Brand promises and the power of personal transformation

If you haven’t eaten the “comfort food” at Cracker Barrel, enjoyed the antique country paraphernalia decorating the walls, and shopped in their “country store,” you probably won’t care that they changed their logo and are modernizing their restaurants. Even if you have, you may not consider their corporate re-do an existential crisis.

But there’s more to the story than the fact that the company lost nearly $100 million in market value when its stock plunged after releasing its new logo. According to a creative director specializing in brand development, what Cracker Barrel has done is a textbook case of how not to rebrand.

Jeff Rifkin says the company’s core message is, “We don’t care about our core audience. We’re too busy trying to appeal to everyone and satisfying no one.” In his view, despite corporate explanations, Cracker Barrel erased the quirks and history that made people love their brand and thus lost touch with what it did best.

By contrast, the restaurant chain Chili’s is undergoing what Slate calls a “renaissance.” Three years after a new CEO and a team of executives were brought in to oversee a corporate revival, same-store sales were up 31 percent in the first quarter of this year. This marks the fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth, which the article describes as a “corporate turnaround for the ages.”

Their secret? Streamlining operations, simplifying their menu, emphasizing food quality and customer service, and focusing on what the restaurant is most known for—burgers, fajitas, appetizers, margaritas, and ribs. They’re not trying to compete with non-chain restaurants, fast-casual concepts, or quick trends. Instead, they’re innovating for what their chief marketing officer calls the “population that’s right down the middle.”

Why are the Dallas Cowboys so profitable?

One more brand in the news: the Dallas Cowboys are again the most valuable sports franchise in the world. The Dallas Morning News (DMN) reports that since 1996, the team has increased in value forty-seven times over, to a world-record $12.8 billion. However, the team has also failed to reach the NFC championship game even once over the same time frame, the longest such drought in the NFL.

How is this juxtaposition possible?

As the title of the eight-part Netflix docuseries that dropped this month shows, the Cowboys are still “America’s Team.” They boast the most followers of any NFL team on social media; their merchandise tops the league’s ranks and generates the most Google search interest. By the end of the upcoming season, they will have played in twenty-eight primetime games since 2021 (including Thursday night’s game with the world champion Philadelphia Eagles). That’s tied with the Kansas City Chiefs for the most over that span, though the Chiefs have played in the Super Bowl each of the last three years, winning twice.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has clearly mastered what Nobel Prize-winning economist Herbert A. Simon called the “attention economy.” As the DMN article explains, “In an information- and entertainment-abundant world, people’s attention acts as a scarce commodity, like oil or diamonds, and producers of content become valuable by commanding and controlling large amounts of that commodity.”

In this sense, the team’s thirty-year record of playoff futility works in their financial favor. As longtime Cowboys announcer Brad Sham noted, “There is no sports hate in America that comes close to Dallas Cowboys hate,” but those who hate the team “will never stop talking about them.” As a result, Sham said, “If someone in Massachusetts or Nevada turns on a Cowboys game hoping they’ll lose, that doesn’t matter to the ratings. All that matters is that they’re watching.”

Jesus “never asks us to decide for him”

Unlike the Dallas Cowboys, for whom “there’s no such thing as bad publicity,” the Christian “brand” is undermined every time Christians are in the news for the wrong thing. Our clergy abuse scandals call into question the trustworthiness of our leaders. Our political entanglements alienate those who disagree with our politics.

But there’s a deeper issue here, one illustrated by the contrast between Cracker Barrel and Chili’s.

Methodist evangelistic camp meetings of the early nineteenth century issued public invitations for people to come forward to trust in Christ. Revivalist Charles Finney popularized the practice; D. L. Moody and Billy Graham used what came to be known as the “altar call” in their evangelistic meetings as well.

There is nothing inherently wrong with making public our faith in this way, of course. The Bible calls us to acknowledge Christ “before men” (Matthew 10:32) as we “confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord” (Romans 10:9). However, as I’m certain Revs. Finney, Moody, and Graham would agree, “deciding for Christ” is not enough.

Oswald Chambers put it this way: “[Jesus] never asks us to decide for him, but to yield to him, a very different thing.”

Jesus called us to “take my yoke upon you,” which means to submit our lives to his authority (Matthew 11:28). We are to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1), to be “crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20), to take up our cross and follow Christ “daily” (Luke 9:23). The reason is simple: Jesus can change only what he can touch. He can transform our lives to the degree that he is Lord of our lives.

