A Christian business on the internet

Introduction

This article is an exploration of issues the Christian businessman faces when operating a business on the internet and what that means for keeping the Sabbath holy.

This article assumes the reader has read Can a Christian use the internet on the Sabbath day? and will therefore not touch upon subjects discussed there.

This article is targeted at the Christan business(wo)man, who desires to keep the Sabbath holy and that with regards to his or her business. With regards to a business and viewed from the negative side of the commandment, it means refraining from buying or selling.

Applying the fourth commandment to internet businesses is not easy and every Christian will need to be guided by prayer and his own conscience to seek the best path. In this article I'll discuss some options. Feedback warmly welcomed.

An example from the Orthodox Jews

This is not simply an issue for Christians. My awareness on this issue was first raised by how Orthodox Jews had applied the fourth commandment to the Sabbath. Not that they broadcasted this themselves, but their customers wrote. In a famous article Joel Spolsky discussed the success of B&H and noted:

But wait: The conveyer belts, the prices, the smart salespeople, the fact that they recommend cheaper products almost as a rule — none of these is actually the most amazing thing about B&H. Really, the most amazing thing is that because the owners of B&H are Orthodox Jews — Hasidim, in fact — the store closes every Friday afternoon for the Jewish Sabbath, and on Jewish holidays. Moreover, B&H's website, which reportedly accounts for 70 percent of sales, shuts down, too. bhphotovideo.com is, to my knowledge, the only major online retailer that closes for 25 hours every weekend.

Closing in this case means that people can still visit the website, but they cannot buy goods. So if you browse the catalog, and decide to add something to your cart, you'll see this message.

Please note: Online ordering is unavailable until Saturday 5:45 PM EST. Feel free to browse our site and add items to your cart or wishlist. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patronage.

See also the screenshot below.

bphotovideo.com closed on the Sabbath

Businesses who mainly sell in one time zone

The easiest case is probably businesses which, although on the internet, are essentially local: they might have a physical store in one place, or sell essentially to a single country or time zone. Christian business people have sufficient options to deal with their internet business as their conscience dictates. I discuss various techniques below.

Who is required to keep the Sabbath?

One issue that must be addressed first, is who we are responsible for when keeping the Sabbath. As per the commandment we are responsible for ourselves, and for those we employ. Not for others.

However, the direction Christian websites have taken, is different. They have taken it upon themselves to enforce the keeping of the Sabbath by others by locking down their website for those who, they think, are breaking it.

What this means is they attempt to check what day of the week it is for the visitor, and lock out the visitor. This is a misguided solution in my opinion. In the first place, checking the date of someone's computer is fraught with issues. It is not always reliable. Someone can easily change the date on his or her computer and still access the website. The method that is employed, a piece of javascript, can be easily disabled.

In my opinion the fourth commandment does not demand that the Christian businessman has the enforce it being obeyed by others. He should not give the impression he is trying to do so as this would be adding to God's Word, Deuteronomy 4:2, and the available techniques make you a laughing stock as it is so easily defeated. It does nothing to show others the delight of the Sabbath.

Obviously what those sites try to do is the make their site available to everyone in the whole world, and not make the site unavailable to those for whom it might be Saturday or Monday. But I do not like the solution and the site owner does not have the responsibility for the Sabbath keeping of others.

Businesses without any specific time zone

The most difficult case is the pure internet business with no clearly defined locality and time zone. All sales are handled by the web site, with no intermediate human labour.

Because if there is human labour involved, i.e. additional steps before the sale is actually approved, this labour can be done outside the Sabbath. But when for example virtual or digital goods are sold, the sale proceeds, and the goods are released immediately.

And for many kinds of businesses there are distinct drawbacks to attach them to a specific time zone. For example sites selling web hosting do so to a world-wide audience, not a particular country.

I see two options such businesses could explore:

  1. They can localise their sales channels: for example instead of a generic business.com, they could redirect customers to the appropriate local country domain like business.co.uk, business.nl, or business.co.nz. This redirection can happen automatically by guessing the customer's location, or by asking the customer to pick a country. When the customer's location has been guessed wrong, the customer can redirect to the right country.
    Once the country is chosen, there are possibilities to highlight the Sabbath.
    This is a good solution in case the business also localises its content, i.e. has the content translated to the particular country.
  2. The business can designate a particular 24 hour period as the Sabbath, for example the Sabbath in the country where the headquarters are located, and donate any profits made during that time to church or charity.

