A big rig rolled past our family bike caravan. The driver delighted our kids by laying on his air horn as we waved to him.
With four kids under age ten in quarantine, we seek and savor all our outdoor moments. Our family bike rides these days make us look at the traffic all around us in a new way. This weekend we particularly noticed the delivery vans and freight trucks on the roads–all busy hauling packages and pallets full of food, toilet paper, and medical supplies.
This global pandemic has created heartache, but it has also revealed new heroes. Amid the public health and economic pain inflicted by this virus, we also see it chipping away at old stereotypes and dismantling our chronic underappreciation of service roles in our economy. The men and women cleaning hospital rooms, stocking grocery shelves, and navigating delivery routes are no longer assumed, but esteemed.
“In 39 years, I don’t recall ever being thanked for just being a truck driver before,” shared Allen Boyd about driving for Walmart during the pandemic. “I appreciate being thanked for a change. I hope that it’s not just during this time and when it goes away, we’re back to just being in everybody’s way again.”
Photo source: Milo Manara, Washington Post
Though truck driving is one of the most common occupations in the United States, itisnot generally an occupation held in high esteem. Until now. Just how would we survive without them? This has always been true, of course. But now we feel it. Whether it’s Amazon, Grubhub, Prime Trailer or USPS–these men and women make widespread quarantine and flattening the curve possible.
God designed us to work. Before sin entered the world and marred both how we work and how we view work, God made it for us. Creating value through our own labor is core to what it means to be human.
“Right now I feel proud,” shared Jorge Chavez, a truck driver. “I feel good because somehow we’re helping the community to make sure that they get whatever they need in their homes.”
For the last two decades, my older brother, Matthew, has served as a cashier’s assistant at Costco. While I’ve always believed in the dignity and importance of his work, this pandemic certainly magnified it. While many of us hunker down, Matthew ventures out. He takes pride in his work and he should. Matthew, his colleagues, and the 3 million grocery store workers in the US make it possible for the rest of us to withdraw–at significant risk to themselves.
We will come out of this peril with new scars, but also with new heroes. The teenager stocking the soup and pasta aisle isn’t in our way. He diminishes his safety to make our daily meals possible. The woman mopping the bank floors and teller counters isn’t an afterthought. She ensures we’re all healthy and safe. The man driving the truck on the freeway isn’t clogging the passing lane. He keeps our society working. May we never again forget it.
It’s not an exaggeration to say the world turned upside down, almost overnight.
The spread of COVID-19 shut down schools, professional sports, travel, gatherings, and changed our entire way of life. The rapidly evolving situation creates challenges in disseminating accurate and timely information, but here are a few of the best I’ve found:
There are several reasons that now is an almost uniquely important moment for local leaders. We have become accustomed to culture being shaped “somewhere else” — by elected officials, especially national ones; by celebrities; by media. But we are dealing with a virus that is transmitted person to person, in small and large groups of actual people. This is not a virtual crisis — it is a local, embodied one. Local, embodied responses will quite literally mean life and death for people.
Max Roser, “Coronavirus Disease: Research and Statistics.” Our World in Data takes makes data and research on the world’s largest problems understandable and accessible. For those on Twitter, I particularly commend following Max, as he effectively makes clear what is almost impossibly complex. Max’s thoughts outlining the need to #flattenthecurve are clear and compelling.
In this moment, the question I’m asking is what this pandemic will mean for global philanthropy. Like every aspect of society, there is much we don’t know. Will the markets bounce back? How will the virus affect those countries with less robust healthcare systems, particularly countries in the Global South? But regardless of the answers, there will be significant short-term consequences for the social sector. A few reflections on how nonprofit and philanthropic leaders can respond:
For philanthropists:
Be transparent: When the stock market drops 20% over a week, it affects all of us. The fear of the unknown will consume many nonprofit organizations as they do continuity and contingency planning. The best approach philanthropists can take in this moment is to be abundantly clear in their intentions and capacity, even if–and perhaps particularly–if there’s a need to communicate bad news.