And transformed lives are the Christian “brand promise,” nothing less.

“If man is not fit to govern himself”

Like many churches and denominations today, we can change our theology to adapt to the popularity of LGBTQ and abortion ideologies. Like some in the evangelical world (and despite the clear teachings of Acts 4:12, 1 Corinthians 3:11, and John 3:18), we can jettison our culturally unpopular belief that Jesus is the only way to salvation.

But if we abandon the core tenets of biblical Christianity, we lose touch with what we do best: offering the gospel, which is the only “power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). By contrast, if we yield our lives daily to Christ as Lord and lead everyone we know to join us, we can never be the same. Nor can they.

Such moral and spiritual transformation is crucial to the future of our democracy. As James Madison asked, “If man is not fit to govern himself, how can he be fit to govern someone else?” And it is crucial to the future of our souls. As Paul noted, “Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable” (1 Corinthians 9:25).

Which type of wreath will you seek today?

Quote for the day:

“We are all servants. The only question is whom we will serve.” —R. C. Sproul

Our latest website resources:

• Donald Trump and Michelangelo on going to heaven
• Was Noah’s ark real? How we can learn from his faith
• What does the Global Flourishing Study reveal about faith and well-being?
• When peace feels impossible:  Ceasefire talks, Christ’s hope, and summer’s biggest box office hits & misses
• A review of “Miracle in Progress” by Chip Waggoner: A powerful testimony of God’s redemption

Denison Forum

The Texas Senate passed a controversial bill over the weekend, creating five new GOP-leaning districts, following a similar Texas House vote earlier in the week. Gov. Greg Abbott stated that he would “swiftly” sign the bill into law when it reaches his desk. When he does, Democrats and civil rights groups are expected to challenge the new maps in court.

In response to the Texas redistricting bill, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the “Election Rigging Response Act,” which would transform five Republican seats into districts that heavily favor Democrats. If California voters approve the measure in a special November 4 election, it would cancel the GOP seats gained in Texas.

The term “gerrymandering” was first used in 1812 when Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry signed a bill redrawing state senate election districts. Though Gerry was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and US vice president under James Madison, his name has been forever linked to what many consider political powerbrokering.

Speaking of Mr. Madison: Patrick Henry tried to gerrymander him out of a congressional seat in 1789, showing that the practice is nothing new. Election districts have been redrawn over the years through legislative procedures such as we are seeing in Texas and through court actions. Both parties have engaged in the practice as a means of increasing their political power.

But is such partisanship what Mr. Madison and the Founders intended?

How America became the “United” States

I just finished reading The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783–1789 by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph J. Ellis. He describes in vivid detail the remarkable work of Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison, and (indispensably) George Washington in leading the newly independent United States to become a truly “united” nation.

As Ellis shows, the “Cause” for which the thirteen American colonies fought was independence from England, not the forging of a national government to which they would be subsidiary parts. Most colonial Americans considered such a sovereign power over the various states to be a continuation of the English monarchy and a violation of the purpose for which they fought. They saw their future as a kind of Europe, with small “countries” linked by common trade.

But Gen. Washington and his three colleagues were convinced that such independent colonies could not survive, much less thrive, in the face of European threats to dominate the New World. They would need each other if they were to retire the massive debt incurred by the war, develop viable trade relations with Europe, and settle their western frontier as well. The Constitution they therefore created and led the colonies to adopt was a vital expression of the American motto, E pluribus unum, “Out of many, one,” words that are emblazoned on our Great Seal and US coinage.

However, the “Quartet” and those they influenced also knew that Americans were too disparate to be represented by a single party or ideology. This is why they created the three branches of our governance with their checks and balances, permitting no individual or group to have unaccountable power over others. Within such governance, our two-party system has provided a means of debating our vital issues and achieving compromise when necessary to benefit the common good.

“America’s identity as a unified nation is eroding”

That was then, this is now.

Many analysts believe the US is more divided today along ideological and political lines than at any time since the years leading to the Civil War. Our partisan divisions reflect deep cultural chasms:

• Of the fifteen US states with the most restrictive abortion laws, all voted for Donald Trump in 2020.
• Of the twenty-one states with the most permissive gun laws in 2023, nineteen voted for Mr. Trump in the 2020 election.
• Of the twenty-three states that imposed restrictions with regard to transgender participation in school sports and other LGBTQ issues, twenty-two voted for Mr. Trump.

