Christ and Fast-Food

What would Jesus eat? No, this is not promoting a particular diet to help you loose weight the “bible-way.” It is the question two businessmen implicitly asked when they started their fast food restaurants.

Truett Cathy started Chic-fil-A in 1967. According to www.chic-fil-a.com

For Truett Cathy, it seemed like such a simple idea: make a sandwich using chicken. But oh how his little idea took off. From modest beginnings in a tiny Georgia eatery almost sixty years ago, Chick-fil-A® has grown into one of the largest privately owned restaurant chains in the nation. Yet, from the beginning, the first priority for Truett and Chick-fil-A has never been just to serve chicken. It’s to serve a higher calling.

Our official statement of corporate purpose says that we exist “to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us and to have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A.”

Thus Chic-fil-A is an example of Christ Above Culture fast food. It is taking advantage of a cultural phenomenon- namely fast food- and using it to “glorify God.” You can see this subtly but plainly in their decision not to be open on Sundays and even in their slogan: “We didn’t create the chicken, just the chicken sandwich.”

Is this the only way a Christian could start a fast-food chain? Not necessarily. Dave Thomas founded Wendy’s, but you don’t hear much about his faith. It’s almost as if he kept his faith in a different sphere of his life than his business. Not that his faith didn’t affect the way he did business (with integrity and honesty) or that he didn’t use his money for good (promoting adoptions) but that you don’t hear him using his restaurant to actively promote Christ. This is an example of Christ and Culture in Paradox.

What would a Christ Transforming Culture fast-food restaurant look like? Well, the Christian foundation would make them use the restaurant to make the world a better place in some direct way. Perhaps they could take particularly good care of its employees or provide food for people who couldn’t afford it. It could also attempt to make people healthier by promoting a healthier menu. In whatever way a Conversionist fast-food restaurant would work to redeem the world because Christ first redeemed us.