Meanderings, 21 December 2024
Good morning! We have snow on the ground, and it may well be here on Christmas Day. Three cheers for the snow.
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
I guess only Chicago has a “Hotdogger Program” but do you know how Chicagoans eat their hotdogs, that is, what’s on and not on one?
Oscar Mayer is now accepting applications for its coveted “Hotdogger” position, offering recent college graduates the chance to drive the brand’s iconic 27-foot Wienermobile across the country.
The Hotdogger program, which launched in 1988, selects 12 candidates annually to become official spokespeople for Oscar Mayer, traveling to dozens of cities and representing the brand at events and media appearances.
Along the way, Hotdoggers develop branded content, interact with fans and spread smiles while living out Oscar Mayer’s mission, according to the Kraft Heinz Company.
“As a former Hotdogger myself, I can confirm the relished position is one of the most unique experiences available to college graduates today,” said Molle Twing, senior brand manager for Oscar Mayer.
Twing says the position is a golden opportunity for aspiring content creators who are interested in pursuing a career outside of the typical 9-to-5 structure.
In addition to driving and maintaining the hot-dog-shaped vehicle, Hotdoggers make stops at major events and meet with communities nationwide. Over the years, the Wienermobile has become embedded in American culture, from celebrity appearances to unique stunts like hosting weddings at Las Vegas’s Little White Chapel.
This piece by Roger Olson is priceless.
I’ve been actively involved in evangelicalism and especially the evangelical academy (scholarly community) for over thirty years now and I’ve noticed a bad habit among conservative evangelical biblical scholars and theologians. They seem addicted to inquisitions.
It happened to me again, just today. An e-mail from “friends” (an evangelical organization I allegedly belonged to) informing me that I was under investigation (not their words, but clearly their intent) for possibly being in conflict with the organization’s statement of faith. I immediately resigned (assuming I was a member, something I’m not sure about); I won’t be subjected to any more evangelical inquisitions.
So when has this happened before? Well, not that often to me, but often to friends and acquaintances. At the first Christian university where I taught, the chairman of our theology department received a memo from the president. Attached to the memo was a detailed doctrinal questionnaire. Among other questions it asked “Do you agree with Charles Hodge’s interpretation of biblical inspiration?” The president’s memo ordered the chair of the department to have every faculty member in the department fill out the questionnaire and return them to him.
Speaking of heresies, another revelation of quirkiness among evangelicals, and “quirkiness” is hardly the right word. What is?
I don’t have two hours and forty minutes to listen to Sean DeMars’s interview with Albert Mohler, so I am glad that Mark Wingfield did. Here are a few snippets of his piece at Baptist News Global:
Toward the end of the nearly three-hour interview with Sean DeMars, lead pastor at Sixth Ave Church in Decatur, Ala., Mohler responded to a listener question: “Do you think that Jimmy Carter is a born-again Christian?”
Carter, a former Southern Baptist, is by all measures the most devout and churchgoing president in modern history. But Mohler couldn’t say for sure whether the 100-year-old is “born again.”
“I have to hope and pray,” he replied. “So I’ve had some personal engagements with the former president. He has mentioned me in four books. Negatively. … He’s not a fan of the conservative resurgence in the SBC. And remember, I got into the thickest controversy early in my life in Georgia where I was editor of the paper, which guess what? Jimmy Carter’s in Georgia and cares a lot about Georgia.”
Mohler described Carter as “like your typical SBC deacon in a more liberal church.”
Interesting. One might argue that Mohler is saying, as a Calvinist, that on this side of eternity no one can be truly sure who is saved and who is not saved. That’s a fair position. But I am not sure this is what Mohler meant when he was referring to Carter. I wonder if he would question the salvation of people in his own circle in the same way that he questions the faith commitment of the former president.
In Matthew 7, Jesus told his disciples how to identity a false prophet: “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall known them.” Anyone who has followed Jimmy Carter’s life and career knows that he has: 1. Said that he was “born again.” 2. Displayed the “fruits” of a follower of Jesus. That’s good enough for me.