Practice “catastrophe philanthropy”: Hospitals worldwide have begun implementing “catastrophe medicine,” wartime triage tactics to handle the crisis. And, philanthropists may need to apply this to sustain the most-affected organizations. Institutions like 1Mission, who rely heavily on global trip revenue, and local churches that depend on weekly offerings (which may evaporate amid the quarantine) face uniquely severe challenges right now. We need to find and spotlight these opportunities and respond.
Give generously: For all of us, the temptation right now is to batten down our financial hatches. But while we quarantine our communities, we must not quarantine our generosity while we await a return to normalcy. When Paul wrote the following words to Timothy, the environment was much more like our world today than the pre-COV-19 world. The call for Christian generosity is not contingent upon the health of our economy, nor the stability of our healthcare.
“As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.” – 1 Timothy 6:17-19
For nonprofit leaders:
Cancel or convert gatherings: As many have noted, COVID-19 has not spread as quickly in places that have taken strong, early measures in reducing opportunities for the virus to spread. South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore each began an early and aggressive approach to public gatherings. We should cancel gatherings (or convert to virtual) not because the virus poses significant risks to everyone, but because of the extreme risks it poses to the elderly and infirmed–our most vulnerable neighbors.
Promote remote engagement: If the work can be done remotely, it probably should be. Because the virus can be spread even when the infected aren’t yet experiencing symptoms, we’re commending remote work where possible (and for many, it’s not). Conference calls and webcasts pale in comparison to face-to-face meetings and gatherings, but the risks far outweigh the benefits of pursuing business as usual.
Find quarantine opportunities: At HOPE, as we postpone gatherings, shift to virtual meetings, spend more conservatively, and cancel travel, this new quarantine moment will create margin for us and other nonprofits to pursue our work differently. We’re actively exploring how we can find opportunities in this new moment: The quarantine may provide space for better long-term planning, more virtual corporate prayer gatherings, “spring cleaning” of our physical and digital spaces and files, and creative job-sharing to ensure even our staff without the capacity to do their jobs remotely will be able to contribute meaningfully.
In this month‘s issue of Christianity Today, you’ll read the following article I co-wrote with my colleague, Claire Stewart.
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Americans do the most shopping during the last two months on the calendar, fulfilling Christmas gift lists, taking advantage of online deals, and snagging up holiday favorites at local stores. But the spendiest season of the year also offers a broadening array of moral dilemmas regarding our consumerism and a yearning to make something better of it.
Beyond Black Friday and Cyber Monday and Giving Tuesday—lest the holiday gift of charity be overlooked—the shopping season now brings sustainable gift guides, fair trade festivals, promotions from charity-minded startups, and shop local movements like Small Business Saturdays. The ethical options force us, as Christians and as consumers, to think more deeply about the items we buy year-round, the companies we support, and how we steward our money and resources.
Take any product we’ve purchased, and we could probably tell you how much it cost and the store it came from. A $55 duffel bag from REI. A $9,000 used Subaru Impreza. A $10 V-neck tee from Target. But beyond that, plenty of questions go unanswered: What materials were used? How much waste was created? Who made the components? Were the workers cared for at each step in the process? How far did these elements travel to get here?
“The modern market economy adds layers of complexity between production and consumption, which makes it hard to see the impact of each choice we make,” said Hunter Beaumont, pastor at Fellowship Denver and a board member with the Denver Institute for Faith and Work. “A lot of our Christian moral convictions were shaped in a simpler economy, and it can feel paralyzing to apply those convictions to our complex, modern economy.”
We want to become more conscious consumers, and more shoppers are weighing the global consequences of their purchases before they click “checkout.” Millennials are the generation most likely to care about corporate behavior, and Gen Z is catching up fast.
But for every feel-good story of a socially conscious company, there is a report exposing the other side of the marketplace and our worst fears about what major companies do with our dollars: Nike sidestepping responsibility for human rights abuses in its supply chain and Amazon selling counterfeit books.
It’s no surprise that modern consumers are well versed in the moral dilemmas accompanying every purchase. We’re confronted with the choice between unprecedented convenience and affordability and a sense of responsibility to hold companies accountable to honor all their stakeholders and care for God’s creation.
