Wake Up, Look Up

Hello everyone, thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch, and in today's episode, we're talking about the Cracker Barrel logo and we're asking the question, why are we so dumb? Now, this story I read about in the Wall Street Journal, but it's been everywhere in the news. But if you aren't familiar with it, let me catch you up. Of course, we all know about Cracker Barrel, kind of the iconic American roadside restaurant. Most of us have eaten there on a road trip or two. Well, recently, in an effort to modernize, they updated their logo, moving off of the kind of iconic older guy sitting by a barrel, Uncle Herschel, to just a text based logo and just a, uh, in general kind of a brand overhaul for their brand. They've been modernizing for a while now. In fact, their relatively new CEO has been modernizing many things about Cracker Barrel and they've posted four straight quarters of growth. So it's been working. But for whatever reason, the logo kind of rubbed people the wrong way. And an online mob led by Donald Trump Jr. Uh, started to see the logo shift as a sign that Cracker Barrel was going woke, that they were embracing liberal politics, DEI policies and things of that nature. And the outlash over it has gone incredibly viral. So much so, the Cracker Barrel stock has taken a nosedive. The company's value has dropped over $150 million. And just recently, Cracker Barrel said oops, are bad and walked back. The logo change going back to the old logo. Uh, now I told you, we're asking the question, why are we so dumb? Because I gotta tell you, I don't get this. I mean, on wulu, we talk about WOKE policies all the time. We talk about the danger of different approaches that liberal politics will take our country and will take us individually. So I'm not above standing against many of those policies. And yet at the same time, I gotta tell you, I've looked at these logos over and over again and I just don't see it. Uh, old guy sitting by a barrel and moving that to text is not in any way connected to WOKE policies, DEI policies or politics in general. It is simply just a branding change. Look, in the outrage over this change says way more about us than it does about Cracker Barrel. We've become so political, so tribalistic that we see and hear everything as a political issue, even when it's not. And as soon as somebody whistles and tells us that the mob is headed this way. We're pretty quick to join in and be mad at whoever the recent bad guy is. But here's the problem with that faux outrage, which is what this is, because in a week nobody is going to care about this. Faux outrage over non issues distracts from actual issues. In fact, this is one of the main problems Jesus had with the Pharisees. In the Gospels And Matthew chapter 23 he says to them, you strain out Anat but swallow a camel. In other words, he says, you get so worked up over things that don't matter that you ignore the things that do matter. We have real problems in this country and real problems in this world. Children are starving in Gaza. We are tribalistic and divided Families are more estranged than ever. AI therapy chatbots are convincing kids to take their own lives and you want to get angry about Cracker Barrel? Grow up. Listen. Real pain requires real attention. So Proverbs 31 is saying, speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves. That's who we should be talking about. You don't like what Cracker Barrel's doing with their logo, go to Denny's. Who cares? It doesn't matter. But there are things that do matter. And when we get angry about ridiculous non issues like this, we shame ourselves as Christians. Listen, Colossians 4:6 says to Let your conversation be always full of grace. That's because we understand people are complicated, people are sinners, the world is broken, we are salt and light. We are not the anti woke police and we're certainly not the enemies of a stupid chain restaurant. Manufactured division is how people like Donald Trump Jr. Boost their Instagram account. But it is not how the kingdom of Jesus moves forward. Help me out with this. If you're one of these people raging about Cracker Barrel, how do you reconcile that with the words of Jesus in Matthew 5. 9 When he says blessed are the peacemakers? Do you think that's you? Do you think that's Donald Trump Jr. Do you think peacemakers have any interest or time for Cracker Barrel? All this is is a right wing witch, huh, Hunt? And I say that as someone who's often accused of being right wing. My point is not political. It's that don't take your eyes off the things that really matter just to get worked up about a 24 hour news cycle story. Like whether or not Cracker Barrel has the old guy whose name I bet you didn't even know in their logo. Listen, Paul says it this way. When I was a child I did childish things. Now that I'm a man, I put away childish things. And it's time for some of us to join him. This is ridiculous. It doesn't matter. It's not political. And you and I need to grow up and stop caring about it. Hey, thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up, Look Up. If you enjoyed it, please help us get the word out by sharing it with someone you think might benefit from it. And while you're here, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get further content or even download the CCC app, where you'll find even more resources to help you grow in your faith and relationship with Jesus Christ.

Have an article you’d like Zach to discuss? Email us at wakeup@ccchapel.com!