Dunkin' Oreos

Don't know if you're a subscriber ot Relevant magazine or not, or even know what I'm talking about, but in the current issue I was struck by an interesting article by John Fischer. John's a favorite of mine and is described as an artist, thinker and communicator driven to create and personally deliver a message of deeper understanding of God, confirming those seeking a faith that intersects the real world. In the article John attacks the ideal of legalistic christianity with an interesting metaphor. He purposely creates a random cultural taboo so it might be easier to study the traps we fall into without getting sidetracked by the emotional baggage carried by things like dancing, drinking, smoking, R-rated movies, partying and the like that have been problems for evangelicals for decades. For purposes of argument, John explores the ramifications of indulging in the tragic sin of eating Oreo cookies.
John speaks of Jim who is part of a christian group with a long-standing tradition of believing that eating Oreo cookies is spiritually wrong. Oreos are bad for you, even sinful, and something that christians should avoid. You will be more righteous if you don't eat Oreo cookies than if you do. In fact, if you do indulge in the chocolate treat, there are grounds for questioning your salvation.
Now this does a number of things for Jim. It makes it very clear what separates him, as a christian, from non-christians. It makes him feel morally superior to non-christian Oreo junkies. In fact, he is finding it more and more difficult being around non-christians since is seems they only want to talk about the next batch of cookies they have in their drawer or what happened last night when they wolfed down two family packs with some friends.
In this, Jim has a ready-made testimony. He shares with the christian group that he was offered some Oreos at work, and he turned them down. "No thanks, I'm a christian. I don't do Oreos." And as he shares this with the group, he is affirmed for being a great witness and for standing up for what he believes. Jim has just sailed to new spiritual heights with this proclamation and refusal to bend. He has now "paid" for his faith. He's earned his marks as a christian who is different. Non-christians now think he's weird, and that only makes him stronger for being persecuted. He can even be compared to the great martyrs of the faith.
Contrary to Jim are a couple renegade members of the christian group who actually don't think there is anything wrong with eating Oreo cookies as long as you eat in moderation, since the Bible doesn't mention anything about cookies anyway. And when word gets out that they do on occasion imbibe, these two are called into question by the group. "How can you call yourself christians and eat Oreos? What's the point of being a Christian if you're not going to be different from the world? You're losing your testimony. Where are you going to draw the line? Pretty soon you'll be pulling them apart and licking off the white stuff, and from there it's just a short trip to Oreo ice cream sandwiches, and we all where that ends up." Of course, these people are thought of as a bad influence on the rest of the group, and their future in the group will be bleak unless they change their ways.
In all of this, the person who isn't a christian is left clueless. The little "No thanks, I'm a christian, I don't do Oreos" speech is wasted on them because they have no understanding of what is wrong with Oreo cookies in the first place, and they are oblivious to the spiritual connections that christians make about these things. All they can think of is that these people who call themselves christians are weird. They are a different breed of animal, and they seem to like it that way. People outside the evangelical tradition just don't get it, because no one explained the rules of the game to them, and even if they did, they wouldn't get it. The rules don't apply to them anyway. They are christian rules, which have become a way of setting ourselves apart in our own minds only. And in the end, avoiding Oreos don't make the christian any better. It just makes him different.
It might mean something if this difference was in terms of character, integrity, compassion, mercy, patience, kindness or respect for others, but when it is only in terms of a few cultural taboos, it is useless to God and a waste of Christ's blood to those who are lost.
Anybody got milk? These Oreos are really dry without it...Oreos rule!