Christ vs. Amway
No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon. (Matthew 6:24, NKJV)
Most modern English versions translate the last word in this verse as "money," which is a bit unfortunate, because Mammon goes by many other names. These days, she prefers to be known as "financial independence," "economic security," "free enterprise," or "Business".
I attended an Amway seminar last night. Well, they don't call themselves Amway. Amway is "the product that we use in the Business," and it was only mentioned by name twice, seemingly accidentally. No, the organisation is called Network 21, and it's a motivational and training company encouraging people to go into the Business of selling Amway products. The major part of the enterprise, however, is recruitment of other people to join in the Business. It is thus a "Multi-level marketing operation," but there can be a very fine line between this and a pyramid scheme.
I had heard before that some considered Amway to be a cult, but I could scarcely believe it. Everything I saw last night, though, would back up this assertion. This article examines the issue, and points to traits like suppression of critical thinking (participants were told not to listen to family members who were negative about this enterprise) and separation from friends and family ("this Business is like your family") which are indications of cult-like behaviour. There is also an emphasis on uniformity – you need to do things exactly the way you're told ("why would you want to do it any other way?").
Indeed, the whole struck me as being almost a parody of the Christian gospel. Instead of evangelism, they have what is referred to as "prospecting". The evil twin of sanctification is what they call "personal development". (And yes – being in this Business will, apparently, make you a better person.) And, of course, salvation is replaced by Success. Not just money, of course – but Freedom, and Time To Do What You Want, and Being Your Own Person.
So it's quite clear that being in Amway is incompatible with being a Christian. You must choose. You cannot follow both Jesus and worldly success. But what about all the lost souls in Amway? Should we view it as an unreached sub-culture? Should we get involved in it as a form of incarnational ministry? Three things:
1. The end never justifies the means. It doesn't matter how many people you can reach with the gospel, or how much you can earn to give to kingdom work, you cannot glorify God by seeking after worldly success.
2. Anyone who thinks that they can be a part of Amway without being caught up in the pursuit of Success is sadly deluded.
3. One's witness is always going to be compromised if one makes money while one shares the gospel. Confusion will inevitably result between bringing someone to Christ, and getting them involved in the Business.
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 | ff - (Anonymous), 2009-11-04 03:53:57 |
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(Anonymous)
2007-10-08 20:32
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I came across Network 21 and Amway a few years ago. People came to the door, I was lent books and tapes. One book was just big colour photos of houses and posecions of the top AMway people. I came to the conclusion it was all very bad and it got me angry, but I thought about it from a different point of view. Just in terms of numbers and ecconomics it is a pyramid schemes. Pyramid schemes are illegal but they get away with it because they sell product, so the business is disguised as a product distributor. But selling product in this way is inefficient (you would expect to pay more for goods brought to your door right?). It can only survive with pyramid selling.
Jonny Rochester(Reply to this) (Thread) |
| pyramid
(Anonymous)
2007-10-14 10:42
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Long ago, before I had ever heard the expression "pyramid selling", somebody tried to interest me in the Holiday Magic cosmetic network. He explained how it worked and I looked at him in disbelief: "But logically that means that eventually the whole country will be made up of people selling cosmetics to each other," I said and he gave me a long-suffering look.
Mike Hobart
http://tasmanian.blogspot.com(Reply to this) (Thread) |
| Amway
(Anonymous)
2008-03-28 17:25
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I have friends who are Amway IBOs and they are havig a great life, all it does is build groups of people to introduce other people to a good range of products and an income from those products.
Cheers(Reply to this) (Thread) |
| Amway again
(Anonymous)
2008-03-28 17:29
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Just as a little check up from the neck up for those bloggers who dont like the Amway buisness.
What is a Pyramid? do you work in a job?
What would you do if your boss said, if you ask 10 people to a meeting about retiring from the job, who would come?
Amway products and services allow options to leave full time employment, there are thousands of successfull IBOs who have excellent results.
Cheers(Reply to this) (Thread) |
| wow gold
(Anonymous)
2008-04-15 22:29
(link) |
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funingame is an exchange site which designed specifically for game virtual currencies & items trading,it is your another choice.you can buy
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What's more,funingame has other game sites, sell lotro gold,RF Online currency,
World Of Warcraft Gold ,
runescape money.
.And have Tales of pirates forum,
top players can discuss there.Meanwhile you can sell your gold to
us
(Reply to this) (Thread) |
| wow power leveling
(Anonymous)
2008-04-23 20:42
(link) |
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ss(Reply to this) (Thread) |
| Re: re - (Anonymous), 2008-08-24 17:05:10 |
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