just as quickly, "are you sure you want to go there considering the city's history?"

Granted, Chicago isn't New York, but it's reputation isn't as glossy and shiny as the Mayor would like to think it is.

"In my next post I’ll look at why Christians seem to be as susceptible as everyone else to brand identity, and how the church as Christ’s body could be the community that fortifies against all identity imposters"

I look forward to your next post.

Good point. I wonder if self identifying with a brand also happens with denominations, if being Baptist or being Catholic is more important to us than following Christ?

It appears to me that you are making a convoluted leap between Dan Cathy's comments and some sort of brand identity discussion. The two seem unrelated to me.

I think the two issues are completely inter-related. In Simon Sinek's book Start With Why, he argues that people don't buy what you make or how you make it, they buy why you make it. They don't care what you do, they care why you do it.

Apple products are like the examples in the article of Disney and Chick-Fil-A - the products are decent, well-made, etc. But the reason most people buy them is because they buy into WHY Apple exists. They buy the computer to make an identity statement revolving around the cultural ethos of Apple, which has to do with challenging the status quo, "Think Different," etc.

I see the Chick-Fil-A thing as brand identity being extended to arenas it hasn't gone yet. I think the two are very related.

Great perspective, David. This is why I think Out of Ur is one of the best Christian blogs when it comes to social issues facing Christians. The branding of our identities remains an insidious challenge to our confession that "Jesus is Lord." The god of mammon takes on many hues in our culture. I'm curious if you'll touch on the brand identities that exist within Christian subculture as well...I.E. Missional, Neo-Reformed, Emergent, Progressive, etc.

I wonder if we've lost the ability to give ourselves to anything that isn't branded anymore.

And thanks for the helpful example, Ben.

@elegance- I think Ben did a good job showing that this isn't a convoluted leap.

@Ben- glad I'm not alone in thinking this!

The Chickfila media frenzy has started because of branding, but nothing of the commercial / consumerism sort. It has to do with sexual branding and the LGBT push to create a normalized brand for their sexual preference or identity as they like to claim. They all have the same sexual organs as any heterosexual yet claim there is some "normal" "other" use for these same organs because they derive pleasure and meaning from it. They want to claim hate, bigotry, and criminality from anyone who thinks its all a contrived emotional, spiritual, willful, mental, moral scam. It appears from this article that this foundational element of the frenzy is completely ignored, and the point is twisted to point to some dilemma with believers. If we want to talk about church branding, fine there are issues there, but the Chicfila situation is not even close to the same issues at stake.

I think I'm distracted in the same way as Tim from the point Dave is trying to make by the fact that in either case (Disney or Chick-fil-A), the issue seems to me to be not so much brand identity as moral clarity or even truth. For me also, the issue in calling for boycotts is not one of brand identification per se, but of using political manipulation to attain or express a spiritual end. I'm very ambivalent about that, regardless of which side of the debate one wants to influence. Just some honest thoughts . . .

@Karen, perhaps another way to come at my point would be to ask, Why Disney? Why Chick-fil-A? There are certainly many, many other companies that Christians on both sides of the culture war would take issue with (as related to corporate practices, environmental impact, treatment of workers, what causes their charities support, etc) and yet which don't receive the threat of a boycott. It seems to me that certain companies have mastered the art of brand identification such that consumers (even Christians) feel left with no option but to boycott with it becomes glaringly clear that the company's values are odds with their own. For those whose identities are secured by Christ alone this seems rather problematic.

Thanks, Dave. Yes, that helps. You are pointing to the fact (among other things, perhaps) that both Disney and Chick-fil-A have positioned themselves to appeal to a certain demographic by advertising as either having conservative Christian "family friendly" values (among other things) or as LBGT "family friendly" in their corporate choices. I wonder if what draws people on either side into the net of identification with these corporations is that both target (in their own way) families and/or children, rather than some particular social strata, other special interest group or individualistic concerns. I think we saw this happen, too, when Proctor-Gambol (or was it Mattel?), manufacturer of games and toys (again the issue is influencing children), used a symbol that was rumored to be occult (it was not, but that was the "urban legend" going around). I don't know if that totally explains things, but somehow protecting our kids (particularly around sexual-religious issues) seems to be a special hot-button requiring "action." I'm still not quite connecting how identity in Christ alone allows us to remove ourselves from getting sucked into that dynamic, but I'll reread your thoughts and give it some more reflection.

Whatever happened to freedom of speech? Why must a business whos owners think a certain way be chastised by boycotts? People should be allowed to think as they want without forcing other peoples ideas down their throat, or else.
These boycotts and protests against companies, because of their ideas, are akin to Hitler. Our way or get out of business.

"These boycotts and protests against companies, because of their ideas, are akin to Hitler. Our way or get out of business."

Now you've gone and done it...Godwin's Law.