So how are Christians called to faithfully steward our consumer decisions? Is it even possible? The answer may lie in the unlikely founder of the fair trade movement and the Christian convictions that can lead us to challenge the system of consumerism itself.
The Mennonite crafter who unintentionally started a movement
When Edna Ruth Byler began selling textiles from the back of her car in 1946, the concept of conscious consumerism was far from mainstream, and no one had heard of fair trade. Byler, a traditional Mennonite who donned a head covering and was known for her homemade donuts, started with a simple desire to help vulnerable women she met in the La Plata Valley of Puerto Rico.
Byler taught baking, sewing, and canning and belonged to a group that formed a new local church in Akron, Pennsylvania, where she and her husband worked for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). Their involvement eventually opened up opportunities to visit vulnerable communities in Puerto Rico and later in Hong Kong, Jordan, and beyond.
Ruth Edna Byler (Photo source: Yes! Magazine)
In each place, she connected with women who overcame enormous obstacles to provide for their families and serve their neighbors. Like many who would come after her, she jumped without looking—promising to help these women by selling their handiwork in the United States, not knowing how she would make her idea work but determined to do so.
“There is a human story behind every product.” – Whitney Bauck
She led MCC’s Overseas Needlework and Crafts Project for over 20 years before it was renamed SELFHELP Crafts of the World, which grew into the now independent and popular chain Ten Thousand Villages.
Ten Thousand Villages is the first fair trade organization in the world and remains one of the largest and best-known. Byler never intended to pioneer a movement that today connects shoppers to over a million small-scale makers around the world. But her Christian commitment to treating these makers with dignity and celebrating the beauty of their craft developed momentum.
Similar organizations emerged in Europe, and by the ‘60s and ‘70s the movement entered the political sphere to advocate for greater equity in international trade—not only in handicrafts, but also in agricultural commodities such as coffee and cocoa.
Around the same time, America’s understanding of corporate social responsibility began to thread together. The Committee for Economic Development—an American public policy organization— declared that there was a “social contract” between business and society, building on economist Henry Bowen’s 1953 book Social Responsibilities of the Businessman.
The idea of businesses working for a greater good, and not just a bottom line, grew over the ‘80s and ‘90s, spurred on in part by President George H. W. Bush’s call for organizations to serve each other and create a “thousand points of light.”
The double bottom line
While the fair trade movement focuses on caring for people and the planet first, corporate social responsibility is intended to keep companies accountable to social impact as a secondary objective. Both movements have intensified in recent years, raising the bar for ethical standards and giving us new opportunities to have a positive impact with our spending.
It’s firmly rooted in the mainstream business world; so much so that consumers, the media, and even governments have come to expect companies to do some form of social good.
Large corporations’ sustainability efforts can have the potential to make a major difference and influence a whole industry—but only if companies are following through with the do-good promises pushed in their brochures and ads.
Though corporate social responsibility has become part of doing business, the level of commitment to the cause varies. As companies get bigger, it’s hard to hold them accountable to ethical practices, said Whitney Bauck, assistant editor at Fashionista.com and a Christian writer covering ethical consumerism.
Even with the advent of a conscious consumer spending index, watchdog groups like Transparentem, social business legal structures like L3Cs and B Corps, and brand-ranking organizations like Ethical Consumer, it’s still overwhelming to try to figure out who is actually doing good. Large-scale consumerism is convenient, but it is complex and hard to navigate.
And on a smaller scale, the market for fair trade enterprises has continued to expand, thanks to the demand of consumers and the convictions of their founders. Today’s Christian entrepreneurs have launched a range of these cause-driven ventures selling gifts and goods: Akola Project, Giving Keys, Sseko Designs, Noonday Collection, Jonas Paul Eyewear, Tegu, Westrock Coffee, Krochet Kids, and dozens more.
These companies are rooted in creative ideas and redemptive entrepreneurship, using their processes and profits to create jobs for women, fund college scholarships, develop artisan businesses, expand access to healthcare, support sustainable farming practices, and provide social services for people in poverty. Like Byler and Ten Thousand Villages before them, their leaders seek to care for makers and the environment alike.
