Did Facebook® Boycott Chick-fil-A®?
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| Image via CrunchBase |
What's this all about?
Former Arkansas governor-turned-talk-show-host Mike Huckabee floated the idea of organizing a "Chick-fil-A® Appreciation Day" for August 1st. He talked about it on his FOX News TV show last Sunday, launched a Facebook® page to promote it and by the following Tuesday morning had gathered over 100,000 supporters declaring their agreement with the concept. By late Tuesday morning, however, the page was gone. It seems Facebook® had removed it. After several news outlets pushed for an explanation, including Focus on the Family's Citizenlink®, the page suddenly reappeared last Wednesday. Shortly after, a Facebook®official emailed our team explaining the page was removed in error:
We mistakenly blocked an event as part of our spam prevention efforts and quickly worked to rectify the mistake as soon as we were notified.
Nevertheless, what's so controversial about encouraging people to express their support for a privately run business? Absolutely nothing, if you ask me. But consider Chick-fil-A® president Dan Cathy's initial remarks that sparked the furor in the first place: We are very much supporters of the family—the biblical definition of the family unit.
I suppose if you consider those comments to be offensive, you're likely to consider an event supporting their author's business to be offensive, too.
We're in the middle of one of the hottest summers in history, but there is a chill in the air.
Do you feel it?
When a good man who has devoted his life to managing a successful and upstanding business that's deeply committed to the community is labeled a bigot for supporting the traditional understanding of family, something is wrong. When a private grassroots effort to promote that man's business is deemed unfit for promotion, one gets the sense that something isradically wrong.
Dan Cathy and his corporation are deserving of praise. They love and serve all people—and are wonderful role models for how to engage a diverse public. It may strike you as somewhat odd to discuss persecution in the same paragraph as chicken sandwiches, but God works in all kinds of ways to ready us for the coming age. I believe the opposition we're seeing in this instance (and there have been others) is a hint of what's coming, and why should we be surprised? In John's gospel we read of Jesus' strong warning:
If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you ... If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. (John 15:18-20).
Jesus' words should serve as a balm to the weary Christian who feels like they're running an uphill race with little chance of victory. Christ reminds us that we shouldn't be shocked when ridicule comes our way. We shouldn't be surprised when things don't break in our favor. After all, if the powers of Jesus' day didn't favorably acknowledge Him, why should we expect them to warmly welcome us? As Christians, we must rise to the occasion and receive this treatment in stride. Although it can be frustrating to the flesh, we must love those who believe differently than we do. We must strive to see them as Jesus sees them.
