ADVENT DAY 8 (I Have the Holy Spirit Living in Me): Tactical Errors

Because Jesus has come into our lives, because we have been born again, we have been given a helper, as Jesus describes Him - the Holy Spirit provides guidance and strength so that we might live according to God's intent. Proverbs chapter 4 relates:
23 Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.
24 Put away from you a deceitful mouth, And put perverse lips far from you.
25 Let your eyes look straight ahead, And your eyelids look right before you.
26 Ponder the path of your feet, And let all your ways be established.
27 Do not turn to the right or the left; Remove your foot from evil.

Perhaps you've heard the phrase in verse 23 translated as "guard your heart."  We face choices every day and Paul expertly illustrates in his writings the difference between walking according to the flesh and walking in the Spirit.  We have to be attentive to the direction of the Holy Spirit so that we are not ineffective or unproductive in our lives. Through the Spirit, we can experience life-giving power, we can make correct choices and reject destructive ideas and impulses that can negatively impact our walk with God.

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On this 8th day of December, Day 8 of our 25-day Faith Radio Advent Guide, entitled, "Because of Jesus...," we recognize that Jesus promised to send us the Holy Spirit to live inside of us, to provide us with power and guidance for our lives. Jesus said in John 14:
25 "These things I have spoken to you while being present with you.
26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.
27 Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

This year, there has been a season of reckoning for companies that have made decisions that have offended customers by embracing ideas that are not palatable to the general public and are offensive to Christians.  You can certainly name the culprits: Bud Light, Target, and of course, Disney, who has been persistent in pushing a worldview that is inconsistent with the historic ideals of the company.

And, Disney has admitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission that its intransigence has affected it financially.  The Christian Post reported:

Walt Disney Company suggested during a recent Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) report that its controversial stances on social issues could endanger its bottom line by causing "risks relating to misalignment with public and consumer tastes."

"Generally, our revenues and profitability are adversely impacted when our entertainment offerings and products, as well as our methods to make our offerings and products available to consumers, do not achieve sufficient consumer acceptance," the company wrote in the 10-K filing, which offers financial disclosures and potential risks to shareholders.

The company also admitted: "...consumers’ perceptions of our position on matters of public interest, including our efforts to achieve certain of our environmental and social goals, often differ widely and present risks to our reputation and brands."  

The article cites a Deadline story that reported that revenues were up 7%, the company had backed off on what the Post described as "film and TV content and staff."

But, Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, still insists on trying to, as columnist Jerry Bowyer writes for WORLD Magazine, "spin the underperformance of the company stock as being due to factors other than using shareholder resources to push social causes." Bowyer writes:

“Too many Marvel sequels,” said Bob Iger, speaking to the media. Except it’s not the Marvel sequels that have been the big losers. Consider that it was Lightyear, the Toy Story prequel, gave us Disney’s first same-sex kiss. Toy Story is a nostalgia franchise. If a same-sex kiss belongs anywhere in Disney, it isn’t there. It flopped. So did Elemental, which they’d hoped would become a franchise. Its “breakthrough” was that it was Disney’s first nonbinary character, complete with grammatically incorrect pronouns. Unfortunately, they/them lost his/her shareholders a lot of money.

The Marvels’ only superpower is the cast’s ability to take on the appearance of the DEI page of the corporate website. Unlike Captain Marvel herself, the movie didn’t fly. It’s not that diversity doesn’t work. The new animated Spiderman franchise has a multiethnic cast and has done quite well. The story is good. Identity quotas aren’t the drivers.

But, Iger has shown signs that he is not tone-deaf to the moral implications of Disney's content. Kennedy Unthank of Plugged In from Focus on the Family stated:

...Iger told investors during a Sept. 19 presentation that he wanted to “quiet the noise” it was making in “the culture war.” While Disney’s reputation has been on the downturn since 2017 (according to an Axios Harris poll), its engagement in said culture war has helped to earn it the rank of fifth most polarizing brand in 2023’s Axios Harris Poll 100.

It’s not the first time Iger has expressed a desire to move past the culture wars. At Disney’s 2023 Shareholder Meeting in April, he said, “Our primary mission needs to be to entertain. And then through our entertainment to continue to have a positive impact on the world. I’m very serious about that. It should not be agenda driven. It should be entertainment driven. That should be the goal in all of our stories.”

Well, I think that Disney is still in the "buyer beware" category.  Iger's comments may sound reassuring, but I think that Christian families are looking for some proof. And, who will define what he calls the "positive impact on the world?"  The final paragraph of the Plugged In piece notes:

Still, we can’t end without noting an encouraging fact underlying Iger’s statements: Enough families want family-friendly, agenda-free content to cause the CEO to reconsider the company’s strategy. And those families can still impact a corporate culture drifting away from its original family-focused vision. In a postmodern era that increasingly embraces the subjective truth of the world over the objective truth of God, that’s a fact that is nice to see. 

We recognize that what goes into our minds can impact our hearts - for good and bad.  That's why the absorption of God's Word is so very important.  And, we have to, as Proverbs 4 tells us, "guard our hearts."  The plethora of ideas bombarding our consciousness can make it challenging to listen to the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit, and Psalm 46 encourages us to "be still" and know that He is God. The Holy Spirit is our teacher, and He will direct us away from thoughts and ideas that do not line up with Scripture - we have to develop a sense of discernment in order to effectively navigate the world in which we live, in which God has placed us.  

We also recognize that if God is calling us to take action in a particular area of our life, the Holy Spirit provides us with supernatural power.  We can withstand the onslaught of unbiblical ideas - we can fight off the wiles of the enemy, who would attempt to sideline us from doing the will of God.  Our call is to live holy lives before the Lord and reflect His presence within us - only as we rely on that presence do we experience the ability to overcome.