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Looking For Meaning In A Starbucks Coffee Cup
Townhall.com ^ | November 13, 2015 | S.E Cupp

Posted on 11/13/2015 5:08:29 AM PST by Kaslin

It was hard not to feel like an alien from another planet this week. To sum up the news, a presidential candidate was asked if he'd have aborted a hypothetical baby Hitler; students at an Ivy League university demanded the resignation of a professor for suggesting students ought to be allowed to choose their own Halloween costumes; and another presidential candidate is fending off claims that she wears a wig.

Believe it or not, these are not the dumbest news items that made actual media headlines, however.

That honor goes to a man in Arizona who was triggered by the absence of a cartoon snowflake on his favorite high-priced coffee.

In case you were -- enviably -- just living your lives this week, let me get you up to speed.

Joshua Feuerstein is a self-proclaimed evangelist and social media personality. After picking up his morning joe, he posted a 78 second video rant accusing Starbucks of hating Jesus because their red and green holiday cups don't feature any Christmas iconography on them. "Do you realize that Starbucks wanted to take Christ and Christmas off their brand new cups?" he said. "That's why they're just plain red." He then encouraged people to protest the insufficiently merry cups by taking "coffee selfies" with Christmas messages on Starbucks cups.

This video, posted on Feuerstein's Facebook page, has now been viewed by more than 16 million people. Ever the reactionary, Donald Trump has naturally suggested a Starbucks boycott.

Let me break here to tell you I don't usually have to be goaded into jumping aboard the Outrage Express when it comes to two things in particular: one, secular attacks on Christian America (indeed, I wrote a book called "Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media's Attack on Christianity); and two, anything involving Starbucks, which regularly embarrasses itself with meaningless nods to political correctness and inarguably terrible coffee.

However, nothing about this story makes even a modicum of sense.

For one, retailers are not required to recognize or celebrate your holiday. This is exactly the kind fetishizing of inclusion that conservatives rightly and routinely lambaste the sensitivity-obsessed left for insisting invade every aspect of public life. Demanding that your coffee purveyor declare its allegiance to your faith is no better than atheists demanding winter solstice banners accompany the town nativity scene.

For another, isn't this issue pretty well covered by the first two commandments? "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" and "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image." Bestowing divinity to a thing and worshiping false idols -- in this case, a coffee cup Christmas decoration -- seems to fly in the face of Christian asceticism and God's centrality.

Perhaps most importantly, though, is the fact that Starbucks does in fact celebrate Christmas along with Feuerstein. It offers a Christmas blend coffee (that I would not advise trying unless you like the taste of cedar). It sells "Joy" reusable coffee cups. And advent calendars, for you-know-who's sake! Feuerstein is right neither philosophically nor factually, and yet he's managed to convince countless other outrage addicts -- and one presidential candidate -- to over-caffeinate along with him over a problem that doesn't really exist.

This story might be dumb, but it's not unimportant. Charlatans like Feuerstein and false claims of religious discrimination and the whitewashing of Christianity from public life diminish the seriousness of actual stories of religious intolerance -- say, the high school football team that's told it can't pray together before a game, or the Christian business forced to provide contraception coverage in its employee health plan.

It diminishes, too, the horrific atrocities committed against Christians around the world in the name of secularism. Is Mr. Feuerstein's coffee cup really the most pressing example of religious injustice he can use his platform and his ministry to highlight?

The Founding Fathers' intention in separating Church from State was to ensure the survival of public worship, free from persecution. It was not to force a retailer to adorn its wares with religious kitsch.

Moreover, if Feuerstein's faith is so fragile that a missing cartoon Christmas tree sends him into a conniption fit of aggrieved angst, it's probably time for some serious soul-searching, prayer and decaf.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 11/13/2015 5:08:29 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

I’m surprised that #BlackLivesMatterUnlessBlacksAreDoingTheKilling isn’t protest the fact that Starbucks doesn’t have Kwanza cups.


2 posted on 11/13/2015 5:11:58 AM PST by Yo-Yo (Is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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To: Yo-Yo

What do those have to do with Christmas?


3 posted on 11/13/2015 5:14:18 AM PST by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: Kaslin

Since I would not go to a Starbucks I could care less!!


4 posted on 11/13/2015 5:17:59 AM PST by ontap
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To: ontap

In other words you do care.


