My Cynical Gut-Reaction to the Death of Choco Taco

What is it about our culture that makes us immediately assume the worst?

There it was on my TV screen in living color: The Choco Taco will be discontinued.

Two things immediately came to mind. My first question to Dan the Butler was, “What in the world is a Taco Choco?” He soon corrected me — “It’s Choco Taco.”

Apparently, someone’s been holding out on me, based on the feedback Choco Taco’s maker, Klondike, has been getting from its customers. Maybe I should have tried one before they went off to that ice cream shop in the sky.

My second thought was a little more cynical. I wondered if Choco Taco’s demise was related somehow to Jill Biden’s remarks comparing Latinos to breakfast tacos. I mean, who could blame me? As I pointed out in my latest book, “Uncanceled,” almost anything is fair game. From Mr. Potato Head to Aunt Jemima syrup, I’m thinking that nothing is off-limits. Now, they’re going after Choco Taco?

As it turns out, the ice cream delight’s death has nothing to do with cancel culture, at least according to Klondike. It’s just that demand for their other products is growing so fast that they can’t keep up the pace. So, they axed the lowly Choco Taco. But like I said, who could blame me for assuming it was cancel culture?

But I don’t really want to talk about ice cream. Instead, I want to discuss the climate in our culture that makes us immediately assume the worst. It has many of us walking on eggshells, wondering what our next misstep will be. We read that an ice cream bar has been discontinued and immediately assume it was a case of cancel culture.

From COVID to vaccines to election fraud to [fill in the blank here], we truly are at one another’s throats.  A lot of people are on edge. One day, a brawl breaks out at the Knott’s Berry Farm amusement park in California, only to see another brawl erupt at Florida’s Disney World the very next day. That’s just last week. Unfortunately, this crazy public behavior is breaking out almost every day.

I tend not to be involved in altercations at all. I don’t know, maybe it’s because my appearance is a little off-putting, even though I think I look completely normal. I don’t really think that’s it. I tend to think that it has more to do with who I try to follow. I don’t spend time on social media. I don’t watch “Judge Judy” or “Jerry Springer” — is it still on the air?

Instead, I follow Jesus.

There was a time when I followed his adversary, the prince of darkness. Would you like to guess what you would have seen if you’d known me back then? Chaos! Hatred! Discord! Jealousy! Fits of Rage! Sexual impurity! Drunkenness! (Galatians 5:19-21) Yes, you might have seen the same things in me that you’d see out of the marauding and brawling hordes at Disney.

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.

—Ephesians 2:1-2

I was dead in my sins because the spirit of darkness was guiding me. If you’re wondering how I got out of it and how we can get out of it as a culture, listen to the rest of the above passage:

All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved.

—Ephesians 2:3-5

Even though outside of a relationship with the Creator we are objects of wrath, God’s mercy is bigger. His grace is more powerful. He is the God of changed hearts and lives. He specializes in the redemption of the arrogant and rebellious.

Here’s my point: People who are under wrath are more wrathful. That’s why we see so much hatred, hatred that seems to be coming to a boiling point.

Can someone turn down the heat? Not really. Without God at the center of our nation’s consciousness, we have no objective reason to be kind to one another. There’s no rationale for treating one another with dignity and respect. It’s only when we know that we are recipients of God’s mercy and grace that we can live without the fear of God’s wrath hanging over our heads. It’s only then that we are empowered to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. 

I’m not happy with a lot of what I see in America, but I am not seething with rage. There’s a reason for that, and it has nothing to do with whether or not I’m a good person. The reason I’m not angry is that I follow the one on whom all of God’s wrath was poured out. I am a follower of Jesus, the Son of God who died for me and was raised from the dead for me.

In other words, I have no reason the be filled with rage toward my fellow man. While people who feel wrath are more wrathful, the opposite is also true — people who’ve had mercy poured out on them are more merciful. That’s why I’m not gritting my teeth at anyone.

Before I let you go, I want to leave you with the last part of the above passage from Ephesians chapter two. Read it and pray for God to make it clear to you. It’ll change your life.

And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

—Ephesians 2:6-10

Yep, God saved me by his grace to do good works … works he prepared in advance for me to do. He sure didn’t save me to be hateful and wrathful.

That’s a pretty amazing gift, if you ask me.

Image: BXGD on Flickr | CC BY-NC 2.0