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Amway and Quixtar
Are They Selling Jesus With the Soap?
By: Nathan Ray Thomas
Winston-Salem---
Many people have heard stories about the neighbor who comes over and invites them to his place to look at a new online business opportunity that’s recently become available. Maybe you have a neighbor like that.
Most people don’t want to get involved in anything like Amway or Quixtar; going door to door to sale and recruiting new distributors.
But one of the aspects of the Amway/Quixtar business that most people don’t complain about is the overt Christian emphasis that is displayed at the rallies, events, and in the motivational material.
At the events, speakers, who are IBO’s themselves, mount the podium and praise the virtue of Amway/Quixtar. Some of them will even give a “Christian testimony” and make direct links to their faith and the success of their business.
Some will tell about their Christian faith; how it changed their life, and that they view their Amway/Quixtar business as their ministry for God.
At some of the rallies, a Sunday morning Christian worship service will be offered instead of a sales or promotional meeting. This is confusing to those who look at their business with Amway/Quixtar from a purely secular perspective. Instead of promoting the Amway/Quixtar product line, now they’re preaching to the IBO’s.
What about the Muslims, Buddhists, agnostics, and others at the meeting who aren’t “born-again” believers? Isn’t Amway/Quixtar blurring the lines between Christianity and retail sales?
“Yes and no,” according to Robin Luymens, Manager of Public Relations for Quixtar. IBO (Independent Business Owner) Rallies are held and financed by top IBO’s: Crown Ambassadors (the top), Crowns (next down), Triple Diamond, and so on. “Quixtar doesn’t sponsor any conferences,” he said.
“We try to separate Christianity as much as possible from Quixtar,’ but he cautioned, “[Quixtar] doesn’t necessarily know every detail of what [the IBO’s] are doing. When people call in to complain, we get back to the IBO.”
Luymens said that they try to discourage using Christianity in the IBO meetings as much as they are able and stated Quixtar’s Position Statement on Religion, which clearly defines the self-control that Quixtar expects their IBO’s to exercise in their business:
[BEGIN ITAL] “Quixtar offers a business opportunity to anyone, regardless of religious beliefs. Quixtar was not founded as a Christian company nor is it an exclusive opportunity available to people of a particular faith, political party, national origin, culture, or race…” [END ITAL]
Many people complain that the IBO rallies and the motivational tapes depicting Christians witness and descriptions of their riches are a de facto endorsement of God’s favor and gives His stamp of approval of their materialistic lifestyle: ‘God helps those who help themselves.’
No, that’s not a Bible verse; it’s a fifteenth century French proverb.
“There are several hundred thousands of IBO’s in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico,” Luymens said, “and if [some of them] believe their faith and their business are interrelated, they’re going to bring that into the presentation.”
“I have no doubt that sometimes it’s done and sometimes it’s not done. Sometimes religion never comes into the presentation,” he said. Disaffected former Amway and Quixtar vitriol abounds on the web, but many will concede that not all rally sponsors mix religion with Quixtar.
Now, let’s go back to the church service, because it’s probably really bugging you – a lot. Are people compelled to come? If not, don’t some feel undue pressure to attend to “go along to get along.” Do some attend hoping for some largess, or is there something mystical about the service that helps bring the riches?
And besides, if none of that is true, isn’t there something fundamentally wrong or unethical with having a church service at a business meeting?
Meet Ronnie and Marlene Rule. They’re IBO’s who originally started with Amway, then switched to Quixtar because the online shopping feature was more appealing. Rule is co-owner of a successful flooring company in the Triad, his wife works for a major medical center.
They attend about four IBO meetings each year and just returned from one in Grand Rapids, Michigan. At the meeting a worship service was announced for Sunday morning.
“At [the] Grand Rapids [meeting] they announced there would be a non-denominational worship service,” Rule said. “It was strictly optional. They didn’t do anything more than other churches would do to invite people.”
But why have a church service at all? Shouldn’t the Christians go find churches in the area to attend?
“The only reason they had the service was to make it convenient for the Christians who wanted to worship.” Rule said that about twenty-five percent of the IBO’s attended the worship service.
That leaves seventy-five percent not attending the services, which begs the question: Why have such a blatant Christian display in the first place, since they are clearly a minority in the organization?
There are three answers to this question.
First, like-thinking minds always tend to associate with each other. The founders of Amway, Rich DeVos and Jay Van Andel, are Christians, and in the early days of the company no doubt registered some friends and acquaintances who also were Christians, who in turn did the same thing, and on and on. Almost a half-century later, by default, there is a strong “Christian” tradition associated with the company.
