I’ve been scanning the news and observing the chatter since March 2020, and particularly since January 6th when a brainwave hit me. . . people aren’t happy with what Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple are doing, but look at all the devices out there those same complainers are using?! True divestment includes ALL aspects of what a company offers. I shut down my Facebook account this month and removed my sharing buttons for FB, Twitter and IG from my websites this morning.

 

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Now I’m looking at my phone. . . most people have either android or ios-operated phones. This phone was purchased for me by a former boss going on 2 years ago this summer, long before it would become apparent that Google would turn into a censorship giant. When it comes time to replace this thing, perhaps I should be looking at phones with different OS’s by companies that don’t bolster the type of society I don’t want.

 

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My computer is being run by the MS win10 OS as well. Now I didn’t buy this particular machine either, it was a gift back in early July by others who did not yet tie their spending to company worldview policies. My kids replaced their laptops right before/after our move in November, just as people were beginning to make purchasing/worldview correlations, but at the time it didn’t play into their purchasing considerations.

 

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While we aren’t immediately responsible for how others use the funds we give them, at the same time we are held responsible for what we know. If we know a business or person is going to spend our money on things we don’t agree with or that prove harmful to others, we are aiding and abetting their ability to spend in those areas when we purchase their goods or shop at their establishments. We already understand that we tell Hollywood what movies we want by what we do and don’t buy tickets for. The marketing world teaches business owners to sell what people are buying and how to predict the next big thing.

 

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As Christians who don’t like the way the world is going, crying out against companies investing the dollars we give them in areas that threaten to ruin the lives of others we have means to affect, we have to consider how they are getting our money to be misusing like that. When and whereever we have the option to do so, our outcries must be met with action and spending in the directions we want society to go.

 

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If we want good health for example, we don’t visit the candy aisle, we visit the natural foods and whole food aisles instead. We don’t visit the video game aisle, we visit the exercise aisle. We don’t visit the alcohol aisle unless we are wanting to make health tinctures, we visit the water tap instead.

 

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The same needs to go for other areas of life around the house and business. We have the capacity to show companies what we do and don’t support by what we do and don’t buy. When it comes to shifting health choices, I generally don’t recommend tossing food to the garbage that hasn’t gone bad, but if it’s seriously unhealthy (such as anything with propylene glycol in it for example), you don’t want to make others sick with it either, so yes, it does get tossed out. Yes you already spent money on it, but it doesn’t have to continue making you ill or continue to place you in danger.

 

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Now that we see polarization increasing both in and outside the Church, those who don’t have a problem with being monitored, censored, and their daily lives restricted, will continue to support those companies who value, research and enable such societal changes. They can have your second-hand equipment that threatens to track, monitor, snitch, and censor them.

 

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Those of us who don’t wish to be monitored, censored, and who value our freedoms seriously need to change our buying and usage habits to reflect those values and support companies who do.