Two months ago, Apple quietly removed a Quran app and a Bible App from its app store in China at the request of the Chinese Communist Party. Apple claimed in a statement they had to do it because they have to, quote, “obey local laws.”
This is the same 2.8-trillion-dollar company with an “Inclusion and Diversity” initiative that claims, without a sense of irony, to hold a, quote, “long-standing commitment to making… the world more just.” According to its American website, that means hiring a more racially diverse group of employees. That’s great. It’s unclear how that helps the 1.4 billion people living under increasing religious oppression in China.
This is a good reminder. When companies like Apple throw around the word “inclusive,” it’s because they see a profit opportunity. When companies like Apple are happily complicit in outright oppression, it’s because they won’t risk a profit opportunity. If the day comes when American culture gives Apple an ultimatum: either nix the Bible here or lose your profit, we need only look to China to discover what they’d do.
Copyright 2021 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.