Second, many of the top IBO’s who sponsor the meetings are Christians themselves or are very religious, and since they pay the bills for these events, they feel they have the right to express their beliefs and highlight Christian speakers, such as Dan Quayle, Tim Lahaye, and Jerry Falwell.
Third, in many major functions and rallies, Christianity and American free enterprise are co-mingled. Speakers routinely speak of their “business” as a spiritual ministry they feel is God’s will for their life.
This is a tradition that goes back to the landing of the Mayflower at Plymouth explained Robert Fitzpatrick, co-author of [BEGIN ITAL] False Profits: Seeking Financial and Spiritual Deliverance in Multi-Level Marketing and Pyramid Schemes. [END ITAL]
“The pilgrims left Europe because of the religious conformity,” he said. “The Catholic church demanded conformity to their doctrine.”
When the pilgrims arrived here, he explained, they not only had religious freedom, but economic freedom as well. Fitzpatrick said that along with the freedom, the virtues of responsibility, honesty, and charity went hand-in-hand with free enterprise.
“But now, the MLM’s have taken away the responsibility aspect,” and all that is left is the money-and God.
At www.amquix.50megs.com/ibofactscom/question 19 a sound byte is posted in which Dexter Yager, head of one of the two largest Amway organizations, is heard saying, “Somehow or another God has anointed this business.”
At the same web page, a sound byte of Bill Britt, head of the other largest Amway organization, is posted where he is heard speaking to someone named “Ron,” and tells the listening audience that when “spiritual growth stops, [the] business stops…”
Britt goes on to explain that the business and personal spirituality go hand in hand. It is clear from the entire context of the conversation that Britt believes there is a spiritual connection between himself and his business, and the same applies to his downline (those sponsored under him).
Statements like these are verified by former Amway and Quixtar IBO’s who have left the organizations out of disgust for what they feel is a materialistically centered lifestyle.
On the web, some former IBO’s are clearly grinding an ax, primarily due to failure in the business-one way or another. But they all have enough inside knowledge to speak with authority about the mixing of religion and the business.
One of the perennial complaints about Amway, and now Quixtar, is that the speakers (either in person, on cassette, video, or in books) give the appearance that God provided all the riches and that it was available to anyone willing to give the business 100% - literally 100%.
Not true, says Rule, who readily conceded that some of the speakers (all IBO’s) did (and do at other meetings) give a Christian testimony. He mirrored the same feeling as Luymens, but added, “they also told everybody there that it was going to take a lot of hard work and five to seven years of consistent selling to get there.
“In the IBO meetings they stick mainly to techniques,” he said. “The testimony is just for them, it’s not necessarily what God will do for others. If they get it (prosperity Gospel) that way, they are reading something into that or taking something out of context.”
But Rule and his experience seem to be the exception. He is probably is in an organization that doesn’t make a habit of promoting some of the reported abuses.
Even some of Amway’s harshest critics concede that there are some organizations that attempt to play it by the book and are basically honest, concentrating on selling the product above selling promotional material as a main source of income.
However, for those who end up in organizations that heavily promote Christian virtue synonymously with business savvy, the experience is anything but enjoyable, especially for those who are non-Christians.
Ruth Carter, a former Amway IBO, has written “Amway Motivational Organizations: Behind the Smoke and Mirrors. In her book, Carter chronicles her life as an Amway IBO, and compares the motivational techniques of the organizations (not Amway) to mind control.
But the basic question remains: Why do so many Christians flock to Amway and Quixtar, as well as the other MLM opportunities, hoping for a piece of the American Dream, only to end up with heartache and spiritual defeat in their lives?
Athena Dean, a single mom, is the author of two books – [BEGIN ITAL] Consumed by Success: Reaching the Top and Finding God Wasn’t There [END ITAL] and [BEGIN ITAL] All That Glitters Isn’t God: Breaking Free from the Sweet Deceit of Multi Level Marketing. [END ITAL] – which recounts her life in MLM’s.
Though she was not in Amway, she says the MLM programs she participated in were very similar.
She had bought into the MLM dream heavily and was recruiting friends, family, and others into the businesses. She was a natural salesperson, but not all the others under her were. She was successful, but they were struggling.
“One weekend I was by myself and had a chance to pray,” she explained. “[God] showed me I was leading people astray about rags to riches – motivating people to do what you want them to do.”
Dean quit her MLM business, took a rest, and worked briefly for a veteran’s ministry before founding her own self-publishing business.
She said that she points out to prospective authors that their books may be a sales disaster and counsels them to think long and hard before putting up their money for a project that may fail.
Dean thinks the wedding of Christianity and MLM’s promotional pitches cannot all be laid at the promoter’s feet.
“The reason Christians are so attracted to these things is because they are selfish and greedy. The organizations are simply tapping into that greed.”
(10/1/2002)
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