"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

What about churches that implement this idea of branding? I guess it is off topic, but as I read about the "identity-forming power of brands," I thought of the churches that have worked to develop their "Brands" in the past few years. It is hard to look to the church as a solution to "fortif(y) against ...identity imposters" when the church is focused on creating intense loyalty to its brand in connection with a person's faith in Jesus.

Some thoughts after further reflection (and probably to be continued mostly offline) . . .. Dave asks why *these* corporations and not others? I agree there are many others that also violate Christian standards in their policies. I think that's a good question.

Identification with Christ for me suggests that we identify not just with certain of Christ's commands, but ALL of them, but most of us cannot completely check out of this world system. We have family members to support, etc. Thus Christian conservatives (like me) tend to gravitate toward certain hot-button cultural issues like abortion and gay "marriage," but not notice others that other equally Christian (I would argue) folks notice like exploitation of the poor, personal and corporate greed, poor stewardship of our environment, or even having a propensity to point the finger and judge--in the sense of condemn--others as a way of establishing (at least in a relative sense) one's own "righteousness." (For others it is perhaps the reverse.)

Observing the accounts of His response to the Pharisees in the Gospels, one might reasonably conclude that Christ opposes this latter sin of self-righteous hypocrisy more vigorously than any other kind. Similarly, the Fathers (like St. John of the Ladder) mention that vices like pride, insensitivity and vainglory (sins of the heart/mind) that often accompany the conquest of personal sins of a more bestial nature are more serious and dangerous for our souls than many of the more gross sins of the bodily lusts. (A lot of us conventionally conservative religious folks, the more biblically literate of whom perhaps would agree theoretically with this, likely many times in practice tend not to notice that this is what is going on a lot of the time with us. That blindness is the very nature of such hypocrisy. But I digress a little.)

A radical identification with Christ in ALL of His commands is what led the earliest monastics, in the wake of the flood of nominal Christians into the fold of the Church after Christianity became legal in the Roman Empire and the cessation of persecution and martyrdom, to renounce (boycott) ALL worldly relationships and commerce and to go rather into the deserts to do battle with the enemy of souls in their own hearts by devoting themselves completely to the spiritual disciplines of fasting, abstinence, obedience, and prayer, etc., for the sake of their complete transformation into the likeness of Christ. Whether we do this literally or in a relative way trying to live more simply, prayerfully and self-sacrificially while fulfilling our obligations within the world, we are still called to to live in this kind of radical identification with and obedience to Christ.

Hey, I thought I was the only one. I *also* have on my "anti-bucket list" to never set foot in Disney World. Not for any boycott/moral reason, but because I would rather walk into the woods and experience something real than stand in line to experience something artificial and hyped. It's a lot less expensive, too.
No Chick Fil-As in our part of upstate New York, so my stance on this must be from the non-involved sidelines. It seems to me that the arrogance and intolerance of the homosexual advocates, and their cheerleaders, is more the issue here. I would not be surprised if the reaction to their attack ends up giving a great boost to Chick-fil-A's business (lots of free publicity, that's for sure). That seems to be a suitable come-up-ance for those who are so militant in forcing their anti-biblical stance on the rest of us. I don't think we have to find any thing sinister or unhealthy in the Christians who take offense at the attack and react by going to get a sandwich. They are not being commercially "branded," they are simply expressing themselves in a concrete way on a conviction of deep concern.

Karen, I agree with you for the most part regarding non-sexual sin on the part of Christians that is often overlooked. However, I would like to to make two observations. When you speak of the sin of "...exploitation of the poor, personal and corporate greed, poor stewardship of our environment..." these sins are very subjective. Sexual sins are concrete.While I concur that all sin is the result of the condition of the heart, I can observe a person of wealth and judge them to be greedy (by my definition) and be completely wrong about where their heart is (maybe they are helping others in ways I cannot see). Additionally, I have never seen greed presented as a God-given alternate lifestyle or as a proclivity that one is born with that must be celebrated. But when a person demands publicly that their sexual lifestyle be accepted and celebrated by all, yes, even in the church, then we are on a totally different playing field. 1Co 6:18 states, " Keep on running away from sexual immorality. Any other sin that a person commits is outside his body, but the person who sins sexually sins against his own body."

anyone who connects selling any commodity to any kind of political stance in the culture war is either deluded or cynical.

and everyone who rushed off to protest this company or support it during this fake issue was duped.

I am a Christian and I stand behind Chick-fil-A's 100%. God's word teaches that he made Eve to be Adom's mate and not Steve. That is man and woman not man and man or woman and woman. I hold nothing againt them for what they feel but this is what God said is a sin . I have to stand by the word of God against same sex marriages.

"I am a Christian and I stand behind Chick-fil-A's 100%. God's word teaches that he made Eve to be Adom's mate and not Steve...."