Gerrymandering, whether done to benefit Republicans or Democrats, reflects these divisions and deepens them as well. Redistricting is intended to make a voting district safer for the party in power, with the effect of reducing the number of competitive districts. As a result of such efforts and larger demographic shifts, analysts rate just three dozen of the nation’s 435 House districts as competitive in the upcoming midterm elections.

Consequently, according to the Wall Street Journal, “America’s identity as a unified nation is eroding, with Republican- and Democratic-led states dividing into separate spheres, each with its own policies governing the economic, social, and political rules of life.” Less than 20 percent of Americans now live in a state where the minority party has a meaningful voice in governance. A recent Harvard analysis found that 98 to 99 percent of Americans live in areas segregated by partisanship.

But without political debate, competition, and compromise, the views and needs of America’s very disparate population are underrepresented. And if Americans feel they are facing “taxation without representation,” we are back where we started when our drive for independence from England began.

A movement that “transformed American culture”

Dr. Ellis ends The Quartet with the approval of the US Constitution and the ascension of George Washington to the presidency. So we might ask ourselves: What continued to unify the new nation once its widely disparate people achieved the purpose for which they originally came together?

The answer is spiritual, not political.

According to historian Thomas S. Kidd, the Second Great Awakening that began in the 1790s catalyzed an explosive movement of churches, church membership, and personal conversion. He writes that this awakening “spawned an incredible array of reform, publication, and missionary agencies that transformed American culture and sent the Christian gospel to the far corners of the earth.”

Such spiritual unity amid cultural diversity should not surprise us: early Christians were even more disparate than early Americans (Acts 2:9–11), but they were “filled with the Spirit” (v. 2) and therefore united in biblical truth, community, worship, and prayer (v. 42).

Accordingly, “every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus” (Acts 5:42), as “the word of God continued to increase, and the number of disciples multiplied greatly” (Acts 6:7).

As a result, their movement “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6).

When we are as submitted to the Spirit as they were, do you believe God will use us as powerfully as he used them?

Quote for the day:

“In union there is strength.” —Aesop

Our latest website resources:

• Was Noah’s ark real? How we can learn from his faith
• Hurricane Erin forces thousands to evacuate: A reflection on mortality and divine redemption
• What does the Global Flourishing Study reveal about faith and well-being?
• When peace feels impossible:  Ceasefire talks, Christ’s hope, and summer’s biggest box office hits & misses
• A review of “Miracle in Progress” by Chip Waggoner: A powerful testimony of God’s redemption

Denison Forum

Dr. James Dobson passed away yesterday morning at the age of eighty-nine. Best known as the founder of the media ministry Focus on the Family, he was an advisor to five US presidents and one of the best-known Christian leaders of his time.

Many are offering profiles of his life and tributes to his legacy today. However, there is a less-noted dimension of Dr. Dobson’s story that relates to us all, no matter what his direct influence on our lives and families may have been.

From a book to a media empire

Born in 1936 in Shreveport, Louisiana, James Clayton Dobson Jr. was the son, grandson, and great-grandson of Church of the Nazarene ministers. His parents were traveling evangelists, but he studied academic psychology and came to believe that he was called to become a Christian counselor or perhaps a Christian psychologist. He attended Pasadena College, now Point Loma Nazarene University, then began working at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. In 1967, he received his doctorate in psychology from the University of Southern California (USC).

That same year, Dr. Dobson became an Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the USC School of Medicine, where he served for fourteen years. After his teaching career at USC, he spent seventeen years on the staff of the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles in the Division of Child Development and Medical Genetics.

In response to the disintegration of moral principles he witnessed in his clinical practice, he published his bestseller Dare to Discipline in 1970. In 1977, he founded Focus on the Family, leading the organization to become a multimedia empire by the mid-1990s with ten radio programs, eleven magazines, numerous videos, basketball camps, and resources sent to thousands of churches each week. In 1995, the organization’s budget was more than $100 million annually.

At its peak, Dr. Dobson’s daily radio program was carried by more than four thousand stations across North America. His broadcasts were also translated into twenty-seven languages and distributed in more than one hundred and sixty countries. In 2010, after leaving Focus, he created the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute as a smaller but more personal platform to continue his mission with a sharper focus on his personal broadcasts and teaching.

