Hobby Lobby ad in Oregonian calls for a Christian theocracy

I'm not a fan of Hobby L0bby, to put it mildly.

When they opened a store here in Salem, Oregon, I did some research on the company and wrote a blog post that listed five good reasons not to shop at the store. Here, in headline form, is what I said shoppers at Hobby Lobby  were supporting:

(1) Denying contraception coverage to women employed by corporations owned by religious zealots.
(2) Teaching the Bible in public schools as "true" and "good." 
(3) Smuggling artifacts from Iraq, an act that supports terrorism.
(4) Supporting the election of Trump.
(5) Helping fund a $500 million Museum of the Bible.

Here's another reason not to shop at Hobby Lobby -- the company buys a full page ad in newspapers around the country close to July 4 that in very clear terms calls for the United States to be a Christian theocracy. 

This is a photo of the ad that ran in yesterday's Portland Oregonian. 


If you want to read it, here's a link to the ad on the Hobby Lobby web site. But wait... there's a better way to read Hobby Lobby's paean to theocracy.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation has put together a way-cool annotated version. You click on a quote in the Hobby Lobby ad, then you can read the quotation in its original form and context.

Often it turns out that Hobby Lobby has purposely mangled the quotation to make it better fit their Christian theocratic world view.  Many of the quotes are deliberately misleading, which shows how little respect Hobby Lobby has for truth-telling. 

A letter to the editor in the Eugene Register Guard does a good job of critiquing the Hobby Lobby ad.

The Register-Guard’s full page “paid advertisement” from Hobby Lobby on July 1 offends me on several grounds. One, it’s right-wing evangelism masquerading as a 4th of July ad. Two, it says “A good America is a Christian America.” Three, it uses misleading, out-of-context quotes as evidence.

I have nothing against Christianity or Jesus. I love them both. But mixing Jesus with government is dangerous and misguided. God and Christianity trump the Constitution. This ad offers random quotes — endorsements — for God-and-Christianity by a few Founding Fathers and 18th and 19th century judges. What’s not there: The founders and Supreme Court vehemently disapprove of mixing church and state.

Alas, somehow Hobby Lobby fell in love with theocracy. Hobby Lobby owners should watch “The Handmaid’s Tale.” It’s a feel-good series for everyone, and exactly what America needs.

 And here’s a tip for the R-G. Maybe try harder to discriminate between paid advertising and religious right recruitment? There’s even a clue in the bottom banner of the ad itself: “If you would like to know Jesus as Lord and Savior, visit Need Him Ministry ...” and “download a free Bible for your phone.”
     -- Michael Janover, Eugene

Janover is correct about the founders of our country being opposed to the United States becoming a Christian nation. I've written numerous blog posts on this subject. Check out my post, "More quotations from 'Nature's God,' a marvelously insightful book," for links to several of them. 

Here's some quotes from that book that I shared in the post:

The opposite of the Empire of Reason is in reality the Empire of Faith. Hobbes calls it "the Kingdom of the Fairies"; in more modern terms, we could say that the opposite of democracy is theocracy.

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Thus, superstition permits individuals suffering from one set of passions to feed off individuals suffering from another according to a logic that neither side understands, and in this manner society lacerates itself in a fury of thoughtless self-destruction. 

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No proposition could have elicited more support from the radical precursors to the American Revolution than that the priests are the chief instrument of tyrants.

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Human beings achieved self-government only after they learned how to discard the politically dangerous delusions that arise from the common religious consciousness. At least, that is more or less how America's founders saw the matter.

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The equality that Jefferson announced and that Lincoln partially advanced is at bottom the demand that all power must explain itself. In reality, the revolutionary force in the Declaration of Independence is the guiding principle of philosophy.

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Every thing in the universe strives to persist in being, say the radical philosophers, and the power of nature through which the human mind strives to persist is the power of the understanding.

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From the radical position that Locke and Spinoza share, it follows that religion is not a fundamental category of human experience for legal or political purposes in either its public or its private aspects.

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The separation of church and state that emerges from the early modern revolutions in philosophy and politics does not in fact imply that the modern secular state is or ought to be neutral with respect to religion in every sense of that term. Rather, this separation at least implicitly involves the creation of a certain kind of public religion.

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This new public religion is indeed tolerant of every religious belief -- but only insofar as that belief is understood to be intrinsically private. It does not and ought not tolerate any form of religion that attempts to hold the power of the sovereign answerable to its private religious belief. It also does not and ought not tolerate any attempt to shield the doctrines and practices of any religion from critical scrutiny.

Comments

[Sharon]

I wouldn't step into a Hobby Lobby if they were giving away my favorite crafting items. They are a frightening organization. ...Love the annotated fact checker for their ad. Great share!

[777]

Good Brian

You don't want a second Salem witch burning org

Why they have chosen Salem ?

77

[vinny]

Christian theocrats persecuted scientists and got them killed in former times. Having said that, America is a democracy due to Christians in majority, if this demographic balance shifts, it can become rogue nation, Immigrants are waiting for it to happen, by twisting the demography due to breeding like cockroaches, then covertly stealing American technology by voting for propped up non Christian scoundrels,descendants of feudal fanatics defeated by British empire in earlier times. Only solution of this immigrant rinderpest is suspend their voting rights.

[Dungeness]

"We have met the enemy and he is us". [from "Pogo" by W. Kelly]

[Dungeness]

"We have met the enemy and he is us". [from "Pogo" by W. Kelly]

[Spencer Tepper]

"This new public religion is indeed tolerant of every religious belief -- but only insofar as that belief is understood to be intrinsically private. It does not and ought not tolerate any form of religion that attempts to hold the power of the sovereign answerable to its private religious belief. It also does not and ought not tolerate any attempt to shield the doctrines and practices of any religion from critical scrutiny."

Jefferson tried to do this in his non-supernatural version of the gospel.

I would humbly suggest that we don't need another religion.

We do need to educate about religious fanaticism and how it inevitably violates most of the core tenets of the teachings that are the basis of those religions.

But like art appreciation, or poli-sci, or logic classes, a strong liberal arts education must include World Religions, Philosophy (which includes all versions of human purpose, especially Stoicism and Atheism), Ethics and Reason, and History of Religious Organizations.

Even in high school. We should use the power of intellect to objectively review the substance of beliefs, their noble and ignoble history. We are not going to eliminate belief
And at shouldn't eliminate choice. We can educate our kids to understand the objective picture and make smarter choices.

Then students can emerge with a foundation of pure ethics that do not require a system of belief, but a compassionate heart and a commitment to truth and personal progress. Then these principles help act as governors over the excesses of fanaticism.

"33When a foreigner resides with you in your land, you must not oppress him. 34You must treat the foreigner living among you as native-born and love him as yourself, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God."
Leviticus 19:33-34

[Spencer Tepper]

How to define religious fanaticism?

It is intolerant of critique, and incapable of objective self - evaluation.

Fanaticism can be identified by any system of belief, whether in a diety or a political platform, that violates the following three-word principle:

"Truth Invites Inspection."

[tucson]

Damn! A Hobby Lobby just opened up close to me. Don't want to support theocrats. No big, they don't carry much of what I need anyway.

Fortunately for Hobby Lobby many people are Christians and won't be offended by their message or what it portends. The parking lot was buzzing.

[777]

Don't forget

We are placed on a mafia planet
It's theirs

It enables us after vomit and do our thing of Sound and Light

777