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I have been unemployed for quite some time and have some creative ability, so I began to look for something I thought people wanted that I could make. I am a non-theist but live in the Bible Belt, and noticed a niche that wasn't be filled locally in Christian-themed home goods. I started making and selling them at a local flea market last month, and I've apparently found a winner.
A devoutly Baptist neighbor of mine, who knows I don't believe in God, saw me loading my car with these items and was very upset that I am "making money off Christianity" though I don't accept Jesus as my savior and have some serious complaints about the local evangelical Christian mindset.
The people who buy my wares really seem to love them, so I say it's not an issue if everybody benefits.
I have been unemployed for quite some time and have some creative ability, so I began to look for something I thought people wanted that I could make. I am a non-theist but live in the Bible Belt, and noticed a niche that wasn't be filled locally in Christian-themed home goods. I started making and selling them at a local flea market last month, and I've apparently found a winner.
A devoutly Baptist neighbor of mine, who knows I don't believe in God, saw me loading my car with these items and was very upset that I am "making money off Christianity" though I don't accept Jesus as my savior and have some serious complaints about the local evangelical Christian mindset.
The people who buy my wares really seem to love them, so I say it's not an issue if everybody benefits.
I have been unemployed for quite some time and have some creative ability, so I began to look for something I thought people wanted that I could make. I am a non-theist but live in the Bible Belt, and noticed a niche that wasn't be filled locally in Christian-themed home goods. I started making and selling them at a local flea market last month, and I've apparently found a winner.
A devoutly Baptist neighbor of mine, who knows I don't believe in God, saw me loading my car with these items and was very upset that I am "making money off Christianity" though I don't accept Jesus as my savior and have some serious complaints about the local evangelical Christian mindset.
The people who buy my wares really seem to love them, so I say it's not an issue if everybody benefits.
What do you think?
I don't think there is a moral or ethical issue for you. However, the Christian Stuff industry is built off the premise that it is by Christians, for Christians. The people who buy your stuff want to believe that what you do is a ministry to the Body of Christ, and not a business decision. If you are forthright about the fact that you are not a believer, most of your customers will have the same reaction as your neighbor.
You are not "making money off Christianity". You are making money off the desire people have to possess object that you are producing. I see no moral issue here. You produce a product, people purchase the product. Your neighbor is the one with the problem here not you.
My favorite bar near where I live is run by a woman who is actually a lawyer, does not live near here but actually lives in Berlin, and she herself is a teetotaler who never drinks. Should I be offended that she DARE sell me a product that she herself does not partake in?
There is no small print that says only Christians can make, produce or sell Christian products. Nor should there be.
If it's high-quality, and tasteful, I don't see an issue with it. If you were mocking God by doing it, or price-gouging, there might be an issue.
I do business with non-Christians daily--be it the sandwich shop I might stop at for lunch, or the exterminator that comes to the church to kill the nasty spiders we get in the bathroom.
I have been unemployed for quite some time and have some creative ability, so I began to look for something I thought people wanted that I could make. I am a non-theist but live in the Bible Belt, and noticed a niche that wasn't be filled locally in Christian-themed home goods. I started making and selling them at a local flea market last month, and I've apparently found a winner.
A devoutly Baptist neighbor of mine, who knows I don't believe in God, saw me loading my car with these items and was very upset that I am "making money off Christianity" though I don't accept Jesus as my savior and have some serious complaints about the local evangelical Christian mindset.
The people who buy my wares really seem to love them, so I say it's not an issue if everybody benefits.
What do you think?
Go for it -- there's nothing wrong with it, but understand that discretion is the better part of valor. I would learn to smile and nod and say vaguely positive things in response to your customer's remarks. Although I suspect that you already have that nailed, too. This is definitely one of those "what they don't know won't hurt them, but what they know could hurt you" kinda things. If your neighbor starts spreading nasty rumors and starts a boycott movement it could be a problem locally. Best way to handle her now that she knows is to tell her it's just business -- you're selling a product that people want and it's no less valid if the artisan doesn't have the same desires as his customers. It's no different than an abstract artist paying the bills by doing realistic sidewalk portraits or chalk art caricatures. (What's really bothering her is Not Invented Here Syndrome, because a Christian didn't think of this first ... if you're an unbeliever, the "things of God" should be so opaque to you that this idea would never have occurred to you. Therefore, you must be, not creative and industrious and ambitious, but somehow duplicitous and shifty and tricksy and false. You must have STOLEN the idea from a Real Christian).
Another way to approach it might be to just wholesale to others, presumably mostly Christians in practice, who would have the actual customer contacts. But hey, if the way you're doing it works, keep it simple, and ignore the naysayers unless and until they cause you actual harm.
It would depend on whether you disparage, look down on Christians or otherwise disrespect them. There are many ways to disagree and not believe without being disrespectful. That would be seen as hypocritical.
I knew a woman that did the same thing. Not only did she sell exclusively to Christian bookstores, she had a ministry of a conflicting religion that was spread on radio, tv and in print where she worked very hard solely at disproving Christianity. There is nothing illegal about doing that of course. But it seemed disingenuous to me.
No more and no less of an issue than the Religious items (Nativity Scenes, rosary beads etc) made in Jeruslaem by Muslim Palestinians for a Jewish company that sells them in the USA,
It is a material object, not a religious dogma that is being sold.
Make good quality work and let the buyers buy on the basis of what they see.
Do difference in making a 3 pronged widget or a religious carving. A person buys on the basis of what they see, not the mindset of the maker.
I have been unemployed for quite some time and have some creative ability, so I began to look for something I thought people wanted that I could make. I am a non-theist but live in the Bible Belt, and noticed a niche that wasn't be filled locally in Christian-themed home goods. I started making and selling them at a local flea market last month, and I've apparently found a winner.
A devoutly Baptist neighbor of mine, who knows I don't believe in God, saw me loading my car with these items and was very upset that I am "making money off Christianity" though I don't accept Jesus as my savior and have some serious complaints about the local evangelical Christian mindset.
The people who buy my wares really seem to love them, so I say it's not an issue if everybody benefits.
What do you think?
I see no problem with it at all. I bought a beautiful woodcarving of Jesus Christ when I was in Jerusalem. It was carved by a Muslim man.
if you create something and people want it then sell it, that's what our system is based upon, capitalism.
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