Starbucks: Holy Detrimony

You may have heard of the recent comments made by the CEO of Starbucks.  His intolerance of those who support traditional marriage made me seriously question why we allow them on our Christian campuses.  I am all for free speech and freedom of religion.  I'm not about to demand that they see things my way or keep their mouth shut.  However, I do not think it is wise nor beneficial for them to continue to have a presence on our Christian campuses when they publicly oppose values and beliefs that we hold dear.  How can we profess to promote and preserve traditional marriage while at the same time having the "opposing team" occupying our own campuses?  Our message loses its value and credibility and our witness simply becomes a watered-down version of the greater American world-view.  Taking a stand is not very popular but we're not called to be popular and trendy.  We are called to be holy, blameless, a living sacrifice, Christ-like.  It is time to sacrifice our pride and possibly our reputation to defend what we know to be true and right.  Jesus upset a lot of folks with what He had to say.  The truth ended up costing Him his life.  What if He had remained silent?  We are called to be like Him.  We wear His name, for goodness sakes- Christians.  Think about that for a minute and let it sink in.  There is a time to be silent.  This is not that time!

If you have any ties to a Christian university, I encourage you to contact them and make them aware of Starbucks' public stance on traditional marriage and to strongly encourage them to terminate any existing contract with the company and to certainly not enter into one if they haven't already.  In the interest of time, I have included the message I sent to President Burks of Harding and President Lowry of Lipscomb, hopefully to prevent me from regurgitating all of it all over again in this post (too late for some of that. ;)).  I have also included their contact information for your convenience.  Please take a moment to let your voice be heard (politely and respectfully, please and thank you).  Let them know that you stand behind them in the decision to defend our Christian values and principles at the expense of any persecution or negative publicity that may come in its wake.  If you know of other Christian universities that have Starbucks on their campuses, please let us know in the comments section and include any contact information, if you can.  Thanks so much for your time and God Bless!

Lipscomb University
President Randy Lowry
Randy.Lowry@lipscomb.edu
615.966.1787

Harding University
President David Burks
president@harding.edu
General Information line: 501.279.4000

I have a concern that I wanted to bring to your attention in the hopes that the university will take necessary action to defend our Christian values.

First, have you seen the recent comments that the CEO of Starbucks made regarding (and towards) those who support traditional marriage?  Here is a link with more information:  http://joemiller.us/2013/03/starbucks-ceo-no-tolerance-for-traditional-marriage-supporters/ .

Now that Starbucks is openly and flagrantly politicking for gay marriage and displaying intolerance toward anyone opposed, I feel VERY strongly that they should no longer occupy our Christian campuses.  They do not support our values and in fact, are actively opposing what we as Christians are trying so hard to defend.  Their utter disrespect for our ethics and Christian principles is evidence enough that we have no business supporting them or having any affiliation with their company and certainly no business allowing them to profit on our own campus and off of our own students, their families, and faculty.  What kind of message are we sending by allowing this to continue?

There are plenty of coffee shops worthy of our support who also happen to support and defend our Christian values.  I would like to call for an immediate boycott of Starbucks and a termination of any contract they may have with the university.  I believe in religious freedom and they certainly have a right to their own opinion but we cannot in good conscience allow them to promote such views while occupying our campuses.  We can be polite, respectful, and loving in such an approach while also witnessing to the world that our faith is authentic and that we take it very seriously.  We cannot allow Starbucks or any other company to publicly hold such contrary beliefs on our own Christian campuses.  It goes against everything we stand for and only serves as a detriment to our witness.

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter and I pray that Starbucks' doors will close on our campus in the near future. 

In Him,
Stephanie