Melody Murray, the founder of JOYN bags, shares Byler’s commitment to dignify the people who create the goods we buy. Murray coined the phrase “purposeful inefficiency” as a way to honor those involved in every step of production—for her company that means harvesting cotton, weaving fabric, printing designs, sewing bags—rather than wishing for a mechanized solution to speed up the process.
But Murray, with a background doing marketing and sales for major companies, also brings business savvy and ambitious vision to the venture.
With her husband and fellow John Brown University grad David, Murray felt called not just to provide makers like her team at JOYN with a global market to buy their goods, but to resource and train local entrepreneurs to start their own agricultural or handicraft ventures to impact their communities.
Through JoyCorps, they have offered training and resources for a range of ventures in rural Asia. JoyCorps’ accelerator and incubator programs focus on innovation and restoration, believing that sustainable business spurs social change.
Over the years, their initiative has launched six businesses through its incubator program, with ten more coming through the accelerator program. For the Murrays, fair trade is all about local ownership and making things that are good for the world. Each entrepreneur they work with, they say, is rooted in their community and committed to holistic impact.
The kinds of companies the Murrays help create, ones where buyers can read stories of Dina who stitches the bags and Uma who does the packaging, put people and their stories up front.
“It’s easy to forget that real human hands make products,” said Bauck. “Fair trade organizations communicate to consumers that there is a human story behind every product.”
Llenay Ferretti, former CEO of Ten Thousand Villages and founder of the social enterprise of Bhavana World Project, puts it this way: Fair trade organizations invite us to “know our neighbor enough to love them.”
“The biblical definition of wealth includes our relationships with God and others.” – Hunter Beaumont
But there are still blind spots and areas of critique. Some worry about ventures that emphasize the story over the product, as customers may be tempted to approach it as charity rather than business. In certain companies, fair trade arrangements stop with the small-scale producers and do not extend to the people they hire. And arbitrarily fixing prices high above a product’s market value can create negative unintended consequences for those it aims to help.
Plus, everyday shoppers aren’t always familiar with sustainable options or don’t have the resources to purchase the higher-priced fair trade products.
Godly consideration over mindless spending
But even when we identify fair trade organizations or socially responsible corporations we trust and can afford, buying better is not the whole picture. It may ease our consciences and increase the likelihood that our money is doing good when we buy placemats from Ten Thousand Villages or handbags from JOYN, but purchasing different goods is simply choosing an alternative form of consumerism.
Faithful consumerism is about far more than which products we buy; it’s not a matter of who does the most research or knows how to read the labels (though those skills can reflect a more thoughtful approach).
Ferretti sees each purchasing decision as an opportunity to look to Christ’s life and how our faith ought to inform all our decisions. It’s an invitation to consider not just what we do, but how our decisions are shaping us and affecting our communities and the world.
While Edna Ruth Byler was, in many ways, a foremother of the conscious consumer, she wasn’t motivated by a desire to influence consumer decisions at all. “She was trying to love her neighbor,” Ferretti said.
Beaumont, the pastor in Denver, agrees community is intertwined with consumerism. “Our modern economy is built around a limited definition of wealth—that you can have more stuff, more money, more time,” he said. “But that doesn’t factor in the relational, psychological, and spiritual components of wealth. The biblical definition of wealth includes our relationships with God and others.”
When Beaumont’s barber moved across town, he could easily have found another shop nearby. But it was important to stay with the same guy. “We have a relationship,” he said. “We talk about what’s going on in our lives. I hear about his fishing trips with his grandkids, and I know my business helps to pay for that.”
Beaumont cites 1 Timothy 6 as Paul’s instruction for how to be faithful stewards of what the Lord has given to us. For those who are “rich in this present world,” Paul urges them to “do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.”
“If we really take that to heart,” Beaumont said, “it bends us toward the communal, toward sharing and giving.” It leads us to focus less on “spending more and more on ourselves,” he said, and more on giving, sharing, and enjoying what we already have.
Less is more
Based on her reporting on ethical fashion, Bauck suggests that buying used products is the most morally responsible mode of shopping. Keeping existing goods in use longer means producing less waste as the byproduct of creating new goods. And in most thrift or charity stores, shoppers see where their money is going and can be confident that their spending is supporting their community.
