At the Sound of the Sackbut
Thousands of Starbucks are closing down today in order that their employees might––at the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer––fall down and worship the false god that Secularism the king hath set up. “Now, now,” you might say, “Starbucks is only doing mandatory racial sensitivity training for their employees, there aren’t any idols here!”
Let me change the scenario in an effort to show the hypocrisy of progressivism, and the inescapability of the morality that flows from what we worship. Say that Chic-Fil-A closed down a large portion of their stores in order to train their employees in the biblical view of marriage––i.e. one man and one woman, monogamous for life. Do you imagine that virtue signalers everywhere would </praise hands emoji>? Would they # their approval of Chic-Fil-A’s moral leadership and initiative? Do you think Buzzfeed would run an article, “Chic-Fil-A raising awareness for monogamous marriage is so adorbs, we can’t even”?
Mind you, if Chic-Fil-A required their employees to undergo a day of morality training, New York would feel invaded. The ladies on The View would be in––what my Grandma always called it––a tizzy. Jimmy Kimmel wouldn’t put any funny jokes in his nightly lecture monologue. We would hear all about the intolerance, the heavy-handed “preachy-ness” of what Chic-Fil-A was doing, how they were shoving their views down their employees’ throat.
Guilty Without A Trial
But make no mistake, this is precisely what Starbucks is doing today. Granted, it is Starbucks’ prerogative––as a private company––to run their company as they see fit. However, we must not be naïve here. The “training” that will be given today will not be starting with “If you’d turn in your Bibles…!” Rather, the priests of secularism will hand out their packets to the circle of disciples, and intone on the evils of white privilege, how damaging micro-aggressions are, and how guilty everyone needs to feel for Western Culture. The employees who called the police in the first place––who probably were a bit too trigger happy in making that call––have now brought down the wrath of the gods on all of Starbucks’ employees, and all must pay penance in order to appease.
Take your local Starbucks barista––let’s name him Tony––a mop-heaired college student who remembers your order most days, makes corny jokes, and hums Queen ballads while getting your Frappucino ready. He grew up in north Missouri, is pursuing veterinary medicine at the local state college, and has never been biased toward other ethnicities. He is going to be reprimanded for “implicit biases” he never knew he had. Further, he’ll be given material that explains what his moral framework should be making as it regards interacting with other ethnicities. He will be treated as guilty, without any sort of trial, and made to make amends for crimes he did not commit.
Worship & Morality Go Hand in Hand
We see in this that whatever an individual or group worship, will always influence their moral framework and behavior. The NFL has made it clear that they believe Nationalism should take center stage, and are requiring their employees to pay dutiful homage to the “Stars & Bars,” suppressing any other moral framework that would offend Nationalistic ardor (or perhaps to be more accurate: the bottom line).
Humans are moral beings, and we cannot escape the impulse to define right from wrong. The fall has, of course, rendered our moral judgement rather cloudy. We think we can willy-nilly define good and evil based on the standards of our own preferences and judgement. The reality is, however, that moral right and wrong are not in our purview to define. Wisdom and judgment come from above. Good and evil are not ours to define. We are to learn right from wrong from God and His revealed will, found in His Word. Starbucks is not doing something morally neutral here. They are making it clear that justice and morality must be taught, but they are turning to progressive & marxist categories to define and describe.
If you worked for Starbucks, today it would fall to you to stand upright and not attend the worship service unto Secular values. Today you should pull a Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. This isn’t about addressing the sin of racism. If it was, Starbucks would have invited Al Mohler, John Piper, Tim Keller, or Voddie Baucham to preach a sermon from Scripture outlining why racism is sinful, and how the answer is found in repentance and trust in Christ for forgiveness of our sins and reconciliation with each other. Christians who are interested in racial reconciliation must stop letting people who don’t love Jesus define the standards for how we deal with sins between various ethnic groups.
Finally, Jesus is the only way out of the messes we humans make. When we look with a dark eye towards our fellow human it is because we have reduced Jesus to merely a moral teacher amongst moral teachers; His opinion is set on the equal with the opinions of our own sinful hearts. Jesus is not a moral teacher, He is the Messiah and thus, the moral standard which condemns all of our hatred, strife and enmity towards our fellow man. It is only in Him that we will find grace to bend the sword of racial animosity into the sickle. We should not applaud when the secularists and the humanists fall down in worship of Nebuchadnezar’s statue.
Remember, secular morality is nothing other than works righteousness. It believes man can save himself. It believes that if we have enough training, we can deal with sin in the human heart. It cannot be done, and that Idol is turned to dust by the Rock of Ages. Morality flows from what we worship. If we would have truly moral morality, we must forsake the false gods which we are being instructed to pay homage to.
By the way… for the record, Chic-Fil-A closes down one day, every week, in order to teach their employees about morality.