How did you conflate the word of G-d with a business?

How?

And it wasn't "Chick-fil-A's" who is saying this...it is the CEO, Dan Cathy, and there is already one Chick fil A franchise owner who is coming out in support of the whole gay marriage thing.

So...really, come on, this...this is too much!

Elegance, I certainly wouldn’t want to totally discount your point about “subjective” sins. I readily concede your point that discerning whether a particular *other* individual is being greedy, exercising poor stewardship, etc., is something difficult to do with anything near full accuracy, and that there isn’t a direct correspondence with degree of wealth and level of covetousness or greed, for example. (Poor people can have a sinful, unhealthy attachment to possessions as a result of their poverty as well.) On the other hand, I seriously doubt Christ would agree that these kind of sins when they actually occur (and can be discerned at least about ourselves within our own hearts), are any less objectively sin or destructively sinful than sexual sin. Certainly those being oppressed and exploited don’t experience these sins against them as anything but very concrete. In analyzing cultural statistical trends and correlations, actual corporate practices, actual conditions of many workers worldwide, history of industrial practices and their effects on the environment and on the working population, reports uncovering various scandals related to the aforementioned issues, etc., there often come to light some very concrete situations we can recognize as the result of some very concrete sins apart from the sexual variety. How culpable the various individuals implicated by those sins are is a separate issue perhaps and one that only the Lord (even with sexual sins) can judge with full accuracy, but we can see where sin as objective dysfunction and wrongdoing occurs even apart from sins of a sexual nature.

On the matter of sexual sin and what you would argue is the relative ease of determining what that is, there is still the matter of degrees of individual culpability and willfulness in that sin and the degree of obstacle to faith or repentance that in turn creates. It is interesting to me, for example, that of the three women mentioned in Christ’s genealogy (and very unusual for women to be mentioned at all in this context, for starters), two of the women, Rahab and Tamar, were guilty of prostitution and incest, respectively, and both were guilty of willful deception. Sexual sin is indeed against our own body and is self-destructive in a very overt physical, emotional, and social way we can tangibly recognize perhaps. I don’t think that the point made by the Apostle Paul that sexual sin destroys one’s own body means that sexual sin is more destructive or serious than other kinds, but only that its destructiveness is more immediately and readily obvious to the one entrapped in it (thus the Apostle’s appeal to self-interest). All sin is destructive and separates us from God, and in my previous comment about the Pharisees who opposed Jesus (there were other Pharisees of a more virtuous kind like Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus), I have already argued that the strength of Jesus’ reactions shows it was their type of sin that was the most insidious and dangerous of all because everything looked so subjectively “right” and good about what they were doing from the standpoint of the external religious standards of the time, but inside their own hearts they were still totally corrupt and utterly cut off from God. In another place He accused them of being “blind guides” making others “twice as fit for hell” as they were themselves! In my comments about these kinds of sins, I was really looking at my own blind spots and weaknesses and calling those out for what I believe they are.

Karen, I don't disagree with you.

Paul and other biblical writers stated a few times in various ways that sexual sin is a greater sin than other sins. Some people's attempts to say that the sin is only worse because it is more"immediately apparent "really stretches the point they are trying to make, and takes away what God is saying clearly in these verses. I think it's apparent that some are guilty of eisegesis, and instead of trying to sound so scholarly, should just read the Scriptures for what they're saying and don't read into it your own ideas and opinions, telling us that is what God means, when there is nothing at all implying that.

"Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body."
1Cor 6:18-20 This is very clear, even though it sounds like you wish it weren't so.

Candy, obviously I don't agree with that. Willful hypocrisy and blasphemy of the Holy Spirit are greater sins according to the Lord Himself. It seems to me a stretch to say that St. Paul's statement that "every other sin . . . is outside the body" means that every other sin is therefore not as destructive or evil. Eisegesis is indeed a danger for us all. I'm not a Gk scholar (not a scholar at all), so I could be wrong in my interpretation of this verse, and my point is certainly not to minimize the seriousness of sexual sin. The thrust of my point was that we should not let a focus on one kind of sin allow us to become complacent or calloused about other kinds of sin (especially in those cases where it may be more likely for us to become complicit in those other sorts of sin, because we ourselves are not so tempted by sexual sins). Does the NT not also teach that the person who breaks one of the commandments of God has broken them all? So, apparently, there is also a common thread and interconnection between all varieties of sin, and maybe trying to make hierarchies of sins is missing the point altogether.