Our faith also prompts us to contemplate what we really need. When we aren’t focused on asking, “What products should we buy?” we may realize that we already have enough.
Here again, Byler can serve as role model. In her close-knit Mennonite community, they didn’t have much more than the bare necessities. But even during the years of wartime rations and the Great Depression, the Byler children remember a happy home. We can buy better, but even more, we can challenge ourselves to practice contentment.
“The most ethical clothing is the stuff you already have in your closet,” wrote Kohl Crecelius, founder of Krochet Kids, which sells ethically made clothing and knit goods.
Even with minimalism and Kondo-ing becoming trendy, it’s still countercultural to decide we can happily live with less, to reject the idea that we need a new phone, car, television, winter coat, Christmas wreath, or whatever else. Yet we believe, as Scripture warns in the account of the rich young ruler in Matthew 19, that God grants us freedom through a modest and simple life.
Tish Harrison Warren, author of Liturgy of the Ordinary, said in an interview last year that while she believes simplicity is essential to our faith, it’s a hard path: “As consumerism eats away at every bit of our lives … Christians have to think really radically, honestly, and strategically about simplicity.”
For some believers, that means reining in Christmas spending, going for quality over quantity under the tree, or even opting to do homemade, found, or repurposed presents. Putting a pause on Target runs and Amazon “Buy Now” clicks can even serve as a spiritual discipline as people challenge themselves to do a “no spend” month—restricting purchases to the necessities. Christian author and Cultivate What Matters founder Lara Casey just completed her “no spend” year, challenging herself to “grow a faithful life over a comfortable life.”
We will never fully avoid the moral dilemma accompanying our every purchase, but maybe our unease can push us to think more deeply about what we need to buy and who our purchases impact. Even in a broken system, where can our dollars be a blessing? As we seek to follow the Greatest Commandment, our biggest consideration should be loving our neighbor.
The call to be faithful stewards of our consumer decisions is an invitation to consider how Christ’s example may challenge how and what we buy, propelling us to love our neighbors—both near and far—and to practice simplicity, knowing that God is the provider of all good things.
“At BiG, we call our community members citizens,” shared Jennie Thollander, director of program expansion at Brookwood in Georgetown (“BiG”), a community for men and women with special needs outside of Austin, Texas.
Amy, Citizen at BiG, photo courtesy of BiG
Citizens. While sharing the BiG story at a Praxis pitch event last week, Jennie referred to the community members as artisans and bakers. This language communicates BiG’s values. They don’t define the people they serve by what they lack, but by how they contribute and participate in BiG’s mission. On the BiG campus each day, citizens make pottery, garden, design cards, and experience the love of Jesus. They are not recipients nor beneficiaries, but collaborators.
Nobody better preached and practiced this than Jesus. In Luke 14, we see one of many examples of this. Jesus is a dinner guest at the home of one of the Jewish religious leaders.
As these religious leaders jockey for the best seats in the room based on who has the most seniority and rank, Jesus calls it out: For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
He then illustrates what he means. Jesus tells a story about a man who plans a great party for his powerful neighbors. But his high-society guests produce all sorts of excuses for why they cannot make it—from recent land and livestock purchases to a new marriage. All told, none of the heavy hitters at the top of his invite list could make it.
So the man decides to throw out his list and start over.
“‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame,’” the man tells his servant. “And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.”
This, Jesus says, is how he throws parties. The religious leaders in the room would have understood just how provocative this story was. Inviting someone to your home for a party is a sign of honor and esteem for your guests.
The poor, crippled, blind, and lame represented the least powerful and most overlooked people at that time. Again and again in Jesus’ ministry, these were the people Jesus did not overlook and those who he said in his eyes were the most powerful. But he doesn’t stop there. Because even after the man includes these four groups in his party invitation, there’s still room. So the invitations extend to those living along the “highways and hedges.”
Theologians agree “highways” and “hedges” communicate this man is inviting two additional groups: those on the hedges are people living as squatters and vagabonds—so poor they do not even have a place to lay their heads—and those on the highways are those from outside the land entirely. These were the people the religious elite truly despised: The Gentiles, the Samaritans, the Romans. Yes, even these people are invited to the party.
