Pastor Jamal Bryant Urges Christians To Boycott Target During Lent Over DEI Changes

Jamal Bryant
Pastor Jamal Bryant. Screengrab from YouTube / @newbirthmbc1

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Pastor Jamal Bryant of Atlanta-area New Birth Missionary Baptist Church is calling on the “conscientious Christian community” to join him in a 40-day fast from shopping at Target during the season of Lent. In his sermon Feb. 2, Bryant called on a minimum of 100,000 believers to sign a commitment standing against corporations that are pulling back on their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. 

“The president vowed to remove the DEI in order to make America great again, but it is really to make America prejudiced again, to make America biased again, to make America sexist again, to make America homophobic again, to make America myopic again,” said Bryant during his sermon

“And because he has put this edict in line, corporations are starting to fall in line,” the pastor continued, listing the examples of Walmart, Facebook, Amazon, McDonald’s, Ford, Lowe’s and, of course, Target.

“They are trying to kiss the ring of the president, who thinks he is king, but he don’t even measure up to Martin Luther,” Bryant said.

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Pastor Jamal Bryant: ‘I Feel Like I’m Being Targeted’

In a statement published Friday, Jan. 24, Target said, “We remain focused on driving our business by creating a sense of belonging for our team, guests and communities through a commitment to inclusion.”

“Belonging for all is an essential part of our team and culture, helping fuel consumer relevance and business results,” said the company. 

The statement referred more than once to the fact that the company will monitor and potentially adjust its position on this issue over time. It also mentioned Target’s intent to make changes this year “with the goal of driving growth and staying in step with the evolving external landscape.”  

The statement ended with a list of the company’s “current actions.” The first of these is “concluding our three-year diversity, equity and inclusion goals.” The second is “concluding our Racial Equity Action and Change (REACH) initiatives in 2025 as planned.” 

Another action item is “stopping all external diversity-focused surveys, including [Human Rights Campaign’s] Corporate Equality Index.” The Human Rights Campaign is an LGBTQ+ advocacy group.

The final action item is “evolving our ‘Supplier Diversity’ team to ‘Supplier Engagement’ to better reflect our inclusive global procurement process across a broad range of suppliers, including increasing our focus on small businesses.”

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Jessica Lea
Jessica is a content editor for ChurchLeaders.com and the producer of The Stetzer ChurchLeaders Podcast. She has always had a passion for the written word and has been writing professionally for the past five years. When Jessica isn't writing, she enjoys West Coast Swing dancing, reading, and spending time with her friends and family.

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