There are an increasing number of places in America 'marketing' themselves as Christian businesses. They advertise in Christian telephone directories and place prominent Jesus fish in their windows. What does all of this signify? Does it indicate that the businesses are more trustworthy? No, not necessarily.

Alan writes:

In my business, every fish-wearing, obvious Christian that I have ever had dealings with has lied or attempted to rip me off; Every single one. Now I am only referring to those who had a picture of Jesus on their wall or wore a fish emblem on their shirt or jacket. I am sure I have dealt with Christians who didn’t feel the need to literally wear their religion on their sleeve who have not behaved dishonestly. For my part, it certainly would make my business dealings a lot more simple if all Christians had to wear a fish. At least I would know to be on my guard in dealing with them.

In my area there is a car dealership, Nice Cars, that has a whole school of little Jesus fish across their billboards and on all of their marketing. They even put the fish on the back of the cars on the dealer label. Used car dealer: Christian. Hmmm. A nice fit in my opinion. On the same tack, I have also found right-wing Christians to be some of the most greedy people I have ever met. For a group of people who have an exclusive deal for immortality, they certainly seem obsessed with gaining as much ‘worldly’ wealth as possible and holding onto all of it.

Alan obviously has and a lot of negative experiences with Christians in his life, especially those Christians who make an effort to publicize the fact that they are Christians. Alan acknowledges that these are just his experiences and that not all Christians are like this, but the question remains: why would he have experiences like this? Why would these Christians, the ones who need to emphasize to everyone else that they are Christians, also be so untrustworthy?

Alan says that people who believe lies naturally cannot be trusted, but I think that there is something else going on. I suspect that those who make the most effort to publicize their religious beliefs are also the ones who may be the least secure in those beliefs. A person who is confident with themselves and their religion won’t go out of their way to wear those beliefs on their arms — the presence of people who don’t believe is, furthermore, not a reason to be concerned.

This by itself doesn’t seem related to behaving dishonestly... but it's as far as my thinking is able to take me right now. I don't have any answers, just questions.

 

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