Starting pay for full-time employees was $11 an hour, which exceeds the federal minimum by 52%.
Employees now make $18.50 an hour, far exceeding the federal standard.
Their gifts to charity are generous and reflect David Green’s belief that God is the actual owner of his business.
David Green insists God is the true owner of his $3 billion arts and crafts chain. Acting as His disciple, Green has become the largest evangelical benefactor in the world—with plans for unprecedented gifts once he’s in heaven.
“I want to know that I have affected people for eternity. I believe I am. I believe once someone knows Christ as their personal savior, I’ve affected eternity. I matter 10 billion years from now.”
“I matter 10 billion years from now.”
It is clear that David Green, and by extension, his family and family-owned company, are sincere in their faith and in their desire to spread the Gospel.
But is “I matter 10 billion years from now” the motivation of a man who gives everything to the Lord?”
Or is he withholding his faith to allow the expression of his own ego and his desire to somehow become immortal?
Not to put too fine a point on it, I do not question David Green’s faith. I do, however, question some of his and his company’s tactics in their quest to spread their own version of Christianity around the world.
What have the Green family done to achieve their evangelical goals?
In business/ministry, the Greens have done a number of things to make their vision become a reality.
The Museum of the Bible is a museum in Washington D.C., owned by Museum of the Bible, Inc., a non-profit organization established in 2010 by the Green family. The museum documents the narrative, history, and impact of the Bible. It opened on November 17, 2017 and has 1,150 items in its permanent collection and 2,000 items on loan from other institutions and collections.
Though the museum claims it is nonsectarian and “is not political, and it will not proselytize,” members of the board of directors sign a “faith statement” regarding the truth of the Bible.
“Members of the board must sign a faith statement regarding the truth of the Bible.”
It is at this point that we depart from describing what the Greens have done and begin to explore what realities that entails.
The Greens are interested in spreading the Gospel. But their specific actions show that it is their specific and personal interpretation of that Gospel that the Greens want to spread.
We have seen that the Greens donate millions to evangelical universities and ministries.
It seems reasonable to note here that there are no multi-million dollar donations to organizations to feed the hungry, house the poor or to support basic human needs.
The entire focus seems to be on education and proselytization, and quite pointedly to evangelical education and proselytization.
The high school curriculum
Steve Green, son of David Green and current president of Hobby Lobby, Inc. “has sponsored the development of a new Bible curriculum, the Book: The Bible’s History, Narrative and Impact, that he reportedly hopes thousands of public schools will adopt.”
According to Mark A. Chancey, Professor of Religious Studies, Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Southern Methodist University:
Green’s own description of the curriculum suggests that it was created for a religious purpose.
The curriculum promotes the religious belief that the Bible is literally, historically accurate and
“reliable.”
Central tenets of classical Christian theology provide the curriculum’s unifying conceptual
framework.
Theological concerns seem to underlie the selection of key themes in the curriculum.
Theological claims are clothed in the language of literary analysis
The curriculum promotes the theological claim that God fulfills promises
The curriculum favors the Protestant form of the Bible.
The curriculum implies that the Bible is the primary source for positive developments in
Western culture, generally ignoring the ways in which the Bible has been used to justify various
forms of oppression.
The curriculum’s tone at times veers close to religious triumphalism.
Numerous errors and idiosyncrasies detract from the course’s stated goal of cultural literacy
The curriculum’s claim of extensive scholarly input appears exaggerated.
The combination of a religious purpose, pervading sectarian bias, and frequent factual errors
demonstrates that this curriculum has a long way to go before being appropriate for a public school classroom. This course’s contents mirror the particular theological views and religious agenda voiced by Green in his 2013 speech. The assumption of an overarching Christian metanarrative, the repeated application of theologically motivated interpretive “filters,” the historicizing tone, the emphasis on the Bible’s “reliability” – it is clear even from an incomplete version that these types of religious elements undergird and unify the book as a whole.
AI concept of ancient scrolls Gemini-generated Image by William T. Orr, Jr.
Green Scholars Initiative
As the academic research wing of Museum of the Bible, the Scholars Initiative fosters biblical research at colleges, universities, and seminaries across the world, planning and supporting academic projects related to the languages and material culture of the Bible, and capitalizing on artifacts in the Museum Collections. Past projects have addressed the Dead Sea Scrolls, Greek papyri with secular and religious texts, ancient translations of the Hebrew Bible, the Greek text of the Pauline Epistles, and various Aramaic, Coptic, Ethiopic, Hebrew, and Latin manuscripts.