Now, when I stop scolding the religious leaders sitting with Jesus that night, I imagine sitting in that very room. I wonder what categories Jesus might have used if it was me jockeying for the seat of honor and privilege in that room. In our society, who would I overlook?
Here’s the beautiful truth communicated in this story: Jesus’ party is an upside-down affair. He sees those our world ignores. He esteems those we’re prone to dismiss. And this is what is on full display at BiG.
“Part of our mission is to not only provide a beautiful, excellent vocational opportunity for adults with special needs,” BiG founder, Erin Kiltz said in an interview with Community Impact. “But to actually change the way the world views our population group.”
Changing the way the world views people with special needs to the way Jesus sees them. Like BiG, Jesus sees and dignifies them as people with unique gifts for a world that desperately needs them.
While our tea bags steeped, my friend lamented a dilemma. He had accidentally purchased jeans with a leather label. As an ardent vegan, he described how disappointed he was in himself. For the non-vegans around the table, though, a different dilemma emerged: Clothing labels were now a justice issue.
At dinner tables, on Facebook feeds, and in campaign soundbites, it feels like little ground remains morally neutral. Whether I’m buying jeans, shopping at Target, or brewing coffee, even my seemingly inconsequential actions can communicate—albeit unintentionally—a collage of values and political beliefs.
“These days, just buying a tomato at a grocery store means you are unwittingly supporting toxic pesticides, exploiting labor, and contributing to global warming. Humans think they are making one choice, but they’re actually making dozens of choices they don’t even know they’re making.”
Knowing and caring fully about every issue and cause is simply not possible. And more than that, it’s not wise. The dueling responses amid this whirl of issues are apathy and cynicism: Choosing not to care or choosing to disdain caring. But as Christians called to love our neighbors, we cannot take either of these paths. So how can we navigate the moral complexity of our cause-saturated world? Here are three considerations:
1) Challenge your presumptions: A few years ago, we showed up to the checkout cashier at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado without reusable grocery bags. Though we had dozens at home, none made it into our car. I’ve rarely felt such strong disdain. We were not just disappointing her, it seemed, but willfully killing baby dolphins. While we still use tote bags regularly, but in a surprising twist, recent research from the British and Danish governments has shown that “you would have to use an organic cotton bag 20,000 times more than a plastic grocery bag to make using it better for the environment.” Is limiting unnecessary waste a good thing? Absolutely. Are reusable grocery bags an environmental silver bullet? No. Hold to our convictions, yes. But we should leave room for the possibility that the cause that feels irrefutably clear true today may end up being murkier than we think.
2) Go deep, not wide: Jared Mackey is a friend and pastor in Denver. Recently, he published an essay at Christianity Today about why pastors should prioritize place. Jared’s writing and work is an example of choosing depth over breadth—choosing one issue or several to focus our energy and care. Jared hasn’t written essays on every topic nor delivered talks on every cause. But if there’s something to learn about the parish approach to ministry, he’s likely learned it. By caring deeply for this topic, his depth of becomes a source of insight for us all. We cannot know everything about everything. But, like Jared, we can choose to learn most things about one or a few things and invest deeply over the long-term.
3) Share without scolding: When Bernard Worthy and Justin Straight made the case for their new business, Loanwell, it opened my eyes. Americans, I learned, pay really high-interest rates on personal loans. And, Loanwell allows borrowers to pay less than one-third of the average rate. Bernard and Justin did not browbeat the audience about their cause. Instead, with grace and passion, they communicated why they care. They didn’t lecture, reprimand, or chide us for not caring enough about the lack of access to capital nor market their solution as the best and brightest. When they finished their presentation, my understanding and compassion grew, a mark of great moral leadership in our cause-saturated world.
Justin Straight and Bernard Worthy | Loanwell (photo courtesy of Praxis)
Share your cause with others! And, when you do, do it winsomely and with a spirit of invitation, without angst or blame.
Now, if everyone just does these three simple things perfectly, we’ll solve all the problems that haunt us. Oh, and always buy leather-free denim.
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