I grew up in an extremely religious environment. My family was deeply immersed in the Pentecostal Holiness Church which preached both the Pentecostal theology and the Holiness style of living. The latter we shared with some rural Southern Baptists, Primitive Baptists, and Hardshell Baptists; although, they all believed that the former was our punched-ticket to Hell – Baptists believed that the Pentecostal doctrine was complete heresy. (Baptists still feel this way about Pentecostals, but their shared hatred of liberals and President Obama, has brought the two groups together, leading the naïve Pentecostals to believe that they have finally gained mainstream “acceptance.” But, I digress.) So we didn’t drink or dance or go to proms or ballgames or movies or fairs, even ones without a hoochie coochie show. We didn’t even have a T.V. But the cardinal mother of all sins was to “violate the Sabbath.” At a minimum, this meant no working on Sunday and no buying on Sunday. And the “buying on Sunday” was the greater offense, because not only were you sinning, but you were also making other people sin because your buying was forcing other people to have to work. And this was notwithstanding the fact that the Sabbath technically runs from 6:00 p.m. Friday until 6:00 p.m. Saturday and has nothing to do with Sunday. Apparently, at some point along the way, Christians decided that Sunday should be “The Lord’s Day” instead of Saturday as the Jewish people had celebrated it, but for some reason, Christians decided to import the Jewish rules for Saturday over to their newly-chosen day of Sunday. Of course, Pentecostals and Hardshells and most other denominations have long-since shed most of the “holy-living” rules – or, at least – MODIFIED the rules. The “Sabbath” now runs from 11:00 a.m. until noon on Sunday. But don’t think that they may be less sanctimonious or judgmental about the Sabbath just because they have shortened it to fit their own convenience. If I’m going to Lowe’s or Home Depot on a Sunday, I still try to make sure I’m out of there by 1:00; otherwise, I might be seen in my obviously-he-didn’t-go-to-church clothes by much better Christians who have “kept the Sabbath Day holy,” by attending church for an hour --------- before then spending an hour buying food at a restaurant, forcing cooks and waiters to work on Sunday, walking around Lowe’s with toothpick in mouth buying more things on Sunday, forcing Lowe’s employees to work on Sunday. So you can forgive me if I don’t get all caught up in the highly-hypocritical and sanctimonious religious feel-goodism du jour of pledging not to shop at stores that decide to open on Thanksgiving. If you don’t want to shop on Thanksgiving, then don’t shop on Thanksgiving. But dont wrap your preferences in religion and faux concerns about workers “not getting to spend time with their families on Thanksgiving.” You’re not concerned about causing people to work on Sundays instead of spending time with their families on the Sabbath and that, at least arguably, has a basis in religion. The sanctity of Thanksgiving does not. But a funny juxtaposition of events happened on the way to the white-Christian boycott of stores which open on Thanksgiving. As a result of the Ferguson prosecutor deciding to treat the police shooting differently from all other shootings by holding a secret one-sided trial in the dark of night as opposed to having a daylit public trial, black clergy across the country are asking people of color to boycott “Black Friday,” defined as “Thursday through Saturday,” something I plan to follow. So...white Christians have a choice: 1.) break your sanctimonious and hypocritical pledge of refusing to shop at stores which open on Thanksgiving; or, 2.) go ahead and boycott the stores as you had planned, in which case, you will be joining with people of color (and few of us white liberals) to send a message to the nation that “enough is enough” with the predominantly-white-run “justice” system which values the lives of young black males exponentially less than the lives of white males. Happy Conundruming! :-)
Posted on: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 03:33:11 +0000