Mariam Ayad, University of Memphis: Lead Mentor-Scholar, Papyri Project and Egyptian and Coptic texts
Gordon Campbell, University of Leicester: Co-Senior Scholar, King James Version Project
Robert Duke, Azusa Pacific University: Scholar of Hebrew texts
Jeffrey Fish, Baylor University: Scholar of Greek texts
Ralph Hanna, University of Oxford: Senior Scholar, Richard Rolle Project
David Lyle Jeffrey, Baylor University: Senior Scholar, Christian tradition and spirituality
Alister McGrath, University of Cambridge: Senior Scholar, KJV Critical Text Project
Curt Niccum, Abilene Christian University: Distinguished Scholar of Ethiopic texts
Dirk Obbink, University of Oxford: Senior Scholar, Papyri
Thomas Oden, Drew University: Senior Scholar, African texts
David Riggs, Indiana Wesleyan University: Distinguished Scholar of Latin texts
Daniel B. Wallace, Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, and Dallas Theological Seminary: Mentor-Scholar
Peter Williams, University of Cambridge: Scholar of Aramaic texts
Benno van den Toren, University of Oxford: Distinguished Scholar of Dutch texts
It should be noted that each one of these people might well be a masterful scholar in his/her field.
It should also be noted that the titles Lead Mentor-Scholar, Co-Senior Scholar, Senior scholar etc. are designations by the initiative, not academic titles where they are employed.
It should also be noted that several scholars show university affiliations but NONE are identified as professors or even faculty. They could be graduate students. They could even be undergraduates.
Quite significantly, none are listed by their publications.
The Museum of the Bible
AI concept of the Museum of the Bible (not a photo) Gemini-generated Image by William T. Orr, Jr.
The Greens want to amass and share artifacts which could increase understanding of the times of Biblical authorship, the people who wrote the Bible, the impact of these ancient texts and a wealth of other academically legitimate and valuable information.
Joel Baden, Professor of Hebrew Bible at Yale Divinity School and Candida Moss, Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology in the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham, have extensively researched the Green family, Hobby Lobby and the Museum of the Bible and have published the findings of their research.
In their book, Bible Nation: The United States of Hobby Lobby, they explore the museum, its founders, its stated purpose, its actual impact and brings up some troubling things about the museum as well.
Bible Nation. Image used by permission of the author
After spending many hours while writing the book with museum founder Steve Green and president Cary Summers, they concluded:
It’s not really a museum of the Bible, it’s a museum of American Protestantism. Their whole purpose is to show this country as a Christian country governed by Christian morality.-Candida Moss
Their three-minute promo is fascinating demonstration of this problem. At least half of it is a reenactment of American history which has no bearing on the Bible – the signing of the Declaration of Independence, for example, or the Revolutionary War. The worry is that the museum portrays a story of the Bible that culminates in Protestantism and America. -Joel Baden.
There are three areas of specific concern about the museum which the book addresses:
the trade in biblical antiquities
the integrity of academic research
the place of private belief in public life
The trade in Biblical antiquities
Before we discuss the findings of the book, we will consider several opinions and assertions about the green family’s acquisition of ancient artifacts:
Kathryn Prinkney has accused the Greens of knowingly purchasing stolen artifacts:
The evangelical businessman collected for more than a decade with the intention of opening a museum with a specific narrative about the Bible, which has come under scrutiny. The Greens have purchased stolen and looted artifacts, bought forgeries, and even lied on U.S. Customs forms to import such materials. Although these actions are morally corrupt, and contrary to the Greens’ evangelical background, the family serves as more than a story of malpractice and unethical behavior. By using their private wealth to exploit the antiquities markets in areas of political unrest, the Greens exemplify contemporary cultural colonialism. In part one, I explore the background of the Green family and Hobby Lobby and their connections to the Museum of the Bible. Then, I define and examine the terms “cultural colonialism” and “colonial matrices of power,” and their relevance to contemporary contexts.
Eileen Kinsella reports that antiquities procured for the Green collection were required to be returned to their rightful owners.
The Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC, is on the hot seat once again for acquiring illicit antiquities that must now be returned.
The latest scandal involves at least 13 biblical fragments that Oxford papyrologist Dirk Obbink is accused of stealing and improperly selling to the museum’s owners, David Green and his family, who also own the chain store Hobby Lobby, according to the Daily Beast.
Emma Green of the Atlantic reports on a $3 million settlement regarding smuggled artifacts:
Hobby Lobby purchased thousands of ancient artifacts smuggled out of modern-day Iraq via the United Arab Emirates and Israel in 2010 and 2011, attorneys for the Eastern District of New York announced on Wednesday. As part of a settlement, the American craft-supply mega-chain will pay $3 million and the U.S. government will seize the illicit artifacts. Technically, the defendants in the civil-forfeiture action are the objects themselves, yielding an incredible case name: The United States of America v. Approximately Four Hundred Fifty (450) Ancient Cuneiform Tablets; and Approximately Three Thousand (3,000) Ancient-Clay Bullae.
Candida Moss and Baden’s book discusses this controversy, using an example of the museum’s curators not taking their share of responsibility for due diligence:
The Green family had originally paid $3 million for the four-gospel codex. Michelle Farmer of DeMoss, the museum’s public relations firm, told the press that the manuscript was “the first return of an artifact because of a provenance issue.”10 The manuscript, known as “Manuscript 18,” was stolen from the University of Athens library in 1991. It was sold at auction at Sotheby’s in 1997, acquired by Hobby Lobby in 2010, and donated to the museum in 2014. Clearly many parties, most notably Sotheby’s, failed to do due diligence. Kloha, however, described the museum’s actions in returning the stolen gospel book as altruistic and Christian. In a citation of Matthew 7:12, he said, “We’re a Museum of the Bible, so it’s ‘do unto others as you would have others do unto you.’ ” He added, “We want to act in an ethical way, a nice way to help a sister institution.” The language that is employed with regard to the disclosure of trafficked and forged items attempts to position the museum as an ethical, educational, Christian institution. It is about establishing bona fides rather than admitting responsibility.
