What's Wrong With Burger King Theology? "Have It Your Way?"

Below is an interesting video that shows us just how much we are bombarded with daily advertising, messages and philosophies that impact and form our epistemology... the way we view, know and process life.  Take a second to watch the video... well, actually 9 minutes and 2 seconds to be precise.





What is so interesting from this video is that there are so many messages that make so many empty promises to us.  Promises that appeal to our status, self-esteem, worth, desires, etc...  Promises of fulfillment, glory, hope and assurance found in a product or philosophy.  Not only do these messages make empty promises to us but they also influence the way that we view life and the world, they form and impact our epistemology.  They all bring a narcissistic message that turns our worldview inward.  "Have it your way."


In thinking about our day and age, the interesting thing is that this is not new by any means.  As we look to the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes we clearly see that nothing is new under the sun.  Furthermore, Ecclesiastes shows us that the various messages that impact us today are simply vanity, just as they were thousands of years ago. 


In Ecclesiastes Solomon is fleshing out the vanity, emptiness and worthlessness of pursuing esteem and worth in things under the sun, things in this life.  Solomon is exposing the folly of pursuing wisdom, self-indulgences, works of man, moral living, wealth, and honor so as to have assurance and rest.  Mankind's affection and desire to gain worth and assurance from things and activities in this life is like chasing the wind and belong to what Luther called a "Theology of the Glory."  It is all folly because mankind seeks and works for things that it cannot obtain, or if we actually do obtain them, we won't have contentment in them anyway.  This is completely backwards to the way things are and results in mankind burdened with wasted works and anxiety. Rather, Ecclesiastes shows us that striving and worry about this life produces nothing but toil.  Solomon wants to put us at ease and rescue us from the chaos of life under the sun so that we can live in the present, in the shadow of the cross.  We worry so much about life under the sun when really, in the words of the Lutheran Study Bible commentary note, "Anxiety about us is God's affair."  In Ecclesiastes 11:10 we see that the time of youth and for that matter, the whole of life, are quickly passing away. We soon slide into old age and we soon slide into eternity.  Our love affair with the false idea that we can have worth and fulfillment from the things of this life are a vexation and affliction to us, especially in our youth.  It is a myth that we have been captured in and we need to be freed from it, it needs to be cast off of us so that we can rest in the sureness of the resurrection and life under the Cross of Christ (i.e. Theology of the Cross.)  For in the Cross we have wisdom, wealth, honor, assurance, rest, certainty and fulfillment.  This is great news not only for our youth but for us, as adults, as well.