David Green's not great with money, is he?

Or they could, you know, just sell pipe cleaners and hot glue guns. Huh, who? Oh, Hobby Lobby of course. I mention this because they took out this full page ad in a number of papers this morning. You remember newspapers, right?

But even more blessed is the craft store that stays in its lane.

"Chat anonymously with hot, young evangelicals
who want to fill you with the Holy Spirit!"

-chataboutjesus.com's 

ill-advised advertising 

Here, let me save you both the trouble and the eye strain. It's a series of quotations from Presidents, Supreme Court Justices, Senators and other notable people about how awesome Christianity is. You know, when it's not being used to justify crusades or heretic burning. And then at the end, it directs us to a web address, which I suppose is not ideal, since this was printed in newspapers, but fortunately it's easy to remember. It's chataboutjesus.com. No, really, that's the name they went with. Anyway, it's a site where you can have someone text, chat, or even call you to, as the name suggests, chat about Jesus. 

In fact, 18th and 19th century white men
had some of the worst ideas ever.

I don't know. The suggestion that the words of our founding fathers would change someone's mind about The Lord seems a little insulting. Also I don't love that they think we're all dumb enough to take this as evidence that Jefferson and Madison were setting up a secret theocracy despite going on to write an entire amendment about the how important it is to not get church in your state. And did you notice that all of these quotes are from white men who lived in the 18th and 19th centuries? Because I'm not sure we necessarily want their advice.

"Before we discuss options, I'll have to clear it
your supervisor, and your supervisor's pastor."

-No, really

"So what does any of this have to do with Hobby Lobby anyway?" you might reasonably ask. "They're a store, not a church so what even is this about?" Well, Hobby Lobby, as a company, has for ages now worn its religious and political views on its sleeve which is whatever. Fine. But they also give to anti-LGBTQIA+ causes, set up store displays encouraging customers to vote for Trump, and forced employees to work during the pandemic lockdown. They've even go so far as to fight for and win the power to insert themselves between their employees and their access to birth control. 

It's especially galling given that they did so on the basis of a religious objection without being able to point to anything in their religion that condemns or even mentions birth control.

"Where? Show me where I say anything about birth conrol?
Show me. Medamnit, this is the gay marriage thing all over again..."

-Jesus, sick of having this argument

Pictured: Billionaire David Green, seen
here making Jesus angrier and angrier.

Super-hypocritical, right? Yes, but that's never been a problem for Hobby Lobby CEO David Green. He's worth like $8.1 billion, which is weird for a Christian. I'm no theologian and I don't want to tell him how to religion, but I think Jesus was like, aggressively anti-wealth and told rich people to give their money away. Again, 8.1 billion dollars. At least some of which is going to all his shitty political causes, ads like this weekend's theocracy circular and, ironically, a rare Bible collection.

And I'm just left with the the question of what did the company hope this would achieve? I mean, I have no idea what it costs to take out a full-page add in dozens of papers, but it had to cost quite a bit of money. Money that probably could have fed some starving people or something. And did they think that a bunch of out-of-context quotes in the goddamn newspaper was going to convince Americans to reverse two and a half centuries of secular government and embrace David Green's weird, dystopic Gilead?

"Well, I'm convinced!"

-Literally not 

a single person