Questions arose quickly when the museum opened in 2010:
By the time public news of the existence of the Green Collection began to surface—the first report of it in the New York Times was published in June 2010—the Greens already owned more than 30,000 artifacts. With so many pieces being acquired in such a short period of time, questions began to surface: What, exactly, did the Greens own? Where were these artifacts coming from? How were these pieces being vetted and authenticated? Were these purchases above-board?
The book does not accuse the Greens of deliberately owning and exhibiting stolen or forged artifacts, but it clearly shows that their efforts to vet artifacts and sellers is nowhere near meeting the academic standard for provenance.
In this light, the constant invocation of “nonsectarianism” by Steve Green and MOTB makes somewhat more sense: while they speak of bringing the Bible to a wider public without attempting to evangelize, they may not be envisioning a purely academic, intellectual, historical, or cultural appreciation of the book. There is still an underlying religious commitment, which, given the personal beliefs of the Green family, should not be surprising.
Moss and Baden do not question the sincerity and faith behind their actions, they point out a departure from academic standards and practices intended to shape the understanding of the Bible for everyone for “10 billion years” according to their own personal theology.
The scope of their influence makes it tempting to draw comparison with the Vanderbilts and other industrialist robber barons, but in their sincerity, self-understanding, and business practices they are more like William Colgate. They are “the real deal”: a sincere and well-intentioned family doing its best to improve the world in a manner consistent with their religious beliefs and cultural instincts. Even as we raise questions about their actions, we want to understand their motivations, explain their beliefs, and describe the ways that this small but powerful family is reshaping how the Bible is understood by the public.
The place of private belief in public life
Moss and Baden assert that the Greens, however sincere they might be, have and continue to disregard academic standards and practices.
As academics, we are particularly attentive to the way that the Greens and MOTB have affected the revelation and distribution of information. As the Green family has journeyed from occasional Bible collectors to national storytellers, they and those who work with them have contributed to the privatization of a body of knowledge that is of pressing importance to everyone. It is not only Christians who are stakeholders in the artifacts that they control and carefully curate—the history of the Bible, as the Greens have gone to such pains to argue, is a history that is shared by anyone invested in history and culture. And yet the knowledge inherent in the artifacts that the Greens possess is tightly controlled by the Scholars Initiative. Other academics are prohibited from accessing the collection’s holdings unless they join the GSI and bind themselves to the terms of Hobby Lobby’s nondisclosure agreement.
Even as MOTB privatizes academic work, it capitalizes on the culture of shared knowledge that underwrites the academy. Undergraduate and graduate students are put to work as apprentices in the sealed workshop that is the Scholars Initiative, but it is questionable whether they reap professional rewards from the project.
They show that the Greens are devoted to one specific version of scripture:
David Green, the family patriarch, then pulled Carroll aside and tore into him: “You will not use this collection to undermine the King James Bible!” This episode is illustrative on several levels. It serves as a stark reminder that, whether explicit or not, there is a faith-based agenda at work at the wellspring of the Green Collection, at the source from which all the funding, and therefore the entire project, flows. David Green’s concern with the authenticity of the King James Version is grounded in the common evangelical belief, especially among Pentecostals and Baptists, that the King James Bible is the only valid English translation; sometimes it is even considered to have been divinely inspired, putting it on par with the original biblical writings in Hebrew and Greek. From this perspective, the King James is not really a translation of the Bible at all; it is simply the Bible.
What can we conclude from all this?
It is clear that the Green family:
are most sincere in their faith
have spent a lot of money to amass a collection of ancient artifacts
give generously to evangelical causes
provide funding to evangelical institutions
engage scholars in doing something with ancient artifacts, whether or not in keeping with academic standards
most controversially, are attempting to shape and influence the understanding of the King James Bible (only), for people around the world.
While David and Steven Green continue to run a successful business and to make generous donations to religious causes, and while they seem sincere to their mission, it is that mission that I question.
I believe that as believers, as skeptics, as agonistics or as atheists, we are called to question any person or any family’s attempt to control how people access Biblical texts and how they interpret them for themselves.
We need to sincerely and thoughtfully ask and answer the big question for ourselves:
Can (or should) one family truly control the Bible?
I believe that many people will have thoughts on this. I welcome and invite your comments, supportive or not.
William T. Orr, Jr. is a retired educator, most recently the principal of a high school named in the Top 10 in the nation by Newsweek magazine. Orr has a B.A. in English Language and Literature, a M.Ed. in Education Administration and Supervision, and an Ed.D. in Education leadership. He’s also completed Postdoctoral study at Yale Divinity School and Dallas Theological Seminary. You can read more about the author here.
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