I think that - getting back to the Chick-Fil-A thing - the issue is that we all know that the homosexual community is on the march to force acceptance and embracing of the lifestyle within the church. The goal here is to completely silence Christians. Mr. Cathy was set up to make a statement that could then be used against him and his business as well as to divide the Christian community. The fact that he has privately given his own money to pro-family groups is considered a terrible thing and also used against him. There is no group out there that is trying to force greed or exploitation of the poor or any of the difficult to observe sins on the church nor is there any church that feels compelled to embrace those things as an alternate lifestyle. No one claims to be born greedy and therefore in need of exercising their greed so I think it is quite fair to take the issue of homosexuality more seriously here. Having been abused sexually as a teenager, I can truthfully say that I would far prefer to be exploited and poor or the victim of someone's greed than to be engaged in sexual sin. Sexual sin always has innocent victims who are scarred for life.

Doesn't the Bible provide guidance in how to attempt to resolve conflict between fellow believers? I"m not a expert on the Bible but doesn't it start with contacting the person you have a difference with directly. Than if that doesn't work go to the elders of the church and ask for thier help. If that doesn't work switch churches. I wonder how many Christians that have a different perpective on the issue of marriage than Mr. Cathy has followed this approach.

Dan, I think the Scripture you allude to in its own context doesn't pertain to the kind of conflict that concerns differences of theological opinion--where there may be a range of opinion allowable within what would be the non-debatabe dogmatic markers of true "orthodoxy." Rather this passage concerns real infractions of moral law or the non-debatable parts of Christian teaching where one believer persists in sin and in wronging another believer. This really isn't the case in what has happened with Mr. Cathy as far as I can see.

Much of the time when we shop we’re probably not assuming the storeowner shares our particular values and beliefs. This is true of both small businesses and larger corporations: the thought of shared values doesn’t cross my mind at the local hot dog joint nor while picking up a prescription at Walgreens.

Perhaps it should cross your mind, and all of our minds. It crosses my mind...for the sake of the $$ that these companies give to organizations and causes that are in direct conflict with my Christian values. For example, how do I justify putting money in the pocket of some company who is going to send those dollars to organizations that support abortions or to PACs that support efforts to limit religious freedoms? I think we have a responsibility to know who/what we are indirectly funding through our purchase dollars.

Mr. Cathy answered to a question as to why he closes his restaurant on Sundays. Well, because he's a Christian and believes Sunday belongs to families and the Church. By families he means a mom and a dad and their children, not two men or two women. He also hires legal immigrants and those down and out, besides helping legal immigrants to take courses for English, etc. to help their move into the community. Than the homosexuals attacked him. One wonders why they are reading what a Christian is saying in a Christian interview any way. He did not back up, apologize, etc. which made them madder. Unlike Disney who caved into the homosexuals and gave their homosexual employees exactly what they wanted. Now, Disney being about children playtime and not the restaurant business shouldn't be having homosexuals working for them as homosexuals want to force sexual teachings on children in schools, etc. so kids can be approached by homosexuals as they grow up. Having homosexuals around after puberty boys should be a wakeup to parents taking their boys to Disney. Better take the boys to Chick fil A for a good meal where the astmosphere and servers are family oriented and not homosexual oriented. This is not an act of Chick fil A trying to "brand" but refusing to cave into the homosexuals. And the boycott was suggested by an outside not paid by Chick fil A politician and not by Mr. Cathy.

"The goal here is to completely silence Christians." Elegant

My husband and I proudly went to our nearest CFA and supported them. It took over an hour to get our food, but I was really impressed with the mood of the place. Everybody seemed to be joyful, noboby was impatient,etc. As I stood around, I talked to several other people there, and the one thing I heard over and over was: This is not just a religious thing, this is also a constitutional thing. Gay people have a right to practice their lifestyle and even celebrate it if they want. However, when a Christian dares to express their opinion opposing the gay rights movement, the other side gets hysterical and threatens them. For Pete's sake, what happened to the First Amendment? Isn't this why America is supposed to be a shining light to the other nations, because we tolerate everybody's different points of view?

The closest thing to branding that I heard was when one lady told me, "They picked on the wrong restaurant. Maybe they could have gotten away with it if it had been [another national chain]. Here in the South, however, we've always loved Chick-Fil-A because they close on Sundays."

Even with this example, though, I don't see myself as some helpless victim of branding by a cynical company. When the Cathy family founded CFA thirty years ago, they incorporated their Christian worldview into the structure of their company. Since I agree with that worldview, then why shouldn't I support this company? That and the fact that I absolutely love their chicken sandwiches and their chocolate shakes. :)

On a side note, hubby and I do not protest things lighty. A month ago, my cousin told us that we should be boycotting Starbucks because they support gay rights. Several years ago James Dobson said the same thing about Wells Fargo. Well, we still bank with WF and buy our coffee at SB, because we like those companies and we figure that acceptance of homosexuality has so saturated our culture now that you can't get away from it.

And whoever made the point that greedy, violent people don't claim that God made them that way so the rest of us should just have to accept them, kudos. I thought that was an excellent observation.