Of course if one defined a true “born-again Christian” by whether or not a person conforms to Mohler’s views about the inerrancy of scripture, complementarianism, Calvinism, and Christian nationalism, Carter might fall short.
Add this, too, to the quirkiness, or whatever, of the same group — this one a good reflection by Ian Paul:
When a student in Oxford in the 1980s, I walked into a church bookshop and picked up a landscape-format book full of complex diagrams. It was setting out the seven dispensations of history, apparently according to the Bible, in which God gave humanity in each era a distinct challenge, which it failed, and a unique means of redemption. Jesus’ atoning death applied only in one of these seven, the ‘church dispensation’, but not to others. I thought this was rather odd, and when I asked the assistant in the shop about it, she replied ‘Isn’t that just what the Bible teaches?’
This was one measure of the influence of Hal Lindsey, who died last month aged 95. I don’t think his name is well known in the UK any more, but through his series of best-selling books in America, and the Left Behind film series based on the novels of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins (whose son, Dallas, is behind The Chosen film series) which were informed by them, he shaped Christian thinking about the ‘end times’ for a generation or more. Many older Christians still think that the rapture and the seven-year tribulation are clearly taught in the Bible, that we are in the ‘end times’ in our era, and that the Book of Revelation is a terrifying prediction of events that are happening in our day. …
This final observation then became the undoing of his credibility, and why many of his views have been eclipsed. Based on his reading of Matthew 24.34, he claimed that Jesus would return within one generation (40 years) of the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948. (In case haven’t noticed, he didn’t!). He claimed that the Soviet Union was Gog in Ezekiel 38–39 who would attack the State of Israel, a prediction undone by its collapse in 1991. He predicted that the EU would become a ten-nation confederation to match the ten horns of the beast in Rev 13. And he believed that the secret Rapture of Christians would happen within his lifetime.
The paradox of Lindsey is that, whilst he claimed that the Bible could be matched with contemporary political events, his own teaching matched neither. He had to be highly selective, to cut and paste both politics and the Bible, to make the two match. And whilst denouncing the moral degeneracy of his nation, he himself was divorced and remarried four times.
Last week, a cable news pundit struggled to understand the new media landscape. So he sought advice from his teenage son.
He asked the youngster to name the most influential people in the world today.
Can you guess the names he picked?
Here’s what happened:
I’m thinking to myself he’s going to say Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Jay-Z.
He says Kai Cenat, Adin Ross, Jynxzi, and Sketch. I don’t know who he is talking about.
I said ‘What platforms are you on?’
He said ‘I’m on Twitch, Kick, and Rumble.’
I said ‘That sounds like you need to go to the hospital.
What are these platforms? I’m telling you guys, the mainstream has become fringe, and the fringe has become mainstream….
There are people out there that are getting 14 million streams. And we are on cable news getting one or two million.
This is the new reality. The future of media has arrived—but people above a certain age won’t even recognize the names.
Check out the list below of the most watched streamers in the US and Canada.
Jynxzi? Zackrawrr? Summit1g?
A few days ago, I’d have told you these are passwords, not people.
A complete mastodon jaw was unearthed in the backyard of a house in New York, according to the New York State Museum.
The jaw, along with a piece of toe bone and a rib fragment, was excavated by teams from the New York State Museum and State University of New York Orange after a homeowner in Orange County, about 60 miles north of New York City, noticed “two unusual teeth concealed by plant fronds” while tending to his property.
“When I found the teeth and examined them in my hands, I knew they were something special and decided to call in the experts,” the homeowner, who was not identified by name, said in a news release from the museum.
“I’m thrilled that our property has yielded such an important find for the scientific community,” the resident added.
Thank you Scott. I so much appreciate your Saturday morning meanderings.
A wonderful selection as always. I find myself puzzled by how God's people, called to live in harmony, so often seem drawn to conflict, tension, and finger-pointing—behaviors that seem so far from our calling. Let's hope the coming year brings a greater measure of harmony in those places where two or more are gathered in Jesus's name.