Satanic Soap Forces (But Not from Procter & Gamble)

I'm not the most perceptive of people when it comes to noticing small changes in my everyday environment. My wife can change her hair style and it might take me days to notice if she doesn't get impatient and call it to my attention. I think I've heard her use the word "oblivious" to describe me, and I couldn't object too strongly.

I've been showering every day with Irish Spring soap for a long time. It suddenly dawned on me a week or two ago that the soap bars seemed to be getting small more quickly than they used to. After considering and discounting other possibilities like me taking longer showers, I got a box of soap out of the storage pantry and read the small print. Aha! The bar is now 4 ounces, when it used to be 5 ounces. Discounting the cost of packaging, that is like a 20% price increase! In inflationary times, that is an old marketing trick. Don't raise prices; instead cut down on the size of the product. I remember back in the 1970s when we went through a previous round of rampant inflation that candy bars suddenly got considerably smaller than they had been before.

My reaction?

First, as a believer in a free market economy, I recognize that soap manufacturers have the right to market their products in whatever sizes they wish. Supply and demand is at work. If people quit buying four-ounce Irish Spring bars and start buying more five-ounce bars marketed by a competitor, then the Colgate-Palmolive company will likely go back to selling five-ounce boxes of Irish Spring. That's the way it should be.

Second, there is something a bit deceptive in the practice. It would be more straightforward -- more honest -- to raise prices if necessary rather than subtly reduce the amount of product the consumer gets for her money.

So that leads me to the analogy that, in this case, the soap company is acting a lot like Satan does. (Hey, Irish Spring is not a Procter & Gamble product so that mysterious "Satanic" trademark of theirs doesn't even figure into this at all).

However, the devil is tricky and deceptive. He tries to work subtly to lead people away from Christ and his truth. 2 Corinthians 11.3 says, "But I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ." Like the soap company, he tries to pull switcheroos when we aren't paying attention. "This 'new and improved' gospel message is a lot better than the old one," he would have you believe. "It doesn't make such hard demands on you." "This new gospel makes people like you; it's guaranteed to reduce persecution by 50%." Maybe he doesn't whisper those exact words in your ears, but you get the idea. He is all about compromise and getting people to take the easy way instead of following Christ with determination and dedication. On superficial examination, people might think it's the same ol' religion, but Satan's subtle changes have taken away much more than 20% of it's value.

When salt loses it's saltiness, it is good for nothing [Matthew 5:13]. When true disciples of Jesus lose the essence of what makes them Christians, everything worthwhile has been abandoned.

Having to buy a new bar of soap more often is only a minor inconvenience. Losing your Christianity because of Satan's wiles is a much more serious matter.