Bonoprah

Bono and Oprah are two of the most powerful figures in the entertainment business. So naturally, it caught everyone’s attention when they “went red.” They are two key celebrities affiliated with the RED campaign, an idea to brand products and give proceeds from the sales to fight diseases – specifically HIV-AIDS - in third world nations. On the surface it seems like a good idea to “do the Red thing,” but I have my questions.

Bono explained the campaign this way, “Some people won’t put on marching boots, so we’ve got to get people where they are at, and they’re in the shopping malls. Now you’re buying jeans and T-shirts, and you’re paying for 10 women in Africa to get medication for their children with HIV” (quoted in Relevant Magazine, May/June, 2007).

My concerns are several-fold. First, I believe I can make a pretty good Biblical case that buying more “stuff” isn’t good for a nation of people who already live in a culture of excess. Then there’s the whole false sense of having done good. Have I really done something special by buying a “RED” iPod rather than the white one? And lest we miss this little ethical quandary, there’s the mix of consumer frenzy, corporate profit, and fund raising. Aren’t the big corporations just riding a “feel good for buying” wave to sell more of their stuff and increase their bottom lines?

As people who allegedly build our lives based on Biblical principles, we Christians are called to care for the world by taking up a cross like Jesus, not by taking up our shopping bags. I was troubled by this same issue when President Bush told us the very best thing we could do for our nation in the wake of 9/11/2001 was to continue spending. Even in the church, this is present. The issue is similar, yet even more theologically complicated in the church by “Prosperity Gospel” preachers of the cable-TV ilk and the mega-church on the corner that has turned our faith into one more consumer choice to make.

Commitment to following Christ is something more than our consumer choices. Following Jesus has to be something more than the “hip” church we choose, or how our T-shirt touts our cause in some chic/pop/relevant way. Commitment to Christ must mean something more than just the things we choose to buy, wear, eat, or drink. It must be more than all those things and yet include every one of those things.

In Matthew 10.32-42 Jesus talks about commitment to his cause. He gives startling and difficult words, saying, “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” In other words, commitment to Christ supersedes all things. He follows on by saying, “…anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”

Matthew 10.32-42
32"Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. 33But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.
34"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35For I have come to turn
'a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
36a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.’

37"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

40"He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who sent me. 41Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward, and anyone who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man's reward. 42And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward."