Contains 0g Trans Fat; or, No Significant Nutritional Value

Dear Diners,

They're deceptive, those food labels and health claims at the grocery store and at the Cultural Diner. They're meant to be, for if we really knew what we are putting into ourselves perhaps we would be more cautious. Perhaps.

We have recourse to so much information it just boggles the mind. There are so many options, even with regard to what we do with the information. Try to wade through it all, pick and choose the tidbits we like, or simply ignore the whole lot of it and refuse to think about the consequences of our intake. But do we really have an excuse to remain ignorant today?

It can be amusing, actually, to observe the ways in which we react to the labels. You've seen the folks who Super Size their combo, and then get the Diet Coke. You've seen the folks who chow down on that extra serving or two of fat-free cheesecake, unaware of, disregarding, not caring, or rationalizing away the extra sugar to make it palatable. You've heard the jokes about how the calories have fallen out so it's okay to eat the half dozen broken cookies. Even the new labels about 0g trans fat make us feel so good we don't remark about the extra sodium those chips have.

You may be asking (or may not be), "Bill, what does all this have to do with the Cultural Diner?". Jennifer might hear my voice in her head, with my usual answer, "You just don't know, do you?" (She loves it when I say that!)

Unpacking boxes and boxes of books lately I came across a lot of stuff I didn't know we had, and a lot of stuff I did know we had. (By the way, a book's appearance on my shelf is not necessarily an endorsement. I read some obscure stuff). One such book was When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Harold Kushner. Many of you might have read it, but I'm sure all of you have heard of it.

The book has been through several printings and sold in the millions. The author became a celebrity for awhile, newspapers and magazines have printed excerpts from the book; it has even been endorsed by well-known pastors and seminary professors. The book deals with an ages-old query: How can a good, all-loving, all-powerful God allow such terrible evil and suffering in the world? It's a familiar question, regardless of whether one is thinking of the Holocaust, the slaughter of the Canaanites, or the child who dies in an automible accident. We all draw from our own experience, and feel this question in our gut even if we never voice it out loud.

The Rabbi Kushner answers that God is indeed all-loving, but He is not all-powerful; the bad things which happen are simply out of His control. He writes, "I can worship a God who hates suffering but cannot eliminate it more easily than I can worship a God who chooses to make children suffer and die." I remember hearing that an admiring reader once wrote to thank him, "Maybe now I can believe in a more realistic God."

Well, it sure is nice that the Rabbi Kushner has brought comfort to so many Americans. Hold on a sec...What do we mean by a more realistic God? Who decides if God is realistic?

The God that Kushner writes about is neither omnipotent nor sovereign. Therefore, He is not the God of Abaham, Isaac, and Jacob; not the all-powerful Creator God of the Bible. Yet people have gobbled up this book anyway; Christians have clamored for this impotent God.

I suppose this is not surprising. People yearn for answers to life's mysteries, and when someone comes along with an easy answer that gives comfort and rationalizes the supernatural, we stampede the bookstores. We'll sacrifice truth to our own prejudices every day.

How can we be blind to what is happening? We stand on the shores while waves of secular thinking crash around us and are washing away the foundation on which the church stands. Well-meaning books like this are directly shaping people's perceptions of God. What should our response be? Do we just hit the snooze button and roll over for a few minutes' peace?

The message presented is not new. It represents a theology that has spread like a cancer throughout the church, dismissing the power of God and telling us that the goodness of God is more important. They used to say God is dead; now we see He is not dead, merely ill and feeble.

Certainly, evil messages like this should be expected in a fallen world. What is not expected is for a holy people to accept it. What's worse, the church seems to have lost it's taste for issues like sin and evil. They aren't popular sermon topics--someone might get offended, or convicted. For that matter, neither is gluttony a popular sermon topic, but it is a common sight here at the Diner.

A weary, frustrated, and hungry people are easy marks for those who peddle simple answers to life's tough questions. Those who write the Nutrition Facts on the food we consume at the Cultural Diner know their prey, and it is us. I

If junk pop answers wrapped up in religious packaging are so widely accepted, then Christians aren't doing their job. We should learn to label heresy as heresy.

Appropriately Labelled,
Your Friendly, Neighborhood Apatheist,

~Bill

P.S. Just wondering, anyway--Who are the "good" people?