Seeing red over Starbucks’ holiday cup
Starbucks has come under fire from some Christians who say the company isn’t repping hard enough for Jesus on the understated holiday cups it released last week.
The cups, plain red and completely bereft of holiday-themed illustrations, seem designed to be inoffensive, if not downright unremarkable. But they’re turning out to be anything but.
“I think in the age of political correctness we become so open-minded our brains have literally fallen out of our head,” Joshua Feuerstein said in a widely viewed anti-Star- bucks rant on Facebook. “Do you realize that Starbucks wanted to take Christ and Christmas off of their brand new cups? That’s why they’re just plain red.”
Feuerstein, an Arizona-based evangelist and “social media personality,” according to his website, had a plan. He didn’t want a boycott. He wanted a movement. “I went in,” he said in the video. “I asked for my coffee. They asked for my name. And I told them my name is ‘Merry Christmas.’ ” The result? “Guess what, Starbucks?” Feuerstein said. “I tricked you into putting ‘Merry Christmas’ on your cup.”
Coffee giant stirs up controversy, offends some Christians with design devoid of snowflakes, Santas, trees and Jesus
Moreover, he challenged others to do the same by making “coffee selfies” with Christmas messages on Starbucks cups.
Feuerstein’s message was quickly embraced by many. Posted on Thursday, Nov. 5, his video had already been viewed more than 11 million times by early Monday.
A similar controversy around the Starbucks cup has arisen in Britain, the Telegraph reports, with a Conservative MP asserting that the blankness of the design is “utter madness . . . What is Christmas about? It’s CHRIST-Mass.”
But for Feuerstein, “it’s not just about a cup,” he explained in an email to The Washington Post. “The cup is symbolic of a larger war against Christianity in this country. The policemen of political correctness have demanded that the silent majority bend its knee to a vocal minority.” He added that “Americans are drawing a line in the sand and refusing to remain silent any longer.”
In the video, Feuerstein added that he wore a Jesus Christ T-shirt into the Starbucks “just to offend” — and also brought his gun with him, since Starbucks “hates” the Second Amendment.
(Starbucks has expressed disapproval of guns in its locations in the past, but has not banned them. Arizona, where Feuerstein lives, is an open-carry state.)
“Choose to not be political correct, just correct,” Feuerstein said. Some supported the message. “Love it Joshua,” one commenter wrote. “AMEN AMEN. I will ALWAYS KEEP CHRIST IN CHRISTMAS.” However, some commenters — a few claiming to be current or former Starbucks employees — said that the company has never endorsed explicitly Christian messages. And wouldn’t be sending more business to a company to make a point just result in higher profits for the allegedly offending company?
“I normally like your post, but not this one,” one commenter wrote. “Starbucks is trying to remain neutral and be culturally sensitive to everyone by leaving them blank. You are offended that they don’t say Merry Christmas, but Jewish people would be offended if it only said that, not Happy Hanukkah. So they are leaving them blank so they can’t offend anyone.”
“If you need a coffee chain to be your ambassador of Christ you need to re-examine your relationship w/ God,” one Twitter critic wrote.
Starbucks certainly didn’t seem to anticipate this furor when it released its holiday-themed cups — cups that, as the company made clear in a press release, are not really Christmas cups. No snowflakes. No Santas. No Christmas trees. And definitely no Jesus.
“Creating a culture of belonging, inclusion and diversity is one of the core values of Starbucks, and each year during the holidays the company aims to bring customers an experience that inspires the spirit of the season,” the company wrote in a press release. “Starbucks will continue to embrace and welcome customers from all backgrounds and religions in our stores around the world.”