5 posted on 11/13/2015 5:22:56 AM PST by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: Yo-Yo
I’m surprised that #BlackLivesMatterUnlessBlacksAreDoingTheKilling isn’t protest the fact that Starbucks doesn’t have Kwanza cups.

Does anyone other than elementary school teachers still pretend that Kwaannnzzzzaaaa is a real holiday?

6 posted on 11/13/2015 5:25:18 AM PST by Pollster1 ("Shall not be infringed" is unambiguous.)
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To: Kaslin

I don’t patronize Starbucks (boint coffee), so I don’t have a dog in this fight.

Mrs. Bears frequently receives Starbucks gift cards from her students, so I have accompanied her on various occasions when she has redeemed them.

My experience is that Starbucks has never identified itself as a Christian enterprise; nor has it expressed support for Christianity.

All this idiot Feuerstein accomplished in his pursuit of 15-minutes of fame was to hand the Left another club with which to bash Christians.


7 posted on 11/13/2015 5:25:48 AM PST by Arm_Bears (Biology is biology. Everything else is imagination.)
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To: Kaslin

I see what you did there!


8 posted on 11/13/2015 5:29:49 AM PST by Yo-Yo (Is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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To: ontap

With the BLM and muslim threat to this country, I agree. Who cares.


9 posted on 11/13/2015 5:33:38 AM PST by catfish1957 (I display the Confederate Battle Flag with pride in honor of my brave ancestors who fought w/ valor)
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To: Arm_Bears
I don't patronize Starbucks (boint coffee), so I don't have a dog in this fight.

Same here.

10 posted on 11/13/2015 5:36:22 AM PST by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: Kaslin

Ms. Cupp missed it by a mile. No one is asking the govt to do anything about this.

Its still a free country, right? Patronize the businesses you like, don’t patronize the ones you don’t.

Starbucks is in the left wing fraternity of businesses with Google, Facebook, etc.

If you still patronize Starbucks after all their support for left wing causes, I doubt a red cup will make you stop.


11 posted on 11/13/2015 5:48:17 AM PST by joshua c (Please dont feed the liberals)
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To: Kaslin

Dunkin’ Donuts’ coffee is far and away better than Starbucks’ anyway.


12 posted on 11/13/2015 5:51:35 AM PST by ScottinVA (If you're not enraged...why?)
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To: Kaslin

Sauce for the goose...sauce for the gander mateys.If the left can war on Christians ,Christians can fight back. The only other cheeks I’ll turn to them are the ones I sit on.


13 posted on 11/13/2015 6:08:14 AM PST by Don Corleone ("Oil the gun..eat the cannoli. Take it to the Mattress.")
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To: ScottinVA

Pre-xactly.


14 posted on 11/13/2015 6:43:57 AM PST by vortec94
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To: Kaslin

“In other words you do care.”

Bravo, it irritates me when people use words in reverse.


15 posted on 11/13/2015 7:50:25 AM PST by RipSawyer (Racism is racism, regardless of the race of the racist.)
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To: ontap
Since I would not go to a Starbucks

The steamy aroma of battery acid is not appealing to me....

16 posted on 11/13/2015 7:51:53 AM PST by ErnBatavia (It ain't a "hashtag"....it's a damn pound sign. ###)
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To: joshua c
I doubt a red cup will make you stop.

What made me stop was them raising the price of a "Tall" (12 oz.) mocha to $4. The price had been inching up all year, so I thought about what my breaking point was going to be. And, it was $4. When the register came up with that price, I had bought my last Starbucks.

Regarding the cups, they were never Christmas-y anyway. They had some snowflakes on them, or a reindeer; but, nothing I would consider Christian, just more seasonal. The plain red cup is very boring, though.

17 posted on 11/13/2015 7:54:18 AM PST by LibertarianLiz
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To: Kaslin
Starbucks decided to get rid of the problem and substituted this cup design instead.
ping
18 posted on 11/13/2015 9:50:59 AM PST by minnesota_bound
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To: Yo-Yo
#BlackLivesMatter

What they really mean is #BlackCrimesDon'tMatter

19 posted on 11/13/2015 10:22:24 AM PST by The Iceman Cometh (Proud Teabagging Barbarian Terrorist Hobbit Crazy Cracker Son-of-a-Bitch!)
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