Advertising

Businesses use advertising to reach prospects and tell them what services they offer. Compared to traditional advertising, the internet offers a wide range of solution to avoid advertising on the Sabbath. For example it is comparitively easy to not advertise on the Sabbath of the audience. Traditional advertising, i.e. adverts in papers, brochures or along the motorway, are always “on” but the internet allows advertising to shutdown on the Sabbath.

I urge Christian businesses to take full advantage of this option as it will take away many objections against using the internet on the Sabbath. For example do not display ads on your site or any other site during the Sabbath. The Sabbath here can either be the Sabbath time of your business, but it would be even better not to advertise to customers during their Sabbath. For example if a Christian business displays advertisements on a site that has religious literature for download, do not advertise during the Sabbath of the visitor.

Google Ads has the option to target specific countries, or to display ads only during specific times, see below. Other ad managers might have similar features.

Scheduling an ad during specific times

Techniques

Christian websites have experimented with various approaches to obey the Sabbath. As discussed above, the difficulty with the internet is determining when it is the Sabbath. Techniques for determining this are discussed first. What to do next, is discussued last.

Here an overview and my take on the approach.

Use website's time

This technique makes the site unavailable during the time the website itself is considered to have its Sabbath. So a single time zone is chosen. The server itself may reside in a different time zone of course.

Advantages:

  1. Cannot be circumvented.
  2. Visitors clearly perceive the site owners keep the Sabbath.
  3. Very suitable for businesses that sell mainly in one time zone or country.

Disadvantages:

  1. If the site owner makes the entire site unavailable, persons in different time zones cannot visit the site on Saturday or Monday. This could lead to the strange effect that someone who tries to download a sermon on Saturday to listen to on Sunday, might not be able to do so.

Use visitor's time

This technique uses the time on the visitor's computer by running javascript code on the visitor's computer. If it is Sunday on the visitors' computer, the site redirects to a special Sabbath page.

Advantages:

  1. The site is available throughout the whole world 24/6, and does not stop visitors on their Saturday or Monday from visiting the site.
  2. Indexing servers from companies like Google can still index the site, even if they visit on a Sunday.

Disadvantages:

  1. The website takes the responsiblity for Sabbath keeping for visitors upon itself. That is unwarranted and unwise in my opinion.
  2. The technique is easily defeated by either changing the time on the computer or by disabling JavaScript.
  3. If the time on a user's computer is incorrect, the Sabbath message migth be displayed during a non-Sabbath day.
  4. If the technique gets more widespread, circumvention techniques will be automated. I.e. you can install an extension, and you can visit the site anyday you like.

Use visitor's ip address

This is an improvement on using the visitor's time, i.e. a more fool-proof to determine if it is Sabbath in the time zone of the visitor. It is the technique the BBC uses to determine if you are in the UK when watching BBC content (overseas visitors are blocked):

  1. The site is available throughout the whole world 24/6, and does not stop visitors on their Saturday or Monday from visiting the site.
  2. Not easily defeated for unsophisticated users.

Disadvantages:

  1. The website takes the responsiblity for Sabbath keeping for visitors upon itself. That is unwarranted and unwise in my opinion.
  2. Not 100% correct, but close.
  3. Can be defeated by using a proxy server.
  4. If not done properly, might block indexing servers from companies like Google and lead to removal of the site from Google's index.

Handling of the Sabbath

Assuming it has been determined it is the Sabbath, here are the techniques I have seen that are followed.

  1. Take the entire site offline by redirecting every page to a special page which says something about keeping the Sabbath.
  2. Display a particular message on the site, the site otherwise is available.
  3. Make sections of the site unavailable, in particular the buying portion of the site, or ad display.

I'm not sure the fourth commandment requires a businessman to take an entire site offline during the Sabbath. No human labour is involved. And displaying technical product information could safe lives. For example a seller of cleaning material might have a list of ingredients and what to do in case it is swallowed. This can be essential for a doctor who needs to deal with this in the Sabbath when treating a child who has swallowed that.

So in my opinion the site owner does not have to, and should not, take the responsibility of keeping the Sabbath by others on his shoulders. So disable the sections of the site by which the business owner makes a profit, otherwise leave it functioning. But again, feedback and thoughts are most welcome.