Dr. Dobson was known not only for his family counseling, which influenced generations of Christian parents, but for his political activism as well. He was among the founders of the Family Research Council in 1981, a federal lobbying organization, and the Family Policy Councils, which lobby at the state government level. He strongly opposed gay marriage and nurtured relationships with conservative politicians.

“A strange affinity for the trained mind”

I believe the reach and impact of Dr. James Dobson’s ministry is attributable in significant measure to a factor that is urgently relevant for all American Christians.

Pastors from the book of Acts to today have been called to shepherd families, which includes support for parents amid their challenges. As a pastor for four decades, I met with many families who were struggling in various ways with their marriages, children, and parents. However, I had no secular credentials or academic training to offer them. My background is in philosophy, theology, and biblical interpretation, not psychology or psychiatry. Most pastors are similar to me in training and experience.

By contrast, Dr. Dobson leveraged his secular education, experience, and status to serve spiritual truth and transformation. For someone with his credentials and academic experience to offer Christian resources for parents was somewhat novel and enormously impactful. As an alternative to the highly secularized parenting theories popularized by Dr. Benjamin Spock, Dr. Dobson used his expertise in ways that served millions of families.

His example reminds me of a statement one of my mentors once made: “The Holy Spirit has a strange affinity for the trained mind.” The more trained we are, the more useful we can be. And when we employ reasoning and strategies that resonate with our audience, we are more effective in serving them. A secularized society can be helped to follow Christ and his teachings when we use secular logic and credentials to explain his word and encourage its obedience.

“No one was able to answer him a word”

Paul followed this strategy in Athens at Mars Hill (Acts 17:16–34). Knowing that the Greek philosophers he addressed would not care what the Scriptures say, he quoted their own poets and writers (v. 28) to expose the illogic of thinking that “the divine being is like gold or silver or stone” (v. 29), referencing the idolatrous statues that surrounded them at that very moment.

He was then able to pivot to the resurrection of Jesus, leading “Dionysius the Areopagite,” a “woman named Damaris,” and others to faith in Christ (v. 34). Eusebius, the first church historian, reports that Dionysius then became the first bishop of the church at Athens (Ecclesiastical History III.iv). He is venerated as the patron saint of Athens today.

Intellectual excellence is one of the hallmarks of God’s people across biblical history. For example:

• Joseph’s wise management saved Egypt and his own family from famine (Genesis 41–47).
• In Babylon, God gave Daniel and his three companions “learning and skill in all literature and wisdom” such that “in every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters that were in all his kingdom” (Daniel 1:17, 20).
• Paul was a student of Gamaliel, the leading teacher of his day (Acts 22:3); even Roman officials noted his “great learning” (Acts 26:24).
• Jesus at the age of twelve was so brilliant that “all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers” (Luke 2:47). As an adult, he debated his opponents so effectively that they “marveled” (Matthew 22:22) and “no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions” (v. 46). In addition, the crowds who heard him “were astonished at his teaching” (v. 33).

Despite the anti-intellectual current of evangelicalism across recent generations, Christians should be the best scholars, the best doctors and lawyers and businesspeople and teachers, the best at whatever we do. This is because Jesus was the most brilliant person who ever lived (cf. Matthew 12:42), and you and I now have “the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16) and are “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).

What God expects and deserves

The same Spirit who empowered Christ now lives in us to empower us (1 Corinthians 3:16). When we submit our minds and lives to him (Ephesians 5:18), we are enabled to “think about” that which is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, and excellent (Philippians 4:8). Our Master therefore instructs us: “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” (Colossians 3:23). He expects and deserves no less.

Pastor and author Jack Hyles noted,

“If a task is worthy of our attention, it is worthy of our best.”

What is worthy of your attention today?

Quote for the day:

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.” —Plutarch (AD 40–120s)

Our latest website resources:

• Hurricane Erin forces thousands to evacuate: A reflection on mortality and divine redemption
• What does the Global Flourishing Study reveal about faith and well-being?
• When peace feels impossible:  Ceasefire talks, Christ’s hope, and summer’s biggest box office hits & misses
• A review of “Miracle in Progress” by Chip Waggoner: A powerful testimony of God’s redemption
• Public, private, homeschool, or online? A guide for Christian parents

Denison Forum